Puzzle-solving science: the quixotic quest for units in speech perception

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Psycholinguistics
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• Speech perception involves segmenting continuous signals into discrete linguistic units.
• Identifying the fundamental building blocks of speech perception has been a long-standing challenge.
• Previous research has proposed various candidate units, each with supporting evidence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) as a framework for understanding speech units.
• To investigate the emergent nature of speech units as properties of perceptual dynamics.
• To examine the influence of bottom-up and top-down factors on speech unit perception.

Main Methods:

• Review of experimental methods, stimulus constraints, variance sources, and computational models in speech perception research.
• Experimental assessment of social influence on phoneme-syllable competition.
• Experimental assessment of repetition effects in speech monitoring data.

Main Results:

• Endorsement of Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) where speech units are emergent properties.
• Units achieve perceptual coherence (resonance) for conscious encoding.
• Experimental data indicate "primary" speech units are symmetrically influenced by bottom-up and top-down knowledge.

Conclusions:

• Speech units are not fixed entities but emerge dynamically through perceptual resonance.
• Both sensory information and higher-level cognitive processes interact to shape speech unit perception.
• Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) provides a viable model for explaining the dynamic nature of speech segmentation and structure.