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

理解口语是一项艰巨的任务。方言和口音造成的变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，交流会因为误解而中断。想一想‘卡片’这个词。听者可能会遇到这个词的陌生发音，听起来像其他单词：*‘cart’当由波兰语母语者制造时，*‘cod’当由波士顿人制造时，或者*‘Guard’当由母语西班牙语使用者制造时。我们熟悉的“card”的发音和上面的变化之间的差别很小。但在语言中，最小的差异是使两个词截然不同的东西，口语中的差异可以跨越词之间的感知边界。随着对说话者或口音的经验的增加，误解会越来越少，这可能是因为人们对讲话或口音有了一些了解。这个项目调查这种知觉调整是如何发生的。为了学习一个新的单词变体，听者关注哪些信息？你是学到了某种特定的声音，还是学到了一般的口音？通过研究以英语为母语的人如何感知和识别非母语言语，更好地理解学习是如何实现的，哪些类型的信息在学习中是关键的，以及新信息是如何在心理上呈现的。特别是，通过考察听者如何随着时间的推移对不同的单词和单词对做出反应，来研究听者如何学习使用新的或不熟悉的声音提示来解决潜在的误解的问题。例如，在实验开始时，受试者可能会将非本地生产的“Cart”和“Card”视为相同的单词(例如，“Cart”)。但随着时间的推移，经过训练，受试者可能会改变他或她的感知类别，开始将作品听成两个不同的词--正如说话者所想的那样。通过操控听者在整个实验过程中是否听到由单个说话者、来自一种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，可以确定调整是针对一种声音、一种语言还是一种学习过程而言的。

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.