Lexical Integration of Continuous Acoustic Detail: Normal and Impaired Listeners

语音感知是一个将声学信号中的连续细节映射到离散单元上的过程。 意思就像文字。考虑到信号的可变性及其到达的速度，系统必须科普 在很短的时间内有很大的变化。这项研究的长期目标是 了解这个过程是如何运作的。这项建议测试了现有工作的含义，表明词汇 激活对信号中的连续细节敏感，并且对于口语单词识别的当前模型： 在线词汇激活过程（快速且并行工作以构建稳定的表征） 可以随着时间的推移积极整合连续的细节，以预测即将到来的材料，解决 过去，并组织感知过程。这将在四个系列的行为实验中进行测试， 关于视觉世界的范例。在这个范例中，受试者听到仔细控制的口语， 在视觉环境中操纵物体，同时监视眼睛运动。注视的可能性 每个对象产生该词的激活的每时每刻的估计（该系统 这句话，随着时间的推移，前两个项目研究这些时间整合 未受损的听者对语音修饰语音的感知过程和对 说话速度。在每一个，我们将表明，系统可以积极预测即将到来的材料和解决 模糊的材料在过去，这些过程是由词汇因素调制。在第三个项目中 我们明确地测试了这个框架，检查连续细节可能导致歧义的情况 分辨率，但只有当它可以保留更长的时间比短期回声记忆存储已知的操作。 这表明，词汇过程在这种维持中发挥着独特的作用。第四个项目适用 这一框架的语言障碍，测试的假设，知觉缺陷与SLI 起源于词汇过程而非知觉过程。最终，该项目将有助于了解 言语知觉及其与语言障碍的关系因为知觉和词汇能力通常 在高级语言之前开发，基于它们的诊断和治疗可以更早地应用（并且 因此，比其他技术更成功）。因此，在这里获得的基本知识可以 有助于SLI的早期发现和治疗。

Speech perception is a process of mapping continuous detail in the acoustic signal onto discrete units of meaning like words. Given the variability in the signal and speed at which it arrives, the system must cope with a great deal of variation in a small amount of time. The long term objective of this research is to understand how this process works. This proposal tests an implication of existing work showing that lexical activation is sensitive to continuous detail in the signal and for current models of spoken word recognition: that online lexical-activation processes (which are fast and work in parallel to build stable representations) can actively integrate continuous detail over time to anticipate upcoming material, resolve ambiguity in the past, and organize perceptual processes. This will be tested in four series of behavioral experiments based on visual world paradigm. In this paradigm, subjects hear carefully controlled spoken language and manipulate objects in a visual environment while eye-movements are monitored. The probability of fixating each object yields a moment-by-moment estimate of the activation for that word (how much the system is considering that word) as it unfolds over time. The first two projects examine these temporal integration processes in unimpaired listeners for the perception of phonologically modified speech and compensation for speaking rate. In each we will show that system can actively anticipate upcoming material and resolve ambiguous material in the past and that these processes are modulated by lexical factors. In the third project we explicitly test this framework examining situations in which continuous detail could facilitate ambiguity resolution, but only if it can retained longer than short-term echoic memory stores are known to operate. This would suggest that lexical processes play a unique role in this maintenance. The fourth project applies this framework to language impairments, testing the hypothesis that perceptual deficits associatedwith SLI originate in lexical, not perceptual, processes. Ultimately this project will contribute to basic knowledge of speech perception and its relationship to language disorders. Since perceptual and lexical abilities typically develop before higher level language, diagnostics and therapies based on them may be applied earlier (and as a result, more successfully) than other techniques. Thus, the basic knowledge acquired here may contribute to earlier detection and treatment of SLI.