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Nevertheless, it persists: Dimension-based statistical learning and normalization of speech impact different levels
1Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA; Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA.
Cognition
|June 6, 2020
Summary
Listeners can adapt to speech variability through perceptual learning and normalization. This study shows vowel duration influences both vowel and consonant perception differently, highlighting distinct processing levels for acoustic adaptation.
Area of Science:
- Psychoacoustics
- Speech Perception
- Auditory Neuroscience
Background:
- Speech perception must overcome significant acoustic variability.
- Normalization and perceptual learning are key mechanisms for adapting to acoustic variability.
- The interaction between normalization and perceptual learning remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the combined effects of normalization and perceptual learning on acoustic-to-phonetic mapping.
- To examine how vowel duration is utilized in categorization under varying acoustic conditions.
Main Methods:
- Listeners categorized nonwords ('setch'/'satch') with manipulated vowel duration.
- An 'artificial accent' introduced short-term distributional regularities in vowel acoustic dimensions.
- Measured the influence of vowel duration on both vowel and consonant categorization.
Main Results:
- Dimension-based statistical learning altered the impact of vowel duration on vowel categorization.
- Vowel duration continued to influence consonant categorization via duration contrast (normalization).
- Vowel duration demonstrated a dual role, supporting both normalization and perceptual learning.
Conclusions:
- Normalization and perceptual learning operate at distinct levels of auditory processing.
- Normalization acts across auditory dimensions, while statistical learning affects dimension-phonetic category connections.
- Speech variability is managed by flexible, multi-level perceptual mechanisms.
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