Abstract
Garden‐path phenomena in spoken word recognition: Gradient sensitivity to continuous acoustic detail facilitates ambiguity resolution
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.119(5), pp.3443-3443
05/2006
DOI: 10.1121/1.4786947
Abstract
Studies have demonstrated that lexical activation is gradiently sensitive to continuous acoustic detail [McMurray et al., ‘‘Gradient effects of within‐catagory phonetic variation on lexical access,’’ Cognition 86, B33–B42 (2002)]. This study investigates the consequences of this for online recognition, hypothesizing that such processes help maintain lexical alternatives and reactivate them if early interpretations are disfavored by subsequent input. Stimuli were pairs like barricade/parakeet, where, if the initial segment was misperceived, disambiguation would occur quite late. The effect of VOT on recognition was assessed for tokens favoring the competitor (barakeet with VOTs between 15 and 0). A categorical system would categorize these as equally [b]; garden path to barricade; and show difficulty reactivating parakeet after /eet/. A gradient system would activate parakeet more for VOTs near the boundary, and recover from the garden path faster. Subjects heard ten 8‐step continua of this form and selected the target from screens containing the target (parakeet), competitor (barricade), and unrelated objects, while eye movements were recorded. Fixations revealed a gradient pattern of recovery time to switch from the competitor to the target was linearly related to VOT. Subsequent experiments verified that this was not due to stimulus range, nor to the visual presence of the competitor. Thus, lexical activation is sensitive to continuous detail, and this facilitates ambiguity resolution.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Garden‐path phenomena in spoken word recognition: Gradient sensitivity to continuous acoustic detail facilitates ambiguity resolution
- Creators
- Bob McMurrayMichael K TanenhausRichard N Aslin
- Resource Type
- Abstract
- Publication Details
- The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.119(5), pp.3443-3443
- DOI
- 10.1121/1.4786947
- ISSN
- 0001-4966
- eISSN
- 1520-8524
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 05/2006
- Academic Unit
- Communication Sciences and Disorders; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Linguistics; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Otolaryngology
- Record Identifier
- 9984071760802771
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