Lecture 8 - Speech and Language

Question 1

Define language.

Answer 1

Language -

System of visual/vocal symbols that have meaning to user and recipient.

Question 2

Define linguistics.

Answer 2

Linguistics -

Study of the rules of language.

Question 3

Define Psycholinguistics.

Answer 3

Psycholinguistics -

Study of the role of cognition in language acquisition, production and comprehension including how verbal behaviour develops.

Question 4

Describe the communication model.

Answer 4

(see relevant powerpoint slides for diagram)

Question 5

How is speech produced?

Answer 5

Speech is produced by a set of muscles in face, mouth and throat.

Question 6

Define a phoneme.

Answer 6

(Changes in air, changes in meaning)

• Phoneme: smallest unit of speech sound (≠ letters)
– Pin: /p/ + /i/ + /n/
– Ship: /sh/ + /i/ + /p/

• Group of phonemes: smallest unit of speech that influences meaning
– BetàBit – DigàGig – BigàPig

Question 7

Define:

• voice
• place
• manner

Answer 7

Voice -
Whether/when
the vocal cords vibrate

Place -
where in the vocal tract the constriction takes place

Manner -
How the air moves
out of the vocal tract/ what sort of constriction takes place

Question 8

Define VOT (voice onset time)

Answer 8

VOT refers to the delay between the start of a speech sound and the onset of the vibration of the vocal cords, i.e. when the lips open relative to when the vocal chords start vibrating.
• ‘Pa’ VOT tends to be about 50 ms slower than ‘Ba’

Question 9

How does ‘Pa’ and ‘Ba’ differ in voice onset time?

Answer 9

– when the lips open relative to when the vocal chords start vibrating

‘Pa’ VOT tends to be about 50 ms slower than ‘Ba’

Question 10

What do we perceive as we gradually change VOT?

Answer 10

Hypothetically we would expect a gradual
shift from “ba” to “pa”.

Adults should be able to discriminate between each VOT.

(see relevant powerpoint slides for diagram)

Question 11

Is phonemes perception categorical or continuous?

Answer 11

Actual perception is categorial
There is an an abrupt shift typically at about 20-25 ms.

• So distinction between ba and pa is immediate and categorical.

(see relevant powerpoint slides for diagram)

Question 12

What are two consequences of categorical perception?

Answer 12

• We’re good at perceiving changes across category boundaries.
• We’re bad at perceiving changes within category boundaries.

Question 13

What three conditions impacts what vowels are produced in the mouth?

Answer 13

Height
- Vertical position of tongue in the mouth

Backness
- How far back in the mouth the tongue is.
> /i/ (“ee”) – front
> /u/ (“oo”) – back

Roundedness
- Shape of the lips. Correlated with tongue position in many languages

Question 14

Define formants.

Answer 14

Formants -

Distinctive frequency components/peaks of the acoustic signal we need to distinguish vowels.

(see relevant powerpoint slides for diagram)

Question 15

Describe the Mcgurk effect.

Answer 15

demonstration - https://youtu.be/jtsfidRq2tw

• McGurk effect is an example how one sensory modality (vision) can influence another (hearing).
• Speech perception is a multi-modal process; not only based on auditory but also visual cues.

Question 16

What did Pollack & Pickett, 1964 discover?

Answer 16

(Pollack & Pickett, 1964)

47% recognition of isolated words vs 100% recognition within context of original conversation.

Question 17

What did Ganong, 1980 discover?

Answer 17

(Ganong, 1980)

Computer generated novel sounds that fell between /g/ and /k/
– When followed by “ift” -> “gift”
– When followed by “iss” -> “kiss”

• Speech is full of hesitations, sloppy word productions etc.

Question 18

How can we investigate speech perception in infants?

Suggest 3 ways.

Answer 18

1. High amplitude sucking procedure
2. Head turn preference procedure
3. Preferential looking procedure

Which method would you use to conduct the following?

EXPERIMENT 1:
In this experiment you are interested in how long 12 month olds pay attention to novel and familiar words
- Head turn

EXPERIMENT 2:
In this experiment you are interested in studying whether 2 month olds can tell the difference between changing speech sounds
- Sucking

EXPERIMENT 3:
In this experiment, you are interested in whether 6 month olds understand the meaning of different words
- Looking

Question 19

Language acquisition.

How do we know what infants can perceive?

Answer 19

• Differential listening (e.g., head turning)
– If infants listen for longer (or shorter) to one type of stimulus compared to another, then they must be able to perceptually distinguish them

• Sucking - Rate of sucking increases when new sound is detected, then slows down again if sound is repeated
• Preferentially looking – if infants look for longer (or shorter) to one type of stimulus compared to another whilst hearing the names, then they must be familiar with the name

REFERENCE
Kuhl, P. (2000). A new view of language acquisition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97, 11850-11857.

Question 20

What has been found using the 3 methods (head turn, sucking, looking) to investigate speech perception in infants?

Answer 20

• Using the high amplitude sucking procedure, infants as young as 1 month old could tell the difference between consonants ‘ba’ and ‘pa’ (Eimas et al., 1971).
• However, phonemes vary between different languages. E.g. ‘ba’ and ‘pa’ are common to English but are less common in other languages.

Question 21

Are Phonemic categories language specific?

Answer 21

– Phonemic categories are language specific.

• English versus Hindi
– /d/ (alveolar) - /D/ (retroflex) – /t/ (alveolar) - /T/ (retroflex)
• English versus Japanese
– /l/ (alveolar) - /r/ (retroflex)

• Infants are sensitive to all categorical boundaries in the first 6 months
• By 12 months, they becoming sensitive only to their native categories

Question 22

Describe the production-perception loop.

Answer 22

Production-perception loop

– when infants hear (recognises) sounds in adult speech corresponding to their own babbling, they already ‘know’ how to produce those sounds, so their first words are pretty accurate (eg ”papa”, “mama”) -> link between production and perception.

REFERENCE
DePaolis, R., et al. (2011). Do production patterns influence the processing of speech in prelinguistic children. Infant Behavior and Development, 34, 590-601.

Question 23

READ PAGES 323-332

Answer 23

(make notes if you want or just teach yourself on whiteboard)