Abstract
Is speech categorization consistency achieved in part through lexical knowledge?
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.157(4_Supplement), pp.A170-A170
04/01/2025
DOI: 10.1121/10.0037794
Abstract
Speech categorization is a gateway for downstream language processes. Recent evidence from work with the Visual Analog Scaling (VAS) task (Kapnoula et al., 2017) underscores the importance of categorization consistency (trial-by-trial variability around the mean function) over slope (long-term category structure) as a critical predictor of real-world outcomes such as L1 language ability and L2 language learning (Kim et al., under review; Honda et al., 2024). However, the mechanisms that contribute to categorization consistency are unclear. Given that higher-level factors like the lexicon can stabilize the percept by cleaning up lower-level perceptual noise (Luthra et al., 2021), we examined the relationship between categorization consistency and the lexical status of the percept. We tested adult American English listeners (n = 48, data collection ongoing) with the two sets of VAS tasks: one with word continua (e.g., beach-peach) and the other with nonword continua (e.g., beag-peag). Preliminary results showed that listeners’ categorization consistency for the word continuum is significantly higher than for the nonword continuum. However, we did not find a significant difference in slope. This suggests that categorization consistency (but not slope) can be stabilized by listeners’ lexical knowledge, supporting “auditory/phonological clean-up” driven by lexical chunks.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Is speech categorization consistency achieved in part through lexical knowledge?
- Creators
- Hyoju KimEthan KutluSita CarraturoJohn B. MueggeBob McMurray
- Resource Type
- Abstract
- Publication Details
- The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.157(4_Supplement), pp.A170-A170
- DOI
- 10.1121/10.0037794
- ISSN
- 1520-8524
- eISSN
- 1520-8524
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/01/2025
- Academic Unit
- Communication Sciences and Disorders; Linguistics; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Center for Social Science Innovation; Otolaryngology
- Record Identifier
- 9984865444402771
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