Neurocognition of speech comprehension in social context: speaker identity and listener experience

社会、行为和经济科学司提供博士后研究奖学金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并扩大他们在本科和研究生训练之外的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家指导他们跨越传统学科线的研究工作，并利用他们自己独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外的研究地点。这个博士后奖学金奖励支持语言学和神经科学交叉领域的新兴学者。在世界范围内，说多种语言的人比只说一种语言的人多，而且，说英语和许多其他世界语言（如西班牙语、普通话、阿拉伯语）的人有口音的人比不讲口音的人多。社会心理学和社会语言学研究表明，外国口音往往会导致污名化和负面的社会偏见。世界上大多数说英语的人可能会因为他们不标准的口音而受到某种形式的歧视或刻板印象。为了改善跨文化互动和全球交流，需要更好地了解外国口音如何影响理解、决策和评估。本研究项目涉及语言神经认知研究中一个重要但尚未得到充分研究的领域：说话者身份作为一种语用社会线索对语言理解的影响，以及听者经验和态度对理解的影响。具体来说，该项目测试了四组不同的外国口音说话者对口语理解的影响：单语成人听众、单语儿童听众和两组双语听众（与说话者具有相同或不同外国口音的双语者）。这个跨学科的研究项目深入了解了来自不同语言背景的说话者和听者之间建立关系的因素，这一点尤其重要，因为听者倾向于使用语言态度和线索（如口音）来刻板印象说话者的属性，并据此做出决定。该项目促进了跨文化交流，特别是在教育、商业、法律、司法部门以及卫生和福利部门，在这些部门，专业人员和客户经常与来自不同语言背景的人交流，他们说着不标准的口音。最终，研究结果将有助于减少社会差距的加剧和减少负面社会偏见的根深蒂固。由于该项目在基于大脑的语言研究中采用了社会背景方法，它也有助于将神经科学研究与包括教育在内的应用领域联系起来。这个研究项目是第一个关于外国口音如何影响四组听众的语言理解的神经认知研究，这些听众与外国口音说话者的经历不同。多学科方法结合了认知神经科学、社会语言学和发展心理学的见解和方法，研究语言态度、口音语音理解和语言处理的神经特征之间的相互作用。本研究采用事件相关电位（event - correlation potential, ERPs）和神经振荡分析来研究听者的外国口音语音体验和语言态度对语言理解的影响。该项目测试了儿童和成人听众，并对语言理解中神经语用敏感性的发展产生了重要见解，并将语言语用学引入神经科学研究。此外，包括两组双语听众确定神经语用对非母语听众口语理解的影响。考虑到世界上大多数人都是双语或多语使用者，这一点至关重要，这使得非母语听力成为一种全球社会规范。由于其跨学科的动机和设计，该项目为未来研究语言和交流中社会、个人和神经生物学因素之间的相互作用奠定了基础。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship award supports a rising scholar at the intersection of Linguistics and Neuroscience. Worldwide, there are more multilingual than monolingual speakers and, by extension, more accented than non-accented speakers of English and many other world languages (e.g., Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic). Social psychology and sociolinguistic research suggests that foreign accent often leads to stigmatization and negative social biases. The majority of the world's speakers probably experience some type of stigmatization or stereotyping based on their non-standard accent. To improve intercultural interactions and global communication, better insights into how foreign accent affects comprehension, decision-making, and evaluation are needed. This research project addresses an important yet under-studied area of research in the neurocognition of language: the effects of speaker identity as a pragmatic social cue that influences language comprehension, and the impact of listener experience and attitudes on comprehension. Specifically, the project tests how foreign-accented speech impacts spoken language comprehension in four groups of listeners who differ in their prior experience with foreign-accented speakers: monolingual adult listeners, monolingual child listeners, and two groups of bilingual listeners (bilinguals with the same or a different foreign accent as the speaker). The interdisciplinary research project adds insight into the factors that underlie relationship-building among speakers and listeners from different language backgrounds, which is particularly important given that listeners tend to use language attitudes and cues, such as accent, to stereotype speakers' attributes and make decisions about them. This project informs cross-cultural communication, especially for education, business, law, judicial sectors, and health and welfare sectors, where professionals and clientele frequently interact with people from different language backgrounds who speak with non-standard accents. Ultimately, the outcomes of the research will contribute to decreasing the potentiation of social disparity and reducing the entrenchment of negative social biases. Because the project takes a socio-contextual approach in the brain-based study of language, it also contributes to bridging neuroscience research with applied fields, including education.This research project is the first neurocognitive study on how foreign-accented speech impacts language comprehension in four groups of listeners who differ in their experience with foreign-accented speakers. The multi-disciplinary approach combines insights and methods from cognitive neuroscience, sociolinguistics, and developmental psychology to investigate the interplay of language attitudes, accented speech comprehension, and neural signatures of language processing. The research design uses Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and analyses of neural oscillations to study the neural correlates of how listeners' experience with foreign-accented speech and language attitudes affect language comprehension. The project tests both child and adult listeners and yields important insights into the development of neuropragmatic sensitivity in language comprehension and introduces linguistic pragmatics into neuroscience research. Additionally, including two groups of bilingual listeners identifies neuropragmatic effects on spoken language comprehension in non-native listeners. This is crucial considering that the majority of the world's speakers are bi- or multilingual, making non-native listening a global social norm. Due to its interdisciplinary motivation and design, the project establishes the groundwork for future research on interactions among social, individual, and neurobiological factors in language and communication.