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

社会、行为和经济科学理事会提供博士后研究金，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，并在本科和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金还旨在帮助新的科学家指导他们的研究工作，跨越传统的学科领域，并利用独特的研究资源，地点和设施，包括在国外的地点。这个博士后奖学金支持在语言学和神经科学的交叉上升的学者。在世界范围内，讲多种语言的人比讲单语的人多，而且，英语和许多其他世界语言（例如，西班牙语、普通话、阿拉伯语）。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。世界上大多数讲英语的人可能会因为他们的不标准口音而受到某种形式的侮辱或成见。为了改善跨文化互动和全球沟通，需要更好地了解外国口音如何影响理解，决策和评估。该研究项目涉及语言神经认知研究的一个重要但尚未充分研究的领域：说话人身份作为影响语言理解的语用社会线索的影响，以及听者经验和态度对理解的影响。具体来说，该项目测试外国口音的讲话如何影响四组听众的口语理解，这四组听众在与外国口音说话者的先前经验方面有所不同：单语成年听众，单语儿童听众和两组双语听众（具有相同或不同外国口音的双语者作为扬声器）。跨学科研究项目增加了对不同语言背景的说话者和听众之间建立关系的因素的洞察力，这一点特别重要，因为听众倾向于使用语言态度和暗示，如口音，对说话者的属性进行刻板印象并做出决定。该项目为跨文化交流提供了信息，特别是在教育、商业、法律、司法部门以及卫生和福利部门，专业人员和客户经常与来自不同语言背景的人互动，他们说话带有非标准口音。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取了社会背景方法，因此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。该研究项目是第一个关于外国口音语音如何影响语言理解的神经认知研究。四组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，以调查语言态度，重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（ERP）和神经振荡分析来研究听众对外国口音语音的体验和语言态度如何影响语言理解的神经相关因素。该项目测试儿童和成人的听众，并产生重要的见解，在语言理解的神经语用敏感性的发展，并介绍了语言语用学神经科学研究。此外，包括两组双语听众确定神经语用学的影响，在非母语的听众的口语理解。这一点至关重要，因为世界上大多数讲双语或多语的人，使非母语听力成为全球社会规范。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.