Time Course of Spoken Word Recognition

描述（由申请人提供）：成年人可以识别50，000至100，000个单词，由不同的说话者在不同的声学环境中说出。这种能力是显着的，因为语音展开为一系列瞬态声学事件，延伸超过几百毫秒，没有可靠的线索字的边界。尽管口语处理在普通人群中取得了普遍的成功，但5%的一年级学生入学时患有某种类型的言语声音障碍，无法用听力障碍来解释。此外，一旦语言系统已经成功地获得，它很容易受到伤害或中风的侮辱（在美国有100万成年人患有某种形式的失语症）。口语词识别在语言习得和口语理解中起着核心作用，它允许存储与词汇表征相关的丰富的句法、语义和语用知识，并在理解过程中快速获取这些信息。一个更完整的理解的感知和计算能力的基础上的口语单词识别是必不可少的，以推进正常和异常的语言习得和处理的理解。由于语音信号随着时间的推移而展开，并且单词的声学实现随其局部环境而变化，因此使用嵌入在连续语音中的单词以精细的时间粒度来评估口语单词识别是很重要的。这个项目已经建立了“视觉世界”眼动跟踪作为一个强大的工具，检查口语单词识别。我们开发的方法越来越多地被用于解决从婴儿到老年人的整个生命周期中参与人群以及正常和受损人群的口语处理问题。拟议的研究有两个目的。第一个目的是评估一个“数据解释”的框架，在该框架中，处理连续语音中的单词是由基于上下文的期望调制的，该上下文（a）影响听众如何解释输入和（B）提供快速感知学习/适应的机制。我们操纵语速和话语为基础的信息结构，以研究如何期望影响实时整合的异步线索和如何通过感知学习调整线索权重。第二个目标集中在影响视觉世界实验设计、解释和分析的三个新兴问题上：（1）最早的信号驱动的眼动是图片吗（至少部分地）由来自所显示的图片的语音信息介导，或者是主要由由所讲单词激活的感知表征介导的眼睛运动;（2）语音信号中的线索与第一次刺激驱动的注视之间的最小滞后是什么;（3）注视是否受B状态依赖性的影响，如果是，在什么条件下，以及如何在基于事件的统计框架内对这些影响进行建模。 公共卫生相关性：叙述性语言是一系列短暂的声音事件，没有可靠的词边界线索。这项拟议中的研究利用眼球运动来研究听众在连续语音中快速识别口语单词并适应说话者之间差异的机制。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adults can recognize between 50,000 and 100,000 words, spoken by different talkers in varying acoustic environments. This ability is remarkable because speech unfolds as a series of transient acoustic events extending over a few hundred ms, without reliable cues to word boundaries. Despite the ubiquitous success of spoken language processing among the general population, 5 percent of first graders enter school with some type of speech sound disorder that cannot be accounted for by hearing impairment. In addition, once the language system has been successfully acquired, it is susceptible to insult from injury or stroke (accounting for 1 million adults in the U.S. with some form of aphasia). Spoken word recognition plays a central role in language acquisition and spoken language comprehension, allowing for storage of the rich array of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic knowledge that is linked to lexical representations and rapid access to this information during comprehension. A more complete understanding of the perceptual and computational capacities underlying spoken word recognition is essential to advancing understanding of both normal and deviant language acquisition and processing. Because the speech signal unfolds over time and the acoustic realization of a word varies with its local environment, it is important to evaluate spoken word recognition at a fine temporal grain using words embedded in continuous speech. This project has established "visual world" eye tracking as a powerful tool for examining spoken word recognition. The methods that we have developed are increasingly being used to address questions about spoken language processing in participant populations across the lifespan from infants to older adults, and in normal and impaired populations. The proposed research has two aims. The first aim is to evaluate a "data explanation" framework in which processing words in continuous speech is modulated by expectations based on context which (a) affect how listeners interpret the input and (b) provide a mechanism for rapid perceptual learning/adaptation. We manipulate speech rate and discourse-based information structure to examine how expectations affect real-time integration of asynchronous cues and how cue-weights are adjusted through perceptual learning. The second aim focuses on three emerging questions that affect the design, interpretation and analysis of visual world experiments: (1) Are the earliest signal-driven eye movements to pictures (at least partially) mediated by phonological information from displayed pictures or are eye-movements primarily mediated by perceptual representations activated by the spoken word; (2) What is the minimal lag between cues in the speech signal and the first stimulus-driven fixations; and (3) Are fixations affected b state-dependencies, and if so, under what conditions, and how can these effects be modeled within an event-based statistical framework. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Narrative Speech unfolds as a series of transient acoustic events without reliable cues to word boundaries. The proposed research uses eye movements to pictures in a display to examine the mechanisms by which listeners rapidly recognize spoken words in continuous speech and adapt to differences among speakers.