Perception of talker cues and linguistic processing in SLI

描述(申请人提供)：这项建议的目的是通过考察类别形成作为贡献者的作用来探索为什么SLI儿童的语音类别加工受到损害，并测试说话者的熟悉度作为一种使语音类别更加健壮的方法。第一个目标是确定SLI儿童是否能够创造新的说话者类别(即，谁说了那个话语)，作为更广泛地探索类别形成的一种方式。工作假说是，SLI儿童在创造新的类别和对不同的输入进行概括方面存在困难，这一困难是SLI表现出的糟糕语音加工的一个来源。为了验证这一假设，患有SLI的儿童和9-10岁的典型语言发展儿童(TLD)都将接受训练，通过听三个不同说话者的语音来学习新的说话者类别。第二个目标是确定SLI儿童的语音类别是否可以通过熟悉一组说话者而变得更加健壮。工作假设是，尽管形成的说话者类别不如TLD儿童(目标1)，但SLI儿童将对他们熟悉的说话者表现出更好的语音处理能力。为了验证这一假设，SLI和TLD儿童都将完成一项针对熟悉和不熟悉的说话者的前后词识别任务(目标1)，以评估他们是否对熟悉的说话者表现出更强的加工能力(熟悉的说话者的优势)。在本项目结束时，我们希望证明SLI儿童的语音类别表征能力较弱，部分原因是不能形成可以概括为新刺激的健壮类别。我们还希望证明，与说话者的熟悉可以改善语音处理，这一点已经在成人群体中得到了经验证明。这项研究具有临床和理论意义，因为它将为SLI儿童较弱的语音范畴提供解释，并提供证据表明，这些范畴可以变得更健壮，语音加工可以通过说话者的熟悉来改善。这些发现将对SLI中的语言处理产生更广泛的影响；促进和自动化言语感知可以释放出可用于语言理解的认知资源。 公共卫生相关性：我们期待这一研究项目的发现能够证明说话者维度对SLI儿童语音类别加工的重要性，并证明对于更熟悉的说话者，语音加工可以得到改善。这项拟议的研究与公共健康相关，因为理解SLI儿童语音类别处理能力差的原因对语言处理具有更广泛的影响，语言处理依赖于将声学信号映射到语言信息的能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this proposal is to explore why phonological category processing is impaired in children with SLI by examining the role of category formation as a contributor and to test talker familiarization as a method of making phonological categories more robust. The first aim is to determine whether children with SLI can create novel talker categories (i.e., who said that utterance) as a way to explore category formation more generally. The working hypothesis is that children with SLI have difficulty creating novel categories and generalizing across diverse inputs and that this difficulty is one source of the poor phonological processing exhibited in SLI. To test this hypothesis, both children with SLI and children with typical language development (TLD) aged 9-10 will be trained to learn novel talker categories by listening to the speech of three different talkers. The second aim is to determine whether the phonological categories of children with SLI can be made more robust through familiarity with a set of talkers. The working hypothesis is that despite having formed talker categories less well than TLD children (Aim 1), children with SLI will show improved phonological processing for talkers with whom they are familiar. To test this hypothesis, both SLI and TLD children will complete a word recognition task both pre- and post-talker training (Aim 1) for both familiar and unfamiliar talkers to assess whether they show enhanced processing for familiar talkers (familiar talker advantage). At the conclusion of this project, we expect to demonstrate that phonological category representations are weak in children with SLI in part due to an inability to form robust categories that can be generalized to novel stimuli. We also expect to demonstrate that familiarity with a talker improves phonological processing, as has been shown empirically in adult populations. This research is both clinically and theoretically significant because it will provide an explanation for weak phonological categories in children with SLI and also provide evidence that these categories can be made more robust and that phonological processing can be improved through talker familiarization. These findings will have broader implications for language processing in SLI; facilitating and automating speech perception frees up cognitive resources that can be used for language comprehension. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: We expect the findings from this research project to demonstrate the significance of the talker dimension for phonological category processing in children with SLI and to demonstrate that phonological processing can be improved for talkers who are more familiar. The proposed research has relevance to public health because understanding the reason for poor phonological category processing in children with SLI has broader implications for language processing, which relies on the ability to map acoustic signals onto linguistic messages.