Kai Alter Newcastle Auditory Group Segmentation in speech: On the processing of boundaries and accents

In this talk… basic mechanisms of sound segmentation prosodic boundaries segmentation in dialogues other boundaries

Scientific background Synamps2 system and Neuroscan QuickCap

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation prosodic boundaries Intonational boundaries are essential to understanding speech IPh = Intonational phrase boundary (A) ]IPh ] (B) ]IPh ] When it rains] IPh cats and dogs stay at home When it rains cats and dogs] IPh stay at home

Grand average over 48 sentences per condition / 48 adults; German materials FZ CZ PZ F8 FC4 CP6 O2 F7 FC3 CP5 O1 Steinhauer, Alter & Friederici, Nature Neuroscience Processing Intonational boundaries - the Closure Positive Shift (CPS) (A) ]IPh ] (B) ]IPh ]IPh ] basic mechanisms of sound segmentation prosodic boundaries

Intonational boundaries are essential to understanding speech IPh boundary CPS IPh boundary CPS acoustic input phonological encoding neural response basic mechanisms of sound segmentation prosodic boundaries

in relative clauses (Isel, Alter & Friederici. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2005) in parenthetical constructions (Toepel & Alter. Speech Prosody, 2002) in hummed speech (Pannekamp et al., Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2005) (fMRI: Ischebeck, Friederici & Alter. Cerebral Cortex 2008) in music (Knoesche et al., Journal of Human Brain Mapping, 2005) CPS independent from prosodic cues (Grube, Griffiths & Alter, in preparation) CPS as a brain marker for sound segmentation basic mechanisms of sound segmentation prosodic boundaries

Where accentuation intervenes... Influence of context (focus) Peter promises to SUPPORT ANNAand... Please note: accents are ‚focus accents‘ induced by a preceding wh-question German materials with verb-final and focus in-situ patterns what?whom? accent basic mechanisms of sound segmentation segmentation in dialogues

CPS as a brain marker for segmentation Please note: if presented in isolation, the CPS ‚moves‘ to the position of the IPh Alter, K. in: Lacheret, A. & J. Francois (eds.). Fonctions et moyens d'expression de la focalisation focus accent CPS acoustic input phonological encoding neural response basic mechanisms of sound segmentation segmentation in dialogues

The CPS is a useful tool to investigate sequencing in sound processing Summary

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