Measuring context effects in spoken word recognition

描述(申请人提供)：这项研究的长期目标是开发定量模型，说明自上而下的语言知识和自下而上的感觉信息在口语识别中是如何结合的。本文提出的研究将通过将全词识别率作为音素识别率的函数来建模，从而为语境知识对英语单音节识别的影响提供定量的测量。这些模型在帮助听障人士理解语音和开发基于机器的识别技术方面有着重要的应用。一项噪声中的单词识别研究的初步结果定量地评估了相似发音单词(即稀疏的语音邻域)的稀缺对语境的促进作用。这些结果表明，由词首定义的邻域比由词尾定义的邻域更相关。提出了两个实验来进一步研究这些发现，并为进一步研究其他语境效应和更长的刺激奠定了基础。实验一使用可变掩蔽技术比较了不同相似度的单词的开头和结尾对识别的贡献。实验二是一项补充研究，将使用听觉启动测试依赖于语音信息的时间分布的效果。除了在现有理论的基础上评估特定的假设外，这些研究的量化结果也应该有助于评估未来的口语识别概念。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective of this research is the development of quantitative models of how top-down linguistic knowledge and bottom-up sensory information are combined in spoken word recognition. The research proposed here would provide quantitative measures of the effects of contextual knowledge on the recognition of English monosyllables by modeling whole word recognition rate as a function of phoneme recognition rate. Such models have important applications in helping hearing-impaired individuals understand speech and in the development of machine-based recognition technologies. Preliminary results from a word recognition in noise study quantitatively evaluated the facilitative context effect of scarcity of similar sounding words (i.e., sparse phonetic neighborhoods). These results suggest that neighborhoods defined by word beginnings are more relevant than those defined by word endings. Two experiments are proposed to further these findings and provide the foundation for future investigation of other context effects and longer stimuli. Experiment One compares the contribution to recognition of the beginning and end of words varying in similarity to other words using a variable masking technique. Experiment Two is a complementary study that will test for effects depending on the temporal distribution of phonological information using an auditory prime. In addition to their use in evaluating specific hypotheses based on current theories, the quantitative results from these studies should be useful for evaluating future conceptions of spoken word recognition as well.