Speaker-Specific Cues Influence Semantic Disambiguation.

Addressees use information from specific speakers' previous discourse to make predictions about incoming linguistic material and to restrict the choice of potential interpretations. In this way, speaker specificity has been shown to be an influential factor in language processing across several domains e.g., spoken word recognition, sentence processing, and pragmatics. However, its influence on semantic disambiguation has received little attention to date. Using an exposure-test design and visual world eye tracking, we examined the effect of speaker-specific literal vs. nonliteral style on the disambiguation of metaphorical polysemes such as 'fork', 'head', and 'mouse'. Eye movement data revealed that when interpreting polysemous words with a literal and a nonliteral meaning, addressees showed a late-stage preference for the literal meaning in response to a nonliteral speaker. We interpret this as reflecting an indeterminacy in the intended meaning in this condition, as well as the influence of meaning dominance cues at later stages of processing. Response data revealed that addressees then ultimately resolved to the literal target in 90% of trials. These results suggest that addressees consider a range of senses in the earlier stages of processing, and that speaker style is a contextual determinant in semantic processing.

A lingering question addressed: Reading rate and most efficient listening rate are highly similar.

Is it possible that silent reading rate is the same as the most efficient listening rate? The hypothesis has been formulated in the past, but never got much traction because silent reading is almost twice as fast as typical speech. On the other hand, several studies have shown that listening comprehension retains high quality for spoken materials presented at speeds up to 275 words per minute (wpm), and a recent meta-analysis has also shown that reading rate is lower than often thought: 240-260 wpm on average. To address the question above, we ran a new study specifically comparing spontaneous silent reading rate with comprehension of speech presented at different rates within the same participants and using matched texts. We replicated the finding that listening comprehension was not hindered at the speech rate of 270 wpm but showed a steep decline at the rate of 315 wpm. Thus, the most efficient observed listening rate was on par with the spontaneous reading rate for the same texts (269 wpm on average). Therefore, we conclude that listening and reading follow the same time constraints. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

(Mis) understanding your native language: Regional accent impedes processing of information status.

Native-speaker listeners constantly predict upcoming units of speech as part of language processing, using various cues. However, this process is impeded in second-language listeners, as well as when the speaker has an unfamiliar accent. Whereas previous research has largely concentrated on the pronunciation of individual segments in foreign-accented speech, we show that regional accent impedes higher levels of language processing, making native listeners' processing resemble that of second-language listeners.In Experiment 1, 42 native speakers of Canadian English followed instructions spoken in British English to move objects on a screen while their eye movements were tracked. Native listeners use prosodic cues to information status to disambiguate between two possible referents, a new and a previously mentioned one, before they have heard the complete word. By contrast, the Canadian participants, similarly to second-language speakers, were not able to make full use of prosodic cues in the way native British listeners do.In Experiment 2, 19 native speakers of Canadian English rated the British English instructions used in Experiment 1, as well as the same instructions spoken by a Canadian imitating the British English prosody. While information status had no effect for the Canadian imitations, the original stimuli received higher ratings when prosodic realization and information status of the referent matched than for mismatches, suggesting a native-like competence in these offline ratings.These findings underline the importance of expanding psycholinguistic models of second language/dialect processing and representation to include both prosody and regional variation.

When processing costs impact predictive processing: The case of foreign-accented speech and accent experience.

Listeners use linguistic information and real-world knowledge to predict upcoming spoken words. However, studies of predictive processing have focused on prediction under optimal listening conditions. We examined the effect of foreign-accented speech on predictive processing. Furthermore, we investigated whether accent-specific experience facilitates predictive processing. Using the visual world paradigm, we demonstrated that although the presence of an accent impedes predictive processing, it does not preclude it. We further showed that as listener experience increases, predictive processing for accented speech increases and begins to approximate the pattern seen for native speech. These results speak to the limitation of the processing resources that must be allocated, leading to a trade-off when listeners are faced with increased uncertainty and more effortful recognition due to a foreign accent.

Influencing the time and space of lexical competition: The effect of gradient foreign accentedness.

This article examines the influence of gradient foreign accentedness on lexical competition during spoken word recognition. Using native and Mandarin-accented English words ranging in degree of foreign accentedness, we investigate the effect of increased accentedness on (a) the size of the competitor space and (b) the strength and duration of competitor activation. Here, we analyze the number of misperceptions in a transcription task, as well as the time course of competitor activation in a Visual World Paradigm eye-tracking task. The transcription data show that as accentedness increases, the number of unique misperceptions increases. This indicates that greater accent strength induces the activation of many additional competitors within the competition space relative to native speech. The eye-tracking data further show that, as accentedness increases, looks to competitors (not produced in the transcription task) increase both in likelihood and duration. This indicates that greater accentedness boosts the strength of competitor activation as well as the duration of the competition process, even when comprehension is ultimately successful, suggesting strong and diffuse competition within the lexicon. The results provide evidence of changes in the underlying dynamics, which lead to the pervasive processing costs associated with foreign-accented speech that are commonly observed in behavioral data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Orthographic Activation in L2 Spoken Word Recognition Depends on Proficiency: Evidence from Eye-Tracking.

The use of orthographic and phonological information in spoken word recognition was studied in a visual world task where L1 Finnish learners of L2 French (n = 64) and L1 French native speakers (n = 24) were asked to match spoken word forms with printed words while their eye movements were recorded. In Experiment 1, French target words were contrasted with competitors having a longer ( vs. ) or a shorter word initial phonological overlap ( vs. ) and an identical orthographic overlap. In Experiment 2, target words were contrasted with competitors of either longer ( vs. ) or shorter word initial orthographic overlap ( vs. ) and of an identical phonological overlap. A general phonological effect was observed in the L2 listener group but not in the L1 control group. No general orthographic effects were observed in the L2 or L1 groups, but a significant effect of proficiency was observed for orthographic overlap over time: higher proficiency L2 listeners used also orthographic information in the matching task in a time-window from 400 to 700 ms, whereas no such effect was observed for lower proficiency listeners. These results suggest that the activation of orthographic information in L2 spoken word recognition depends on proficiency in L2.

Perceived foreign accentedness: acoustic distances and lexical properties.

In this study, we examined speaker-dependent (acoustic) and speaker-independent (lexical) linguistic influences on perceived foreign accentedness. Accentedness ratings assigned to Chinese-accented English words were analyzed, taking accentedness as a continuum. The speaker-dependent variables were included as acoustic distances, measured in relation to typical native-speaker values. The speaker-independent variable measures were related to the properties of individual words, not influenced by the speech signal. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this represents the first attempt to examine speaker-dependent and speaker-independent variables simultaneously. The model indicated that the perception of accentedness is affected by both acoustic goodness of fit and lexical properties. The results are discussed in terms of matching variability in the input to multidimensional representations.