Journal article
Gradient acoustic information induces long-lasting referential uncertainty in short discourses
Language, cognition and neuroscience, Vol.32(10), pp.1211-1228
11/26/2017
DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2017.1325508
Abstract
Three experiments examined the influence of gradient acoustic information on referential interpretation during spoken language processing and how this influence persists over time. Acoustic continua varying between the pronouns he and she were created and validated in two offline experiments. A third experiment examined whether these acoustic differences influence online pronoun interpretation, and whether this influence persists across words in a discourse. Measures of eye gaze showed immediate sensitivity to graded acoustic information. Moreover, acoustically induced uncertainty persisted across a five-word delay: When listeners encountered a word that disambiguated the referent of the pronoun differently than it had originally been interpreted, the amount of time they took to recover from an initial misinterpretation was directly related to distance along the acoustic continuum between the pronoun and the endpoint corresponding to the correct referent. These findings show that fine-grained acoustic detail induces referential uncertainty that is maintained over extended periods of time.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Gradient acoustic information induces long-lasting referential uncertainty in short discourses
- Creators
- Sarah Brown-Schmidt - University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignJoseph C. Toscano - Villanova University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Language, cognition and neuroscience, Vol.32(10), pp.1211-1228
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- DOI
- 10.1080/23273798.2017.1325508
- ISSN
- 2327-3798
- eISSN
- 2327-3801
- Number of pages
- 18
- Grant note
- Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellowship 1556700 / Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci; Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie; National Science Foundation (NSF); NSF - Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences (SBE) BCS 12-57029; 15-56700 / National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/26/2017
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984627345302771
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