Session Perception II:

Perception II: Cross-Language

Type: oral
Chair: Carsten Eulitz
Date: Tuesday - August 07, 2007
Time: 09:00
Room: 4 (Green)

 

Perception II-1 Clear speech intelligibility: Listener and talker effects
Rajka Smiljanic, Linguistics, Northwestern University
Ann Bradlow, Linguistics, Northwestern University
Paper File
  In this study, we investigated whether the intelligibility-enhancing mode of speech production, known as “clear speech” produced by native and non-native talkers influenced speech intelligibility equally for native and non-native listeners. We explored the effect of clear speech for various talker and listener pairs in three experiments. In experiment 1, non-native listeners listened to their second language produced by native talkers. In experiment 2, native listeners listened to their native language produced by non-native talkers. In experiment 3, non-native listeners listened to their second language produced by non-native talkers. Combined, the results showed that “native” speech is overall more intelligible than “foreign” accented speech for both native and non-native listeners. Importantly, the proportional intelligibility gain for clear speech produced by both native and non-native talkers was similar across listener groups suggesting common speech processing strategies across all talker-listener groups.
Perception II-2 Native and Non-Native Perceptual Dialect Similarity Spaces
Cynthia G. Clopper, Ohio State University
Ann Bradlow, Northwestern University
Paper File
  The current study examined the role of native language on the perceptual similarity space of regional dialect variation. Native and non-native speakers of American English were asked to group a set of talkers by regional dialect in a free classification task. The two listener groups exhibited similar dialect classification strategies and perceptual similarity structures. However, the non-native listeners were less accurate overall than the native listeners and relied heavily on a few salient acoustic cues to make their classifications. These results suggest that non-native listeners can use lawful variation in the acoustic signal to make dialect classification judgments, but that cultural and linguistic familiarity also play a role in shaping perceptual dialect categories.
Perception II-3 Pairwise Perceptual Magnet Effects
Kathleen Currie Hall, The Ohio State University
Paper File
  This paper explores the role of familiarity in speech perception. It is argued that “perceptual magnet effects” (the warping of the perceptual space by prototypical exemplars of a category) can be extended to the perception of pairs of sounds. Specifically, a prototypical exemplar of a contrast (that is, an instantiation of a contrast involving prototypical members of the pair) will be more perceptually distinct than a non-prototypical exemplar of the same phonological contrast. Conversely, a prototypical exemplar of an allophonically related pair will be perceptually less distinct than a non-protoypical exemplar of the same pair.

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