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Online adjustment of phonetic expectation of lexical tones to accommodate speaker variation

Online adjustment of phonetic expectation of lexical tones to accommodate speaker variation Speaker: Dr Zhang Caicai (Assistant Professor Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) Overview: An unresolved question in speech perception is how speech signals with speaker variation are mapped onto their perceptual representations. In this study, this issue was examined using a written-word/spoken-word matching paradigm, where listeners could adjust phonetic expectations of spoken words carrying lexical tones according to speaker-specific F0 cues contained in a preceding speech context, to analyse the tone of the incoming spoken word. Behavioural results showed that Cantonese listeners perceived spoken words differently, in a way compatible with the adjustment of F0 expectations of lexical tones to accommodate between- and within-speaker variation in F0. Electrophysiologically, effects of F0 expectation adjustment were found in the phonological mapping negativity (PMN) time-window (250-310 ms after spoken word onset). These results suggest that phonetic representations of lexical tones are adjustable in a speaker- and context-specific manner, with the adjustment occurring no later than pre-lexical phonemic processing. These findings are consistent with the exemplar theory.

Prosodic Primitives in Vocalizations of Infants with Different Mother Tongues

Prosodic Primitives in Vocalizations of Infants with Different Mother Tongues Speaker: Prof. Kathleen Wermke (Center for Pre-Speech Development & Developmental Disorders, Bavarian Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg, Germany) Overview: The eyes are the windows of human mind to perceive and process the information in the visual world. Prosodic features such as melody, intensity, and rhythm are essential for an infant acquiring language. There is compelling evidence that infants are sensitive to melodic features of their native language long before speech-like babbling sounds are uttered or first words are produced. Early vocal development is characterized by a universal, unidirected sequence of so-called “vocal stages”, from crying via cooing, marginal and canonical babbling to word and sentence production. Cultural factors, like the ambient language, are known to modify acoustic properties of infant vocalization while the mentioned developmental sequence stays unaffected. Our cross-cultural infant studies lend support to universal as well as culture (language)- specific phenomena in early vocal behaviour. The presentation will sketch typical vocal phenomena of infants by displaying (graphs and sound) melody /sound patterns. The presentation will sketch early vocalization development in terms of frequency modulation as essential component of tone, of combinatorial complexification of melody structure and of increasing interaction between laryngeal and supra-laryngeal sound production. The development of melodic skills precedes by far any symbolic word use and rule-based grammar constructions and is a rich inventory for a later assimilation of intonation prototypes in speech.