Study Question. Compare and contrast acoustic and articulatory phonetics 10/24/2015 Language »Speech perception ◊Acoustic Phonetics ◊Articulatory Phonetics ◊Top-down processes

Language Phonology: The rules underlying production and comprehension of speech. Phonetics: The nature of linguistic sounds. »Articulatory phonetics: Placement of the mouth, tongue, lips, etc. used to produce particular sounds. »Acoustic phonetics: Physical characteristics of speech sounds. ◊The Speech Spectrograph

Language Some Basics »Qualitative and quantitive elements of sensory stimuli Low High Compression

Language The Speech spectrograph

Language Acoustic Phonetics »Phoneme: The smallest unit of speech that if changed would change the meaning of a word. E.g., “Pit” ----> /p/ + /I/ + /t/ /b/ /b/+/I/+/t/ = “bit” /p/+/i/+/t/ = “peat” /i/ /b/+/I/+/g/ = “pig” /g/

Language Consonants Vowels p pull s sip i heed b bull z zip I hidhid m man r rip e bait w will f f æbadbad vvet uboot  thigh U putput y yip t tie k kaleoboat d die g gale n near h hail a hothot l lear  sing should s  head  pleasure z c chop gyro j thyo butbut V bought c sofa e manyi

Language Articulatory Phonetics »Three ways in which consonants differ. 1.Place of articulation –Bilabial --> /p/ –Labiodental --> /f/ –Dental --> /  / –Alveolar --> /z/ –Palatal --> /ˆz/ –Velar --> /k/ –Glottal --> /h/

Language Articulatory Phonetics »Three ways in which consonants differ. 2. Manner of articulation –Stops --> /b/ –Fricatives --> /s/ –Africatives --> /j/ –Nasals --> /m/ –Lateral --> /L/ –Semivowels --> /r/ 3. Voicing ◊Vibration of vocal chords

Language Articulatory Phonetics »Voicing

Language Articulatory Phonetics »Is speech special? ◊Specialized neural mechanisms for perceiving speech. –Categorical perception Voice onset-time and distinguishing /d/ from /t/

Language Articulatory Phonetics »Vowels ◊Positioning and part of tongue –Height High (/i/ beet) Med (/e/ bait) Low (/a/ pot) –Part Front (/I/ bit) Central (but) Back (/o/ boat)

Language The search for invariants »Distinctive features ◊Chomskey & Halle (1968) –The Sound Pattern of English 5 groups of features ◊Miller & Nicely ◊Articulatory features »Problems with a simple bottom-up approach ◊There are no periods of silence between phonemes

Language The search for invariants »Phonemic information is presented in parallel ◊Coarticulation ◊E.g. Cf. /M/ in “Tim” vs. “/M/ in “mad” »We perceive them as the same, but they are different »We perceive the same sound differently according to the context ◊E.g.: Writer vs. Rider ◊E.g.: Insert a silence between /s/ and /i/ --> “ski” Insert a silence between /s/ and /u/ --> “spew”

Language Top down processes »Phonemic restoration effect (Warren, 1970) ◊Their respective legi*latures ◊Found a *eel on the axle ◊Found a *eel on the shoe

Language Perceiving conversational speech »Two main problems: 1.There are no physical boundaries between words –Anna Mary candy lights since imp pulp lay thing 2. Speech is sloppy –-> Misheard Lyrics –-> This was the best buy vs. She is a bad girl

Language Perceiving conversational speech »Two main problems:

Language What are you doing ?

Language Whad’ya doin’?

Language Top-down processes and speech perception »Phonemic perception ◊The McGurk EffectThe McGurk Effect »Sentence comprenension ◊Miller & Isard (1963) –Participants shadow sentences: Grammatic: Bears steal honey from the hive. Semantically incorrect: Bears shoot honey on the highways. Ungrammatic: Across bears eyes honey the bill.

Language Top-down processes and speech perception ◊Miller & Isard (1963) –Results Gram.Nonsem.Nongram. No noise 89% 79% 56% Mod. Noise 63% 22% 3%