Introduction to speech and word recognition

Question 1

Speech segmentation

Answer 1

the process of breaking continuous speech into individual words or meaningful units

Question 2

Challenges in Speech Segmentation

Answer 2

A lack of clear pauses in speech.
Homophones and ambiguity - words can sound the same but have different meanings.
Variability in speech

Question 3

How does speech vary in speakers?

Answer 3

1. Variability in voice - accent, speech rate
2. Variability in how clear the speech is - outside noise
3. Variability in how carefully words are pronounced; some speakers are lazy and won’t say the word in full.
4. Variability in how phonemes sound around words.

Question 4

assimilation

Answer 4

Variability in how phonemes sound. They differ on the surrounding phonemes.

Question 5

How do we segment words?

Answer 5

1. using pauses
2. stress patterns
3. phonotactics
4. prosodic cues

Question 6

stress patterns

Answer 6

In English the beginning of words are often emphasised / stressed

Question 7

phonotactics

Answer 7

some speech sounds can only occur at some parts within a word. E.g., /nd/ is allowed at end (‘end’), but not in onset (‘nde’ is illegal).

Question 8

prosodic cues

Answer 8

syllables at the start of the word are longer than medial syllables, the length of initial syllable influenced by world length ( longer when part of a longer word)

Question 9

Stages of spoken word recognition

Answer 9

Activation ~ selection ~ integration

Question 10

what are the two pathways of lexical activation?

Answer 10

serial or parallel processing

Question 11

describe serial processing of language

Answer 11

Is it after we have heard or seen the whole word? ~ serial processing, find exact match then retrieve meaning

Question 12

describe parallel processing

Answer 12

Do we try guess the word as quickly as we can? ~ parallel processing, Identify first sounds/letters and look for (partial) matches, Modify shortlist as more input comes in, incremental multiple process at once.

Question 13

evaluate serial

Answer 13

+ Accuracy

• slow and word endings aren’t marked clearly  when to stop?Accuracy

Question 14

evaluate parallel

Answer 14

+ Fast and don’t have to wait for ‘snow’ when you hear ‘sn’

• You might commit to wrong word and then revision would be needed

Question 15

is it more likely we use serial or parallel processing of language?

Answer 15

parallel

Question 16

What happens during the Activation stage?

Answer 16

Recognize phonemes (speech sounds)

Activate possible lexical candidates (words that match the sounds so far)

Question 17

What happens during the Selection stage?

Answer 17

Choose the best-fitting word from the activated candidates

Question 18

What happens during the Integration stage?

Answer 18

Use stored knowledge about the chosen word

Integrate it with sentence context for meaning

Question 19

What is the overall process of spoken word recognition?

Answer 19

Spoken input → Recognize phonemes → Activate word candidates → Select the best match → Integrate into sentence meaning

Question 20

what are gating studies?

Answer 20

Gating studies are a research method used to investigate how listeners recognize spoken words over time as they hear more of the speech signal.

Question 21

how do gating studies work

Answer 21

Participants hear partial word fragments (e.g., “c-“, “ca-“, “cam-“).

After each fragment, they guess the word.

Researchers measure when the word is first recognized.

Question 22

What are the two key measures in gating studies?

Answer 22

Isolation Point – The moment a listener first correctly identifies the word.

Recognition Point – The moment the listener is fully confident in their guess.

Question 23

What do gating studies reveal about word recognition?

Answer 23

Words can be recognized before they are fully heard.

Context speeds up recognition.

Frequent words are recognized faster than rare ones.

Words with many similar-sounding competitors take longer to recognize.

Question 24

How does context affect gating studies?

Answer 24

Words in sentences are recognized earlier than isolated words because listeners use context clues to predict meaning.

Question 25

isolation point

Answer 25

listener chooses target word, but with little confidence

Question 26

recognition point

Answer 26

Listener recognises target word with confidence

Question 27

uniqueness point

Answer 27

THEORETICALLY derived point, target word is only possibility

Question 28

How does knowledge of words aid speech segmentation?

Answer 28

Listeners use existing word knowledge to identify word boundaries. Example: speechsoundstendtoruntogether → Recognizing “speech” as a word helps break it apart.

Question 29

How do listeners determine word boundaries in continuous speech?

Answer 29

Listeners rule out unlikely words to make sense of speech. Spee → Not a word Speech → Word ✅ Speechs → Not a word

Question 30

When does context become more important in word recognition?

Answer 30

In noisy environments (e.g., a loud café) With unfamiliar accents (e.g., "bear" vs. "beer") When the speech signal is unclear

Question 31

Why is context crucial in phoneme and word recognition?

Answer 31

Context allows listeners to: Predict upcoming words Resolve ambiguities Compensate for unclear speech

Question 32

What are the two main models of spoken word recognition?

Answer 32

Autonomous (Independent) Model Interactive Model

Question 33

How does the Autonomous Model explain word recognition?

Answer 33

Bottom-up processing: Speech sounds are recognized first. Context is only used after phoneme and word recognition. Example: "s s s snow" → Recognize "snow" → Then activate related concepts (e.g., winter, polar bears).

Question 34

How does the Interactive Model explain word recognition?

Answer 34

Top-down & bottom-up processing: Context and phonemes interact. Listeners use prior knowledge to predict and interpret sounds. Example: "s s s" in a winter discussion → Predict "snow" before full word is spoken.

Question 35

What is an example of top-down processing in spoken word recognition?

Answer 35

Hearing an unclear word in background noise but recognizing it based on context. Example: "b--r" in a bar or zoo setting → "beer" or "bear" depending on context.

Question 36

Participants were asked to say where they heard the cough/buzz and whether that sound replaced the phoneme (Warren, 1970). - what did they find?

Answer 36

- Participants indicated that all phonemes were heard and misplaced the cough/buzz - People ‘hear’ the full word despite cough/buzz

Question 37

phoneme restoration effect?

Answer 37

listeners "fill in" missing sounds in speech, often replacing a sound with noise, but still perceiving the original word as if the sound were present

Question 38

Gangong effect

Answer 38

phenomenon in speech perception where listeners are influenced by their knowledge of words when hearing ambiguous sounds. This is a top down process.

Question 39

McGurk effect

Answer 39

an audiovisual illusion where the brain perceives a sound different from the one heard, due to conflicting visual and auditory information, leading to a fused percept.

Question 40

a words recognised faster or slower within context?

Answer 40

faster when they appear in a meaningful context

Question 41

"Camel" (No Context)

Answer 41

Takes the longest time to recognize because there’s no surrounding information to help.

Question 42

"The kids rode on a camel"

Answer 42

Faster recognition because the sentence structure gives some expectation about the word.

Question 43

"At the zoo, the kids rode on a camel"

Answer 43

(Long Context) → Fastest recognition because the setting ("At the zoo") makes "camel" even more predictable.

Question 44

no context long syllable length

Answer 44

longest to recognise

Question 45

do long or short syllable lengths quicker to recognise?

Answer 45

short

Question 46

why do we recognise words quicker in sentences/context ?

Answer 46

This is because of interactive processing, where context and prior knowledge play a crucial role in word recognition. If you're reading a sentence and come across an ambiguous word (like “bat”), your brain can use the surrounding words and context to help figure out which meaning of "bat" is being used (the flying mammal or the sports equipment). Context helps you process the word more quickly and accurately because it reduces uncertainty and guides you toward the correct interpretation.