The Role of Acoustic Prominence in Language Production and Comprehension

声学突出在语言产生和理解中的作用

• 批准号: 7445825
• 负责人: Duane G Watson
• 金额: $ 20.79万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-05-06 至 2013-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7445825
• 关键词: Accent; Acoustics; Affect; Auditory; Belief; Cereals; Classification; Cognitive; Communication; Comprehension; Consensus; Cues; Eye; Goals; Hand; Impairment; Individual; Judgment; Language; Language Disorders; Linguistics; Link; Measures; Methodology; Methods; Modeling; Participant; Perception; Phonetics; Play; Process; Production; Public Health; Reading; Research; Research Personnel; Role; Series; Signal Transduction; Speech; Stress; Structure; Work; design; innovation; language processing; research study; syntax; visual tracking

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal investigates the role acoustic prominence, which is one aspect of prosody, plays in language production and comprehension. Traditionally, researchers have characterized acoustic prominence as a means by which a speaker signals the givenness of information: new information is accented and given information is not. In this proposal it is proposed that acoustic prominence is a function of 1) the importance of a word to a conversation and 2) the predictability of the word. Results from preliminary experiments suggest that speakers produce important, less predictable words with more prominence, and that informativeness and predictability play a role in the type of prominence that is chosen by speakers. However, important questions remain. Experiments 1-6 investigate whether the degree of acoustic prominence produced by a speaker is proportional to its importance in a referential communication task and whether listeners are sensitive to fine- grained differences in acoustic prominence using an eye-tracking visual world paradigm. Experiments 7-8 explore whether effects of predictability on acoustic prominence are driven by processes in planning or by processes that facilitate listener comprehension. Experiments 9 and 10 investigate how predictability and informativeness interact to influence pitch accent choice. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE An important part of successful communication is producing and understanding language with appropriate prosody (e.g. stress, pitch, rhythm, and pausing). Individuals with language deficits that affect the production and comprehension of prosody are likely to have difficulty communicating, and little is known about how prosody facilitates communication in on-line language processing. This proposal investigates the role acoustic prominence, which is one aspect of prosody, plays in language production and comprehension.

描述（由申请人提供）：该提案调查了声学突出性（韵律的一个方面）在语言产生和理解中发挥的作用。传统上，研究人员将声学突出性描述为说话者传达信息给定性的一种手段：新信息被强调，而给定信息则不强调。在该提案中，提出声学突出度是 1）单词对对话的重要性和 2）单词的可预测性的函数。初步实验的结果表明，说话者会说出重要的、难以预测的、更突出的单词，而信息性和可预测性在说话者选择的突出类型中发挥着重要作用。然而，重要的问题仍然存在。实验 1-6 使用眼动追踪视觉世界范式研究说话者产生的声学突出程度是否与其在参考通信任务中的重要性成正比，以及听众是否对声学突出的细粒度差异敏感。实验 7-8 探讨了可预测性对声学突出性的影响是由规划过程还是由促进听众理解的过程驱动的。实验 9 和 10 研究了可预测性和信息性如何相互作用来影响音高重音的选择。公共卫生相关性 成功沟通的一个重要部分是使用适当的韵律（例如重音、音高、节奏和停顿）来产生和理解语言。存在影响韵律产生和理解的语言缺陷的个体可能会在交流上遇到困难，并且对于韵律如何促进在线语言处理中的交流知之甚少。该提案研究了声学突出性（韵律的一个方面）在语言产生和理解中所发挥的作用。