Doctoral Dissertation Research: Why adapt? Phonotactic learning as non-native language adaptation

为了成功沟通，听众必须不断适应说话人之间的系统性差异(例如，根据说话人的方言改变对你将听到的内容的期望)。与此同时，听者需要忽略附带的变化(例如，如果说话者恰好是在嘴里塞满食物的情况下说话，你不应该改变你期望他们在吃完东西后说话的方式；Kraljic，Brennan，&Amp；Samuel，2008)。在这项研究中，一系列实验考察了对新发音的适应限制，或音节结构的限制(例如，在英语中，而不是在西班牙语中，序列/SK/可以以音节开头，例如在单词School中)。这个项目测试了一种假设，即说话者利用他们过去的音向性变化经验来区分系统性变化和偶然性变化。说话者自然会遇到不同语言说话者之间的语音变化，但不会遇到相同语言说话者之间的这种差异；这意味着当接触到语言背景不同的说话者(例如，母语为法语的说话者和以英语为母语的说话者)时，说话者只会适应特定于说话者的音节结构。这一假设在三个实验中得到了验证。在研究1中，在知觉实验中，听者接触到两个说话者，每个人都有不同的音位限制。只有当说话者的语言背景不同时，才能预测对说话者特定限制的适应。研究二采用绕口令范式，探讨了说话者的语言背景对语音顺应的影响。研究3考察了听者先验知识的结构和粒度。监听者可以只保存一种本地语言和非本地语言的模型吗？或者他们可以维护两种独立的非本地语言的模型吗？

In order to successfully communicate, listeners must continuously adapt to systematic differences between speakers (e.g., changing expectations about what you will hear based on a speaker's dialect). At the same time, listeners need to ignore incidental variation (e.g., if a speaker happens to be talking with their mouth full, you should not change how you expect they will speak after they have finished eating; Kraljic, Brennan, & Samuel, 2008). In this study, a series of experiments examine the limits of adaptation to novel phonotactics, or constraints on syllable structure (e.g. in English, but not Spanish, the sequence /sk/ can begin syllables, such as in the word school). This project tests the hypothesis that speakers use their past experience of phonotactic variation to distinguish systematic from incidental variation. Speakers naturally encounter variation in phonotactics between talkers of different languages, but do not encounter such variation between talkers of the same language; this predicts that speakers will only adapt to talker-specific syllable structures when exposed to talkers who differ in their language backgrounds (e.g., a native French talker and a native English talker). This hypothesis is explored in three experiments. In study 1, listeners are exposed to two talkers, each with a different phonotactic constraint, in a perception experiment. Adaptation to talker-specific constraints is predicted only when talkers differ in language background. Study 2 explores the role of talker language background on adaptation to phonotactics in speech production, using a tongue twister paradigm. Study 3 investigates the structure and granularity of listeners' prior knowledge. Can listeners hold models of only a native vs. non-native language, or can they maintain models for two separate non-native languages?