文章基本信息

标题：The Influence of Different Prosodic Cues on Word Segmentation
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作者：Matzinger, Theresa ; Ritt, Nikolaus ; Fitch, W. Tecumseh 等
期刊名称：Frontiers in Psychology
电子版ISSN：1664-1078
出版年度：2021
卷号：12
页码：458
DOI：10.3389/fpsyg.2021.622042
出版社：Frontiers Media
摘要：A prerequisite for spoken language learning is segmenting continuous speech into words. Amongst many possible cues to identify word boundaries, listeners can use both transitional probabilities between syllables and various prosodic cues. However, the relative importance of these cues remains unclear, and previous experiments have not directly compared the effects of contrasting multiple prosodic cues. We used artificial language learning experiments, where native German speaking participants extracted meaningless trisyllabic “words” from a continuous speech stream, to evaluate these factors. We compared a baseline condition (statistical cues only) to five test conditions, in which word-final syllables were either a) followed by a pause, b) lengthened, c) shortened, d) changed to a lower pitch, or e) changed to a higher pitch. To evaluate robustness and generality we used three tasks varying in difficulty. Overall, pauses and final lengthening were perceived as converging with the statistical cues and facilitated speech segmentation, with pauses helping most. Final-syllable shortening hindered baseline speech segmentation, indicating that when cues conflict, prosodic cues can override statistical cues. Surprisingly, pitch cues had little effect, suggesting that duration may be more relevant for speech segmentation than pitch in our study context. We discuss our findings with regard to the contribution to speech segmentation of language-universal boundary cues versus language-specific stress patterns.
关键词：language learning; speech segmentation; Prosody; statistical cues; word stress; pauses