The perception, representation, and use of non-native voicing cues

理解口语是一项艰巨的任务。方言和口音造成的差异使这项任务更加艰巨。有时当一个人遇到一个有独特口音的人时，由于误解，沟通就会中断。考虑“卡”这个词。一个听众可能会遇到这个词听起来像其他词的陌生的生产：*'cart'当由母语为波兰语的人产生时，*'cod'当由波士顿人产生时，或 *'guard'当由母语为西班牙语的人产生时。"card"的熟悉发音和上述变体之间的差异是最小的。但在语言中，最小的差异是使两个单词不同的原因，而口语单词的变化可以跨越单词之间的感知边界。随着对说话者或口音的经验增加，误解会减少，大概是因为人们对讲话或口音有了一些了解。 这个项目研究了这种感知调整是如何发生的。为了学习一个单词的新变体，听众会关注什么信息？是学习一种特定的声音，还是一种普遍的口音？通过研究英语本族语者如何感知和识别非本族语，更好地理解学习是如何进行的，什么类型的信息在学习中是至关重要的，以及新信息是如何在心理上被表征的。特别是，通过研究听者如何学习使用新的或不熟悉的声学线索来解决潜在的误解，通过研究听者如何对不同的单词和单词对做出反应，如上文所述，随着时间的推移。例如，在实验开始时，受试者可以将"cart"和"card"的非母语产生视为相同的单词（例如，'cart'）。但随着时间的推移，通过训练，受试者可能会改变他或她的感知类别，并开始听到作为两个不同单词的产品-正如说话者所意图的那样。在整个实验中，通过操纵听众是否听到由单个说话者、来自单一语言的多个说话者或来自不同语言的多个说话者呈现的单词，可以确定调整是否特定于一种声音、一种语言或一种学习过程。

Understanding spoken language is a difficult task. Variation caused by dialects and accents make this task even more daunting. Sometimes when one meets a person with a distinctive accent, communication breaks down due to misunderstandings. Consider the word 'card'. A listener may encounter unfamiliar productions of this word that sound like other words: * 'cart' when produced by a native Polish speaker, * 'cod' when produced by a Bostonian, or * 'guard' when produced by a native Spanish speaker. The differences between the familiar pronunciation of 'card' and the variations above are minimal. But in language, minimal differences are what make two words distinct, and the variation in spoken words can cross the perceptual boundaries between words. As experience with a speaker or accent increases, there are fewer misunderstandings presumably because one learns something about the speech or the accent. This project investigates how this sort of perceptual adjustment takes place. What information do listeners focus on in order to learn a new variant of a word? Do one learn something about a specific voice, or about a general accent? By examining how native speakers of English perceive and recognize non-native speech, better understand how learning takes place can be achieved, what types of information are critical in learning, and how new information is mentally represented.Particularly, the problem of how listeners learn to use new or unfamiliar acoustic cues to resolve potential misunderstandings is investigated, by examining how listeners respond to different words and word pairs, as illustrated above, over time. For example, in the beginning of an experiment, a subject may treat non-native productions of 'cart' and 'card' as the same word (e.g., 'cart'). But over time, and with training, the subject may alter his or her perceptual categories and begin to hear the productions as two different words -- as intended by the speaker. By manipulating whether listeners hear the words presented by a single speaker, multiple speakers from a single language, or multiple speakers from different languages throughout the experiment it can be determined whether the adjustments are particular to one voice, one language, or one learning process.