Prediction during Processing of Repairs in Spoken Language

每个人都熟悉不流利的经历。尽管他们尽了最大的努力，平均来说，说话者每20个词就会产生一个填充词，比如“呃”或“嗯”，他们也可能会犯一个需要纠正的语音错误。先前的研究已经确定了不流利的一些原因，并揭示了不同类型的不流利表征不同类型的扬声器;例如，患有ADHD的人更容易产生言语错误而不是使用填充物，而那些没有ADHD的人则表现出相反的模式。然而，尽管语言信号中存在这种噪音，但听众如何能够理解说话者的问题却知之甚少。早期的建议测试的假设，听众必须以某种方式忽略不流利，但最近的研究表明，不流利只有部分抑制，表明不流利影响听众如何解释他们听到的句子，甚至他们如何评价扬声器。此外，这些新的实验表明，当听众听到一个错误的单词时，他们会利用这个错误来预测说话者可能会说什么。这种预测机制有两个原因：第一，因为它允许听者在处理说话者的意图时有一个良好的开端;第二，因为如果说话者未能发现并纠正他或她的错误，它可以帮助听者对话语做出更明智的解释。了解这些预测机制的运作方式与我们对语言和衰老的理解特别相关;众所周知，随着年龄的增长，说话者会变得更加不流利，这使得他们的讲话更难理解。鉴于美国人口老龄化，这是一个紧迫的问题。这项工作还将有助于增强语音识别设备，如果它们要在自然的、自发的语音上操作，那么这些设备必须对不流利具有鲁棒性。响应语音命令的设备现在已经出现在数百万美国人的家中和口袋里，随着它们变得越来越普遍，用户将越来越期望它们能够平稳可靠地工作。该项目将进行的实验使用两种互补的方法来评估人们在毫秒基础上对语音的理解：记录大脑电生理活动（EEG），以及记录在听力任务期间呈现的视觉显示的眼球运动。本实验旨在回答关于非流利话语加工中预测的三个核心问题：（1）听者何时开始预测？(2)预言的具体内容是什么（一个特定的词，一个一般的范畴）？(3)一个不正确的预测的命运是什么？也就是说，假设听众的期望并不总是与演讲者的输出相匹配，那么听众如何将他们的预测与任何不一致的内容相协调呢？该项目将涉及谁将在实验心理语言学，统计学和计算方法的培训学生，让他们获得设计和解释数据的经验，以及在准备演示和出版的科学报告。

Everyone is familiar with the experience of being disfluent. Despite their best efforts, on average speakers will produce a filler such as "uh" or an "um" every twenty words, and they may also make a speech error which will need to be repaired. Previous research has established some of the causes of disfluency and has revealed that disfluencies of different types characterize different types of speakers; for example, individuals with ADHD are more likely to produce speech errors than to use fillers, and those without ADHD show the opposite pattern. Far less is known, however, about how listeners are able to understand speakers despite the presence of this noise in the linguistic signal. Early proposals tested the hypothesis that listeners must somehow ignore disfluencies, but more recent studies show that disfluencies are only partially suppressed, indicating that disfluencies affect how listeners interpret the sentence they hear and even how they evaluate the speaker. In addition, these newer experiments show that when listeners hear a word spoken in error, they use the error to predict what the speaker is likely to say instead. This prediction mechanism is helpful for two reasons: first, because it allows the listener to get a head start on processing the speaker's intended meaning; and second, because it helps the listener come up with a more sensible interpretation of the utterance should the speaker fail to detect and correct his or her error. Understanding how these prediction mechanisms operate is especially relevant for our understanding of language and aging; speakers are known to become more disfluent as they age, making their speech harder to understand. This is a pressing concern given the aging population of the United States. This work will also help enhance speech recognition devices that must be robust to disfluency if they are to operate on natural, spontaneous speech. Devices that respond to voice commands are now in millions of Americans' homes and pockets, and as they become more common, users will increasingly come to expect them to work smoothly and reliably. The experiments that will be conducted for this project use two complementary methods for assessing people's comprehension of speech on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis: recording of brain electrophysiological activity (EEG), and recording of eye movements to visual displays presented during listening tasks. The experiments are designed to answer three core questions about prediction during processing of disfluencies: (1) When do listeners begin to predict? (2) What precisely is the content of the prediction (a specific word, a general category)? (3) What is the fate of an incorrect prediction? That is, given that listeners' expectations will not always match the speaker's output, how do listeners reconcile their prediction with any discrepant content? This project will involve students who will be trained in experimental psycholinguistics, statistics, and computational methods, allowing them to gain experience in designing and interpreting data, as well as in preparing scientific reports for presentation and publication.