Integrative mechanisms in real-time spoken language processing

口语以惊人的速度产生和理解。例如，流利言语中的单词通常以每秒2或3个的速度产生，许多核心的语言差异（如区分不同语音的物理特性）取决于仅仅几十毫秒的时间差异。人类大脑是如何应对语言的动态变化的？例如，在倾听的过程中，我们的心智机制是如何设法跟上信息在展开的话语中到达的速度的？***我的研究项目的持续目标是了解允许语言处理快速、渐进、高效和准确地发生的认知机制。迄今为止，这项工作强调了强有力的解释部分取决于听者对接下来所说内容的形式和内容的隐含期望的方式。此外，这项研究还为听者从口语交流发生的物理环境中使用信息线索提供了确凿的证据。展望未来，一个关键的目标是确保语言处理的实证调查反映自然语言的许多复杂和复杂的特征，以及不同类型的情景环境，这些情景环境可以使听者或多或少地注意讲话，或使听者或多或少地困难，例如环境噪音或听者作为母语或非母语语言使用者的地位。***提出的研究旨在使用眼动追踪技术来探索这些类型场景中的语言理解，我的实验室已经成功地使用了这种技术来研究毫秒级语言过程的每时每一刻的本质。这项研究的结果有望为支持核心语言能力的认知机制提供重要的见解。这项研究也将有助于更深入地理解交流障碍的本质，以及在涉及人机交互的情况下应该强调的自然交流行为的特征

Spoken language is produced and understood at a striking pace. For example, words in fluent speech are often produced at a rate of 2 or 3 per second, and many core linguistic distinctions (such as the physical properties that distinguish different speech sounds) hinge on timing differences involving just tens of milliseconds. How does the human mind cope with the dynamics of language? For example, during listening, how does our mental machinery manage to keep up with the pace at which information arrives in an unfolding utterance?***The ongoing goals of my research program are to understand the cognitive mechanisms that allow language processing to occur rapidly, incrementally, and with a high degree of efficiency and accuracy. To date this work has highlighted the way in which robust interpretation depends in part on a listener's implicit expectations about the form and content of what will be said next. In addition, this work has provided solid evidence for listeners' use of informational cues from the physical context in which spoken communication occurs.***Going forward, one critical objective is to ensure that empirical investigations of language processing reflect the many complex and intricate features of natural language as well as the different kinds of situational circumstances that can make listeners more or less attentive to speech, or that make listening more or less difficult such as environmental noise or a listener's status as a native or non-native user of the language.***The proposed research aims to explore language comprehension in these types of scenarios using eye-tracking techniques that have been successfully employed in my laboratory to study the moment-by-moment nature of language processes at the millisecond level. The outcomes of this research are expected to provide important insights into the cognitive mechanisms that support core language abilities. This research will also contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of communicative impairments as well as the features of natural communicative behaviour that should be emphasized in situations involving human-computer interaction.**