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Coping with phonological assimilation in speech perception: evidence for early compensation
1Universiteit Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Perception & Psychophysics
|October 8, 2003
Summary
Listeners process word pronunciation changes based on context. This study shows that viable phonological assimilations are perceived as standard words, indicating an early, prelexical mechanism for handling these sound changes.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Phonetics
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Word pronunciation is not static and can change based on surrounding sounds.
- Listeners must be able to adapt to these variations in their native language.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how Dutch listeners perceive context-dependent pronunciation variations.
- To determine the processing mechanisms underlying phonological assimilation in speech perception.
Main Methods:
- Four experiments were conducted, including word identification tasks and electrophysiological measurements (mismatch negativity).
- Listeners identified words in contexts that promoted either viable or unviable phonological assimilations.
- Control experiments assessed perceptual masking and lexical influences.
Main Results:
- Listeners confused viable assimilations with canonical word forms during identification.
- Unviable phonological changes, unlike viable ones, elicited a significant mismatch negativity.
- Results suggest context-dependent pronunciation variations are processed prelexically.
Conclusions:
- Phonological assimilation in speech perception is handled by an early, prelexical mechanism.
- Listeners' perception is influenced by the viability of phonological changes within a given context.