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Related Experiment Videos

When can listeners detect disfluency in spontaneous speech?

R J Lickley1, E G Bard

  • 1Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh, U.K. robin@ling.ed.ac.uk

Language and Speech
|April 9, 1999
PubMed
Summary

Listeners cannot predict speech disfluencies but can detect them early. This study on spontaneous speech disfluency detection reveals crucial timing insights for speech processing models.

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Speech Communication
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Spontaneous speech often contains disfluencies, such as hesitations and repetitions.
  • Understanding how listeners process and detect these disfluencies is crucial for developing robust speech recognition systems.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the temporal dynamics of disfluency detection in spontaneous speech.
  • To determine whether listeners can predict upcoming disfluencies or only detect them post-hoc.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments utilized gated word recognition with disfluency judgments.
  • Stimuli included spontaneous disfluent utterances and various fluent controls.
  • Listeners judged disfluency at word-level and fine-grained temporal gates (35 ms).

Main Results:

  • Listeners were unreliable in predicting upcoming speech disfluencies.
  • Disfluencies were reliably detected within the first word gate after the interruption.
  • Detection occurred before complete word recognition, indicating rapid processing.

Conclusions:

  • Listeners detect, rather than predict, disfluencies in spontaneous speech.
  • Disfluency detection is a rapid process occurring early in the speech signal.
  • Findings inform computational models of speech perception and disfluency handling.

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