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Speech Perception Flashcards

1
Q

Give 3 challenges of speech perception

A
  • No clear gaps between words
  • Co-articulation
  • Accent, gender and speaking rate vary
  • Time constraints; ‘now-or-never bottleneck’
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2
Q

What order does air travel in to produce speech?

A
  • Lungs
  • Trachea
  • Larynx
  • Supralaryngeal vocal tract
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3
Q

What is the supralaryngeal vocal tract made up of?

A
  • Pharynx
  • Oral cavity (+ lips, tongue, teeth)
  • Nasal cavity
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4
Q

What is the purpose of the supralarygeal vocal tract?

A

To shape sounds from the vocal cords

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5
Q

What does a constriction in the vocal tract produce??

A

Consonants

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6
Q

What 3 main features are consonants classified according to?

A
  • Manner
  • Voicing
  • Place of articulation
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7
Q

What are the 3 places of articulation?

A
  • Labial
  • Alveolar
  • Velar
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8
Q

What are 3 examples of consonants produced from the labial place of articulation?

A

/b/, /p/, /v/, /f/, /m/

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9
Q

What are 3 examples of consonants produced from the alveolar place of articulation?

A

/d/, /t/, /z/, /s/, /n/

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10
Q

What are 3 examples of consonants produced from the velar place of articulation?

A

/g/, /k/, /η/

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11
Q

What are the 3 types of manner in consonant production?

A
  • Stop
  • Fricative
  • Nasal
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12
Q

Define sound waves

A

Periodic displacement of air molecules, creating increases and decreases in air pressure

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13
Q

What is amplitude related to?

A

Loudness

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14
Q

What is period related to?

A

Inversely related to frequency

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15
Q

What feature of sound waves is an important cue for pitch?

A

Period (frequency)

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16
Q

What is used to analyse the frequencies of speech?

A

Spectogram

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17
Q

What is a spectogram?

A

Graph showing how sound amplitude varies as a function of time and frequency

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18
Q

Why is a spectogram useful?

A

The ears split sound by frequency, so spectrogram better captures the information available to the brain

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19
Q

What is the ‘source’ in speech production?

A

The larynx

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20
Q

What is the ‘filter’ in speech production?

A

Supralarygeal vocal tract

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21
Q

What is the source important for?

A

Voice pitch and intonation

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22
Q

What is the filter important for?

A

Producing different phonemes (speech sounds)

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23
Q

Filtering appears as ‘formants’; what are these?

A

Bands of energy at certain frequencies

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24
Q

Which 3 formants are the most important cues for speech intelligibility?

A

The three lowest frequencies (F1, F2, F3)

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25
What type of vowel change decreases F2 frequency?
Changing from front to back vowels
26
What type of vowel change increases F1 frequency?
Changing from high to low vowels
27
Which 2 formants are important cues for identifying consonants?
F2 and F3
28
What are the 3 stages of phoneme perception?
1. Continuum of sounds between 2 phonemes 2. Identification experiment 3. Discrimination experiment
29
Define categorical perception
The tendency to perceive gradual sensory changes in a discrete fashion
30
What are the 3 hallmarks of categorical pereption?
- Abrupt change in identification at phoneme boundary - Discrimination peak at phoneme boundary - Discrimination predicted from identification (they only sound different if they are different phonemes)
31
What concept is 'Yanny vs Laurel' an example of?
Categorical perception
32
What is the McGurk illusion an example of?
Visual context influencing speech perception
33
What is the Ganong effect an example of?
Lexical context influencing speech perception
34
How does source theory describe speech production?
Two separate components with distinct perceptual correlates
35
Liberman suggested that speech perception is the result of specialised speech module; what evidence did he point to?
Speech, not other sounds, is perceived categorically
36
Liberman suggested that the objects of speech perception are intended articulatory events; what evidence did he point to?
Speech sounds are more variable than articulations
37
Wilson et al (2004) found fMRI support for the motor theory of speech perception; what did they find?
Passive listening to meaningless monosyllables activates the auditory cortex, and motor/premotor areas
38
Meister et al. (2007) found TMS evidence for the motor theory of speech perception; what did they find?
TMS over premotor areas interferes with phoneme discrimination in noise but does not interfere in colour discrimination
39
How did Burns and Ward (1978) criticise motor theory of speech production? - hint: music
Categorical perception has been demonstrated for non-speech sounds, such as musical intervals
40
How did Kuhl and Miller (1978) criticise the motor theory of speech production? - hint: chinchillas
When trained, chinchillas showed the same phoneme boundary for /da/-/ta/ continuum as humans
41
What area is the superior temporal gyrus?
Wernicke's area
42
What area is the inferior frontal gyrus?
Broca's area
43
What brain hemisphere does the classic model of speech perception propose is dominant?
Left hemisphere
44
How are are the two streams for speech processing engaged?
In a task-dependent manner
45
Which stream is involved in mapping speech sounds onto articulatory representations?
Dorsal stream
46
Which stream is involved in mapping speech sounds onto lexical representations?
Ventral stream
47
What stream do tasks focusing on the perception of speech (e.g. phoneme discrimination) activate?
Dorsal stream
48
What stream do tasks focusing on comprehension (e.g. word recognition) activate?
Ventral stream
49
Which stream is bilateral?
Ventral stream
50
What did Williams et al (2005) find in support of ventral stream processing?
Anterior temporal damage associated with semantic impairment
51
What did Bates et al (2003) find in support of ventral stream processing?
Inferior temporal damage associated with comprehension details
52
What did Wilson et al (2004) find in support of dorsal stream processing?
Listening to syllables activates motor and premotor areas
53
What did Meister et al (2007) find in support of dorsal stream processing?
TMS over premotor areas interferes with phoneme discrimination but not colour discrimination
54
What 2 theories of speech perception could Meister et al (2007) be used in support for?
- Motor theory of speech processing - Dorsal stream processing
55
What is the 'uniqueness point' in the cohort model?
The time-point in the speech signal when only one word becomes consistent with speech input, so is recognised before the entire word is heard
56
Give 3 key features of the cohort model of speech processing?
- Words activated immediately upon minimal input - Activation of multiple words - Lexical competition for recognition
57
What did Marslen-Wilson and Tyler (1981) find in support of the Cohort model?
Average response latency was shorter than the average word duration
58
How does the Cohort model suggest learning new words would affect speech processing?
Slow down recognition of new words
59
What is a limitation of the Cohort model?
It is a verbal model, so difficult to evaluate
60
What is a strength of the TRACE model?
Explains context effects, e.g. Ganong effect
61
How does the TRACE model explain the Ganong effect?
Word-level activity feeds back to influence lower-level phoneme activity
62
What are the 2 components of TRACE theory?
- Within-layer inhibitory connections for lexical competition - Bi-directional excitatory connections between layers

Cognitive Psychology (19 decks)

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