Doctoral Dissertation Research: Role of Prior Knowledge in Consolidation of Novel Phonotactic Patterns for Speech Production

博士论文研究：先验知识在巩固语音生成的新型语音模式中的作用

• 批准号: 2116802
• 负责人: Matthew Goldrick
• 金额: $ 1.1万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2023-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2116802&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Role; Prior

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Learning a new language opens up a myriad of opportunities for cross-cultural communication, which is critical to remaining competitive in today's globally networked information economy. But language learning is difficult, especially for adults, who must integrate new language experience with the language knowledge they already have. Previous research has found that sleep-based consolidation - an improvement in what you can recall as a result of sleep - is critical to this integration. In fact, we must sleep before novel phonotactics - language-specific generalizations about how sounds can be ordered within syllables and words - become ingrained in speech processing (specifically, unconsciously shaping the errors we make while speaking). This project asks what role prior knowledge plays in this process: Can knowing similar phonotactics boost the effectiveness of sleep-based consolidation for learning novel phonotactics? The findings of this research can inform the design of curricula and interventions to make language learning more effective, and can also shed light on how our brain changes as we learn. The project also includes the training of an undergraduate student as a research assistant and involves outreach about language learning to inform the larger public.This project aims to clarify the role of prior knowledge in consolidating second-order phonotactic generalizations for speech production, by analyzing errors made in multi-day tongue-twister experiments that manipulate the structural similarity of novel second-order phonotactic generalizations with respect to previously-learned phonotactic generalizations. Structural similarity is operationalized in terms of syllabic positions involved in each generalization (onset-vowel, vowel-coda). Two sources of prior knowledge are considered: participants' native language and pre-training using the experimental tongue-twister task. Activity monitors estimating time spent in slow-wave sleep are used to link consolidation effects observed in this study to those observed in studies in other cognitive and linguistic domains. To control for temporal-order differences between onset-vowel vs. vowel-coda generalizations, a non-linguistic button-pressing task tests for the absence of differences in learning start-middle vs. middle-end patterns. The project also includes the training of an undergraduate student as a research assistant and involves outreach about language learning to inform the larger public.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.

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。学习一门新语言为跨文化交流提供了无数机会，这对于在当今全球网络化的信息经济中保持竞争力至关重要。但是语言学习是困难的，尤其是对于成年人来说，他们必须将新的语言经验与已有的语言知识结合起来。先前的研究发现，基于睡眠的巩固--睡眠对你能回忆起的东西的改善--对这种整合至关重要。事实上，我们必须在语音识别学（phonotactics）--语言特有的关于声音在音节和单词中如何排列的概括--在语音处理中根深蒂固（具体来说，无意识地塑造我们在说话时犯的错误）之前睡觉。这个项目询问先验知识在这个过程中扮演什么角色：了解相似的语音特征是否可以提高基于睡眠的巩固学习新语音特征的有效性？这项研究的结果可以为课程和干预措施的设计提供信息，使语言学习更有效，也可以揭示我们的大脑在学习时如何变化。该项目还包括培训一名本科生作为研究助理，并涉及有关语言学习的推广，以告知更广泛的公众。该项目旨在澄清先验知识在巩固语音产生的二阶音位概括中的作用，通过分析在多天的绕口令实验中所犯的错误，这些实验操纵了新的第二种结构相似性，根据先前学过的语音定向概括，对语音定向概括进行排序。结构相似性是可操作的，在每个概括（首元音，元音尾）涉及的音节位置。先验知识的两个来源被认为是：参与者的母语和使用实验绕口令任务的预训练。活动监测器估计在慢波睡眠中花费的时间被用来链接巩固本研究中观察到的其他认知和语言领域的研究中观察到的效果。为了控制起始元音与元音结尾概括之间的时间顺序差异，非语言按钮按压任务测试了学习开始-中间与中间-结束模式之间的差异。该项目还包括培训一名本科生作为研究助理，并涉及语言学习的推广，以告知更广泛的公众。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。