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The Temporal Dynamics of Stop Consonant Perception: Evidence from Context Effects
Wenli Liu1, Xiaoguang Pan1, Xiang Zhou1
1Department of Social Psychology, Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, China.
Language and Speech
|February 13, 2023
Summary
Speech perception occurs in two stages: auditory and phonetic processing. This study reveals phonetic category activation occurs before 100ms, distinct from auditory processing, supporting a two-stage model.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Speech Perception
Background:
- Phonetic category perception is theorized to involve sequential auditory and phonetic processing stages.
- The precise temporal dynamics of these distinct processing stages remain underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal course of auditory and phonetic processing in stop consonant perception.
- To differentiate the context effects arising from auditory processing versus phonetic category activation.
Main Methods:
- Utilized stop consonant segments as context stimuli with varying inter-stimulus intervals.
- Examined the temporal dynamics of perception by analyzing identification of a target stop continuum.
Main Results:
- Phonetic category activation for stop consonants was observed to emerge before 100 milliseconds (ms) of processing time.
- Phonetic category activation elicited contrast context effects, distinct from those generated by auditory processing.
Conclusions:
- Findings provide empirical support for a two-stage model of speech perception.
- The study elucidates the distinct time courses for auditory and phonetic processing in speech perception.
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