Rhyme, rime, and the onset of reading

There is recent evidence that children naturally divide syllables into the opening consonant or consonant cluster (the onset) and the rest of the syllable (the rime). This suggests an explanation for the fact that preschool children are sensitive to rhyme, but often find tasks in which they have to isolate single phonemes extremely difficult. Words which rhyme share a common rime and thus can be categorized on that speech unit. Single phonemes on the other hand may only be part of one of these speech units. This analysis leads to some clear predictions. Young children, even children not yet able to read, should manage to categorize words on the basis of a single phoneme when the phoneme coincides with the word's onset ("cat," "cup") but not when it is only part of the rime ("cat," "pit"). They should find it easier to work out that two monosyllabic words have a common vowel which is not shared by another word when all three words end with the same consonant ("lip," "hop," "tip") but the odd word has a different rime than when the three words all start with the same consonant ("cap," "can," "cot") and thus all share the same onset. The hypothesis also suggests that children should be aware of single phonemes when these coincide with the onset before they learn to read. We tested these predictions in two studies of children aged 5, 6, and 7 years. The results clearly support these predictions.     

Speech clarity/intelligibility: test-retest reliability of magnitude-estimation scaling

The reliability of magnitude-estimation scaling as a measure of overall clarity of speech was investigated. 40 subjects (M age = 19 yr.) provided magnitude-estimation responses for nine audiotaped versions of a nonsense sentence varying systematically in number of correct consonant phonemes. There was no significant difference in the magnitude-estimation responses of the subjects during two test sessions separated by one week. Analysis suggested that magnitude-estimation scaling is a reliable measure of speech clarity/intelligibility. This finding is discussed in relation to speech samples varying in aspects other than number of consonant phonemes correct and possible further clinical research applications.     

Error biases in inner and overt speech: evidence from tongue twisters

To compare the properties of inner and overt speech, Oppenheim and Dell (2008) counted participants' self-reported speech errors when reciting tongue twisters either overtly or silently and found a bias toward substituting phonemes that resulted in words in both conditions, but a bias toward substituting similar phonemes only when speech was overt. Here, we report 3 experiments revisiting their conclusion that inner speech remains underspecified at the subphonemic level, which they simulated within an activation-feedback framework. In 2 experiments, participants recited tongue twisters that could result in the errorful substitutions of similar or dissimilar phonemes to form real words or nonwords. Both experiments included an auditory masking condition, to gauge the possible impact of loss of auditory feedback on the accuracy of self-reporting of speech errors. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were composed entirely from real words, whereas, in Experiment 2, half the tokens used were nonwords. Although masking did not have any effects, participants were more likely to report substitutions of similar phonemes in both experiments, in inner as well as overt speech. This pattern of results was confirmed in a 3rd experiment using the real-word materials from Oppenheim and Dell (in press). In addition to these findings, a lexical bias effect found in Experiments 1 and 3 disappeared in Experiment 2. Our findings support a view in which plans for inner speech are indeed specified at the feature level, even when there is no intention to articulate words overtly, and in which editing of the plan for errors is implicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

辅音和元音知觉中的启动效应差异

采用启动范式,在两个实验中分别考察了辅音范畴和元音范畴知觉中的启动效应。启动音是纯音和目标范畴本身,目标音是辅音范畴和元音范畴连续体。结果发现辅音范畴连续体知觉的范畴反应百分比受到纯音和言语启动音影响,辅音范畴知觉的反应时只受言语启动音影响;元音范畴连续体知觉的范畴反应百分比不受两种启动音影响,但元音范畴知觉的反应时受到言语启动音影响。实验结果表明辅音范畴和元音范畴知觉中的启动效应存在差异,这为辅音和元音范畴内在加工机制的差异提供了新证据。     

Mechanisms of aural encoding: VIII. Phonetic interference and context-sensitive coding in short-term memory

In previous experiments Ss were presented for ordered recall with sequences of five consonant phonemes paired with /a/ in which the middle three consonant phonemes shared the same manner of articulation (voiced, unvoiced, nasal), the same place of articulation (front, middle, back), or neither the same manner nor place of articulation (control sequences). Compared to performance in control sequences, the middle consonant phoneme was always more difficult to recall in manner of articulation sequences but not in place of articulation sequences. The results suggested that for these sequences consonant phonemes were not remembered in terms of their place of articulation. In the present experiment, sequences of consonant-vowel (CV) or vowel-consonant (VC) syllables were presented for recall in which each consonant phoneme was paired with a different vowel. When consonant phonemes in the different sequence types were presented for recall with different vowels, phonetic interference was observed for the middle consonant in place of articulation sequences as well as manner of articulation sequences, and the effect was observed in both CV and VC groups. It was suggested that vowels are encoded in short-term memory in terms of their place of articulation and that presenting consonant phonemes for recall with different vowels caused Ss to use this dimension to code consonant phonemes in short-term memory.     

Phonemes: Lexical access and beyond

Phonemes play a central role in traditional theories as units of speech perception and access codes to lexical representations. Phonemes have two essential properties: they are ‘segment-sized’ (the size of a consonant or vowel) and abstract (a single phoneme may be have different acoustic realisations). Nevertheless, there is a long history of challenging the phoneme hypothesis, with some theorists arguing for differently sized phonological units (e.g. features or syllables) and others rejecting abstract codes in favour of representations that encode detailed acoustic properties of the stimulus. The phoneme hypothesis is the minority view today. We defend the phoneme hypothesis in two complementary ways. First, we show that rejection of phonemes is based on a flawed interpretation of empirical findings. For example, it is commonly argued that the failure to find acoustic invariances for phonemes rules out phonemes. However, the lack of invariance is only a problem on the assumption that speech perception is a bottom-up process. If learned sublexical codes are modified by top-down constraints (which they are), then this argument loses all force. Second, we provide strong positive evidence for phonemes on the basis of linguistic data. Almost all findings that are taken (incorrectly) as evidence against phonemes are based on psycholinguistic studies of single words. However, phonemes were first introduced in linguistics, and the best evidence for phonemes comes from linguistic analyses of complex word forms and sentences. In short, the rejection of phonemes is based on a false analysis and a too-narrow consideration of the relevant data.     

Identification times for phonemic components of graded complexity and for spelling of speech

Identification time was measured for targets in speech in terms of the number of phonemes occurring between the target and response. Auditory targets in the mam experiment were at three levels of phonetic complexity; (1) monosyllabic words or nonsense syllables, each containing four phonemes; (2) clusters (vowel + consonant) consisting of the second and third phonemes within these syllables; (3) individual phonemes within these clusters. Identification time was always shorter for (1) than for (2) or (3). The effect of semantic and grammatical context upon identification was small. Plosive consonants which did not begin a syllable generally could not be identified as isolated phonemic targets, although they could be identified readily as part of a cluster. Letter targets corresponding to the spelling of the auditory stimulus permitted identification of plosive consonants, and in general followed different rules than the phonemic targets. Additional observations concerning individual targets were made.     

在艾森克人格问卷L量表上说谎的语音频谱特征

本研究探索艾森克人格问卷说谎量表上说谎与不说谎的语音频谱差别。我们录下被试在做艾森克人格问卷时回答“是”或“不是”的声音。使用Praat语音分析软件对/bu/,/sh/、/i/的前三个共振峰频率和波段（F1、F2、F3、B1、B2、B3）进行分析。结果发现：说“是”时说谎和说真话在/sh/的F1、F3、B1上存在差异,说“不是”时在/sh/的F1、F2、F3上存在差异。本研究表明说谎和说真话在语音频谱上存在差异,同时说谎在不同音素上的效应可能不一样。     

What Speech Errors Can Tell Us About Word-Form Generation: The Roles of Constraint and Opportunity

The likelihood of occurrence of a speech error is influenced by constraints imposed on the word-form generation process as well as by characteristics of the words in the utterance. In three tongue twister experiments I investigated these roles of constraint and opportunity. In Experiments 1 and 2 word onsets were more likely to interact with each other in a speech error than with phonemes in other positions. However, phonemes in word-internal positions were less likely to interact with each other than with word onsets. These results indicate that word onsets are particularly error-prone and therefore often interact with each other, but are also very likely to engage in interactions with phonemes in other positions if the elicitation technique encourages these interactions. The fatal experiment aimed to create speech errors in which consonants and vowels interacted. These errors are rarely reported in the literature but were successfully generated in this experiment. The implications for a model of word-form generation are discussed.     

Lexical influences in audiovisual speech perception

Phoneme identification with audiovisually discrepant stimuli is influenced hy information in the visual signal (the McGurk effect). Additionally, lexical status affects identification of auditorily presented phonemes. The present study tested for lexical influences on the McGurk effect. Participants identified phonemes in audiovisually discrepant stimuli in which lexical status of the auditory component and of a visually influenced percept was independently varied. Visually influenced (McGurk) responses were more frequent when they formed a word and when the auditory signal was a nonword (Experiment 1). Lexical effects were larger for slow than for fast responses (Experiment 2), as with auditory speech, and were replicated with stimuli matched on physical properties (Experiment 3). These results are consistent with models in which lexical processing of speech is modality independent.     

Mechanisms of aural encoding: VI. Consonants and vowels are remembered as subsets of distinctive features

An attempt was made to examine the manner in which consonants and vowels are coded in short-term memory. under identical recall conditions. Ss were presented with sequences of consonant-vowel digrams for serial recall. Sequences were composed of randomly presented consonants paired with/a/ or randomly presented vowels paired with /d/. Halle’s distinctive feature system was used to generate predictions concerning the frequency of intrusion errors. among phonemes. These predictions were based on the assumption that phonemes are discriminated in memory in terms of their component distinctive features, so that intrusions should most frequently occur between phonemes sharing similar distinctive features. The analysis of intrusion errors revealed that each consonant and vowel phoneme was coded m short-term memory by a particular combination of distinctive features which differed from one phoneme to another. A given phoneme was coded by the same set of distinctive features regardless of the number of syllables in the sequence. However, distinctive feature theories were not able to predict the frequency of intrusion errors for phonemes presented in the middle serial positions of a sequence with 100% accuracy. The results of the experiment support the notion that consonant and vowel phonemes are coded in a similar manner in STM and that this coding involves the retention of a specific set of distinctive features for each phoneme.     

Magnitude-estimation scaling of speech intelligibility: effects of listeners' experience and semantic-syntactic context

Fifteen speech-language pathologists with extensive experience judging speakers' intelligibility and 15 control subjects with no such previous experience provided magnitude-estimation responses for two sets of nine audiotaped speech samples. These samples were three utterances composed of a group of 17 words that contained all the consonant phonemes of English. These words were arranged to form a set of either meaningful or nonsense utterances. Nine separate versions of both the meaningful and nonsense utterances were created by systematically increasing the number of phonemes produced incorrectly on each of the nine recordings. The analysis indicated no significant difference between the magnitude-estimation scaling responses of experienced and inexperienced listeners. A significant over-all difference was found for listeners' responses to meaningful versus nonsense utterances. The advantages of magnitude-estimation scaling as a measure of speakers' intelligibility are discussed.     

The influence of phoneme position overlap on the phonemic similarity effect in nonword recall

The current research examined the predictions that short-term memory models generate for the phonological similarity effect, when similarity was defined in different ways. Three serial recall experiments with consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) nonwords are reported, where the position of the phonemes that list items shared was manipulated (i.e., shared vowel and final consonant [_VC; Experiment 1], initial consonant and vowel [CV_; Experiment 2], or the two consonants [C_C; Experiment 3]. The results show that the position of common phonemes in nonwords has differential effects on order and item information. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research into the effect of phonemic similarity on nonword recall, and modifications to current short-term memory models are proposed.     

Studying speech perception in adolescent school-age children by utilizing primary color perception

Since both speech and color have perceptual ramifications in language, the present study was developed to study speech perception through color perception. With the recent advances in perception generally and color perception specifically, this nontraditional approach to studying speech perception appeared reasonable. The 12 consonants utilized in this study generated 144 pairs of nonsense CV-syllables. The consonant ensemble was selected because it accommodated a maximum number of phonological features with a minimum number of phonemes. The 46 subjects, who were in junior high school with an age range of 11 through 14 years, responded to each of the stimulus pairs by assigning (associating) to it one of the six primary colors. Because of the perceptual orderliness associated with subjects' judgments, the results indicated that color can be used to study speech perception. Specific findings included the retrieval of sameness, fronting (or place), and voicing.This study is based on a master's thesis presented to the Graduate School, Tennessee State University in Nashville. The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of the Speech and Hearing Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston.     

Apraxia of speech in patients with Broca's aphasia: A study of phoneme production accuracy and error patterns

Phonetic analyses were made of the articulatory errors of ten Broca's aphasics with apraxia of speech. Presentation mode, phoneme position, and phoneme frequency-of-occurrence were related to phoneme difficulty. Consonant clusters were more difficult than consonant singletons; vowels were easiest. Substitution, addition, and compound errors predominated, while distortions and omissions were much less frequent. A subphonemic feature analysis of substitution and distortion errors showed a majority of errors to be close approximations to target phonemes.     

Effects of phoneme repertoire

In three experiments, listeners detected vowel or consonant targets in lists of CV syllables constructed from five vowels and five consonants. Responses were faster in a predictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables all beginning with the same consonant) than in an unpredictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables beginning with different consonants). In Experiment 1, the listeners’ native language was Dutch, in which vowel and consonant repertoires are similar in size. The difference between predictable and unpredictable contexts was comparable for vowel and consonant targets. In Experiments 2 and 3, the listeners’ native language was Spanish, which has four times as many consonants as vowels; here effects of an unpredictable consonant context on vowel detection were significantly greater than effects of an unpredictable vowel context on consonant detection. This finding suggests that listeners’ processing of phonemes takes into account the constitution of their language’s phonemic repertoire and the implications that this has for contextual variability.     

Redintegration and the benefits of long-term knowledge in verbal short-term memory: an evaluation of Schweickert's (1993) multinomial processing tree model

The impact of four long-term knowledge variables on serial recall accuracy was investigated. Serial recall was tested for high and low frequency words and high and low phonotactic frequency nonwords in 2 groups: monolingual English speakers and French-English bilinguals. For both groups the recall advantage for words over nonwords reflected more fully correct recalls with fewer recall attempts that consisted of fragments of the target memory items (one or two of the three target phonemes recalled correctly); completely incorrect recalls were equivalent for the 2 list types. However, word frequency (for both groups), nonword phonotactic frequency (for the monolingual group), and language familiarity all influenced the proportions of completely incorrect recalls that were made. These results are not consistent with the view that long-term knowledge influences on immediate recall accuracy can be exclusively attributed to a redintegration process of the type specified in multinomial processing tree model of immediate recall. The finding of a differential influence on completely incorrect recalls of these four long-term knowledge variables suggests instead that the beneficial effects of long-term knowledge on short-term recall accuracy are mediated by more than one mechanism.     

Limits on learning phonotactic constraints from recent production experience

Adults can learn new artificial phonotactic constraints by producing syllables that exhibit the constraints. The experiments presented here tested the limits of phonotactic learning in production using speech errors as an implicit measure of learning. Experiment 1 tested a constraint in which the placement of a consonant as an onset or coda depended on the identity of a nonadjacent consonant. Participant speech errors reflected knowledge of the constraint but not until the 2nd day of testing. Experiment 2 tested a constraint in which consonant placement depended on an extralinguistic factor, the speech rate. Participants were not able to learn this constraint. Together, these experiments suggest that phonotactic-like constraints are acquired when mutually constraining elements reside within the phonological system.     

Distinctive feature control of decision time: Same-different judgments of simultaneously heard phonemes

Ss decided whether dichotically presented consonant or vowel phonemes were “same” or “different” in a reaction time (RT) task. Results indicated that “different” responses were made on the basis of a serial, self-terminating scan of distinctive feature differences between phonemes. “Same” responses were considered too fast to be accounted for by this process and were discussed as a separate parallel process. Recognition of dichotically presented syllables appears to involve a third process in which phonemes are also identified in terms of their distinctive features.     

Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia: linguistic and conceptual factors

This study documents an unusual case of developmental synaesthesia, in which speech sounds induce an involuntary sensation of taste that is subjectively located in the mouth. JIW shows a highly structured, non-random relationship between particular combinations of phonemes (rather than graphemes) and the resultant taste, and this is influenced by a number of fine-grained phonemic properties (e.g. allophony, phoneme ordering). The synaesthesia is not found for environmental sounds. The synaesthesia, in its current form, is likely to have originated during vocabulary acquisition, since it is guided by learned linguistic and conceptual knowledge. The phonemes that trigger a given taste tend to also appear in the name of the corresponding foodstuff (e.g. /I/, /n/ and /s/ can trigger a taste of mince /mIns/) and there is often a semantic association between the triggering word and taste (e.g. the word blue tastes "inky"). The results suggest that synaesthesia does not simply reflect innate connections from one perceptual system to another, but that it can be mediated and/or influenced by a symbolic/conceptual level of representation.