言语与手部运动关系的研究回顾

言语与手部运动之间存在复杂的联系。该文总结了两类手部运动（伴随言语发生的手势运动和抓握运动）与言语之间关系的行为和脑科学研究成果。发现：（1）伴随言语产生的意义手势可促进言语加工,特别是词汇的提取过程;（2）观察手的抓握运动影响言语产生时唇的运动和声音成分;（3）对词语的知觉影响抓握运动的早期计划阶段;（4）言语产生可增加手运动皮层的兴奋性。作者由此认为,言语加工与手势间的联系不仅表现为神经通路的重叠和相互激活,而且可能在外显行为上也相互影响     

教师管教言语行为语效的比较研究

本研究采用Searle对语旨行为的分类标准,采用情境模拟法,探讨教师对学生管教过程中不同言语事件中的断言、指令、承诺、表达以及宣告行为,研究学生对教师的管教言语使用时产生的情绪体验、对教师交际意图的理解、可能的行为倾向,以探明不同言语行为的语效。发现:⑴学生对教师发出的五种言语行为所引发的情绪体验、交际意图认知、行为倾向之间的存在显著差异。表达易引起被试愉快情绪,其次是断言与指令,承诺与宣告易引起被试不愉快情绪。对教师言语交际意图的认知以及服从行为倾向,表达、断言、指令高于承诺与宣告。⑵被试对五种管教言语行为交际意图的认知与其对教师管教的言语的情绪反应以及行为倾向间均存在显著的正相关。     

韵律特征研究

介绍从知觉、认知和语料库分析角度对汉语韵律特征进行的一系列研究。（1）韵律特征知觉：用实验心理学和知觉标注的语料库分析方法,研究汉语语调和音高下倾与降阶问题,语句和语篇中知觉可以区分的韵律层级及相关的声学线索。研究结果支持汉语语调的双线模型理论和语句音高下倾的存在;证明语篇中知觉可以区分的韵律边界是小句、句子和段落,及其知觉相关的声学线索。（2）韵律特征与其他语言学结构的关系：在标注的语料库的基础上,用常规统计方法研究语句常规重音分布规律、语篇信息结构与重音的关系、并用决策树方法研究根据文本信息确定韵律短语边界和焦点的规则。（3）韵律特征在语篇理解中的作用：用实验心理学方法和脑电指标研究韵律对语篇信息整合和指代理解的影响,揭示其作用的认知和神经机制。讨论了这些研究结果对语音工程、语音学理论和心理语言学研究的实践和理论意义     

中文阅读中无关言语效应的认知机制探究：眼动证据

采用眼动追踪技术探讨中文阅读中无关言语效应的影响机制, 操纵了背景音的类型(有意义背景音、无意义背景音、无声), 通过3个实验考察其对简单句、复杂句、篇章阅读的影响。结果发现, 被试在无意义背景音条件下加工三类阅读材料时的眼动指标与无声条件相比差异均不显著; 但是, 在有意义背景音条件下, 被试在进行复杂句和篇章阅读时的眼动指标与无声条件相比差异显著, 而在简单句阅读中差异不显著。结果表明, 语义属性才是影响无关言语效应产生的关键因素, 其所起作用受到阅读任务难度的调节, 而对阅读过程的影响主要体现在晚期的词汇加工和语义整合阶段, 本研究结果支持了语义干扰假说。     

Building a controllable expressive speech synthesis system with multiple emotion strengths

Emotion is considered to be an essential element in the performance of human-computer interactions. In expressive synthesis speech, it is important to generate emotional speech that reflects subtle and complex emotional states. However, there has been limited research on how to effectively synthesize emotional speech using different levels of emotion strength with intuitive control, which is difficult to be modeled effectively. In this paper, we explore an expressive speech synthesis model that can be used to produce speech with multiple emotion strengths. Unlike previous studies that encoded emotions into discrete codes, we propose an embedding vector to continuously control the emotion strength, which is a data-driven method to synthesize speech with a fine control over the emotions. Compared with the models using the retraining technique or a one-hot vector, our proposed model using an embedding vector can explicitly learn the high-level emotion strength from the low-level acoustic features. As a result, we can control the emotion strength of synthetic speech in a relatively predictable and globally consistent way. The objective and subjective evaluation tests show that our proposed model achieves state-of-the-art performance in terms of model flexibility and controllability.     

新生儿语音感知的神经基础:元分析

语言习得能力是人类在进化中获得的重要能力之一。语言认知的核心功能是语音加工, 因此, 语音加工的脑机制是认知心理学研究的重要课题。我们采用元分析方法, 对使用近红外技术考察新生儿语音感知的结构检测、偏差检测和母语感知的研究进行系统的定量分析, 探究新生儿的典型语音感知脑机制以及这三类语音加工相关脑区的异同。结果显示, 左侧额下回是新生儿检测语音结构的关键脑区; 双侧颞叶在新生儿语音偏差刺激检测中发挥关键作用; 新生儿的母语语音加工存在左侧化优势。     

Making Sense of the Hands and Mouth: The Role of “Secondary” Cues to Meaning in British Sign Language and English

Successful face-to-face communication involves multiple channels, notably hand gestures in addition to speech for spoken language, and mouth patterns in addition to manual signs for sign language. In four experiments, we assess the extent to which comprehenders of British Sign Language (BSL) and English rely, respectively, on cues from the hands and the mouth in accessing meaning. We created congruent and incongruent combinations of BSL manual signs and mouthings and English speech and gesture by video manipulation and asked participants to carry out a picture-matching task. When participants were instructed to pay attention only to the primary channel, incongruent “secondary” cues still affected performance, showing that these are reliably used for comprehension. When both cues were relevant, the languages diverged: Hand gestures continued to be used in English, but mouth movements did not in BSL. Moreover, non-fluent speakers and signers varied in the use of these cues: Gestures were found to be more important for non-native than native speakers; mouth movements were found to be less important for non-fluent signers. We discuss the results in terms of the information provided by different communicative channels, which combine to provide meaningful information.     

Guess who? Children use prosody to infer intended listeners

This study examined the relative influence of prosody and semantic content in children's inferences about intended listeners. Children (n = 72), who ranged in age from 5 to 10 years, heard greetings with prosody and content that was either infant or adult directed and chose the intended listener from amongst an infant or an adult. While content affected all children's choices, the effect of prosody was stronger (at least, for children aged 7–10 years). For conditions in which prosodic cues were suggestive of one listener, and content cues, another, children aged 7–10 years chose the listener according to prosody. In contrast, the youngest age group (5‐ to 6‐year‐olds) chose listeners at chance levels in these incongruent conditions. While prosodic cues were most influential in determining children's choices, their ratings of how certain they felt about their choices indicated that content nonetheless influenced their thinking about the intended listener. Results are the first to show the unique influence of prosody in children's thinking about appropriate speech styles. Findings add to work showing children's ability to use prosody to make inferences about speakers' communicative intentions.     

Bilingual exposure influences infant VOT perception

Linking the discrimination of voice onset time (VOT) in infancy with infant language background, we examine the perceptual changes of two VOT contrasts (/b/-/p/ and /p^h/-/p/) by Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants from 8 to 15 months of age. Results showed that language exposure and language dominance had a strong impact on monolingual and bilingual infant VOT perceptual patterns. In addition, perceptual turbulence was found at 8–9 months for bilingual infants, and stabilized perception was presented for all infants from 11 months onwards. We thus report a general input-driven developmental VOT perception in both monolingual and bilingual infants, with perceptual turbulence for bilinguals in the second half of the first year of life.