Memory and context effects on representations of variation in phrasal intonation

该奖项的全部或部分资金来源于《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）。口语中的意义是通过单词及其在句子中的排列以及单词和句子的发音方式（语调）来传达的。在英语中，语调传达话语意义，标记问题和陈述之间的区别，表达说话者的不确定或惊讶，或突出信息性词语。这些含义是通过句子中单词的音高和其他声学特征的复杂模式来传达的。要理解语调系统的工作原理，需要详细描述说话者产生的语调模式，并考虑感知上显着的元素：句子中每个单词的音高模式是否具有潜在意义，如果没有，哪些语调特征以及句子的哪些区域对于传达话语意义更为（或不太）重要？进一步的问题是，听众是否会注意到语调特征的微妙变化，以标记“问题”或“信息焦点”等广泛类别中的相应区别，或者他们是否会关注语调中的粗粒度区别，将其作为广义含义类别的线索，同时将细粒度的变化视为说话者身份或心理状态的线索。理解语调和意义之间的映射对于言语交流、认知、大脑和语言学习的理论很重要。它可应用于与语音、听力和大脑相关的临床领域，以及可处理表达性口语的增强型计算机语音技术。该项目的目标是识别在听到的语音中感知并在长期记忆表示中编码的短语语调元素。这些表征是通过听者再现所听到话语的语调的任务来挖掘的。实验将测试英语语调自段格律理论中为英语提出的 24 种不同的语调“曲调”。在八个实验中，参与者再现语调的任务通过三种方式进行操作：使用具有更复杂语调模式和可变词汇和句法内容的模型句子；在听到模型句子和再现语调模式之间引入时间延迟或介入语音任务；包含有关支持语调含义解释的紧接之前的话语和社会背景的信息。动态声学测量的分析将测试再现的语调模式与相应刺激的相似性，揭示语调表征的语音粒度，以及与音调、响度、节奏和音质相关的维度，以及个体再现的语调特征是否存在差异。这些发现将解决有关语调表征的长期问题，为语调及其意义的语言学理论提供信息，并通过可用于其他语言研究的新颖实验范式推进语调研究，无需书面语言或语调意义的明确定义。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Meaning is communicated in spoken language through words and their arrangement in sentences, and also through the way the words and sentences are said — their intonation. In English, intonation conveys discourse meaning, marking the distinction between a question and a statement, expressing the speaker's uncertainty or surprise, or highlighting informative words. These meanings are conveyed through complex patterns in pitch and other acoustic features, across the words in the sentence. Understanding how an intonation system works requires a detailed description of the intonation patterns that speakers produce, and an account of the elements that are perceptually salient: Is the pitch pattern of every word in a sentence potentially meaningful, and if not, which intonational features and which regions of the sentence are more (or less) critical for conveying discourse meaning? A further question is whether listeners pay attention to subtle variation in intonational features as marking corresponding distinctions in broad categories like 'question' or 'information focus', or alternatively, whether they attend to coarse-grained distinctions in intonation as cues to the broad meaning categories, while perceiving fine-grained variation as cues to speaker identity or psychological state. Understanding the mapping between intonation and meaning is important for theories of speech communication, cognition, the brain, and language learning. It has applications in clinical domains related to speech, hearing, and the brain, and for enhanced computer speech technologies that can process expressive spoken language.The goal of this project is to identify the elements of phrasal intonation that are perceived in heard speech and encoded in long-term memory representations. These representations are tapped through tasks where listeners reproduce the intonation of a heard utterance. Experiments will test 24 distinct intonational "tunes" proposed for English in the Autosegmental-Metrical theory of English intonation. In eight experiments, the participant's task of reproducing intonation is manipulated in three ways: using model sentences with more complex intonational patterns and variable lexical and syntactic content; introducing a time delay or an intervening speech task between hearing the model sentence and reproducing the intonation pattern; with information about the immediately preceding discourse and social context that support the interpretation of intonational meaning. Analyses of dynamic acoustic measures will test the similarity of reproduced intonation patterns to corresponding stimuli, revealing the phonetic granularity of intonational representations along dimensions related to pitch, loudness, tempo, and voice quality, and whether individuals vary in the intonational features they reproduce. The findings will resolve long-standing questions about intonational representation, informing linguistic theories of intonation and its meaning, and advancing intonation research with a novel experimental paradigm that can be used in studies of other languages, with no requirements on written language or the explicit definition of intonational meaning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.