Listeners use lexical knowledge to retune phoneme categories. When hearing an ambiguous sound between /s/ and /f/ in lexically unambiguous contexts such as gira[s/f], listeners learn to interpret the sound as /f/ because gira[f] is a real word and gira[s] is not. Later, they apply this learning even in lexically ambiguous contexts (perceiving knife rather than nice). Although such retuning could help listeners adapt to foreign-accented speech, research has focused on single phonetic contrasts artificially manipulated to create ambiguous sounds; however, accented speech varies along many dimensions. It is therefore unclear whether analogies to adaptation to accented speech are warranted. In the present studies, the to-be-adapted ambiguous sound was embedded in a global foreign accent. In addition, conditions of cross-speaker generalization were tested with focus on the extent to which perceptual similarity between 2 speakers’ fricatives is a condition for generalization to occur. Results showed that listeners retune phoneme categories manipulated within the context of a global foreign accent, and that they generalize this short-term learning to the perception of phonemes from previously unheard speakers. However, generalization was observed only when exposure and test speakers’ fricatives were sampled across a similar perceptual space.
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机译:侦听器使用词汇知识来重新调整音素类别。当在词汇明确的上下文(例如gira [s / f])中听到/ s /和/ f /之间的歧义声音时,听众会学会将声音解释为/ f /,因为gira [f]是真实单词,而gira [s]不是。后来,他们甚至在词汇上模棱两可的上下文中也应用了这种学习(感知刀而不是友善)。尽管这种重调可以帮助听众适应异国情调的语音,但研究仍集中在人工操纵以产生歧义声音的单个语音对比上。但是,口音在许多方面都有所不同。因此,尚不清楚是否需要对重读语音进行类比。在当前的研究中,要适应的歧义声音被嵌入到全球的外国口音中。此外,针对跨说话者泛化的条件进行了测试,重点是在两个说话者的摩擦音之间的感知相似性是泛化发生的条件的程度。结果表明,听众会重新调整在全球外国口音背景下操纵的音素类别,并且他们将这种短期学习推广到以前从未听说过的音素感知中。但是,只有在相似的感知空间中对暴露对象和测试说话者的摩擦语进行采样时,才能观察到泛化。
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