Doctoral Dissertation Research: Temporal and Spatial Properties of Speech at the Intersection of Production and Perception

博士论文研究：生产与感知交叉点的语音时空特性

• 批准号: 0951831
• 负责人: Lisa Davidson
• 金额: $ 0.48万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-03-15 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0951831&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Temporal; Spatial

This project will address fundamental questions about the nature of the link between producing and perceiving speech. Existing experimental evidence points to the automatic and involuntary activation of the speech production system during speech perception. One goal of this project is to investigate what properties of speech are important in the perception-production link, a question that has not been systematically addressed. Speech production involves spatial properties, which speech articulators make what constrictions where in the vocal tract, and temporal properties, how those constrictions are arranged relative to one another in time. A series of cue-distractor experiments will be conducted to elucidate the conditions under which perception-production interactions occur in speech. Such interactions will be detected by measuring participants' reaction times to syllables produced (the cue) while another syllable is being perceived (the distractor). Subjects' reaction times will be compared in cases where the cue and distractor share spatial properties (for example, "pa" and "ba", which both involve a closing of the upper and lower lips) or temporal properties (for example, "ba" and "da", which both involve similar timing between the oral closure and vowel voicing). By analyzing the reaction times in such tasks, we will know if and how the involuntary activation resulting from the perceived distractor combines with the intended response to the visual cue. A second goal of the project is to develop a formal computational model of the perception-production link to account for and unify existing and new evidence for this link.Action and perception are known to be closely linked in behavior. This study investigates a specific instance of the link between action and perception in speech, thereby sharpening our understanding of the mechanisms underlying human communication. The project will provide an explicit computational model of the link between speech perception and production in specific experimental paradigms involving reaction time data. Such a model has not been developed despite many years of work on the topic of production-perception links. This model will be of value to the field because it will help to refine further predictions, and thus to design new experiments for sharpening our understanding of perceptuo-motor interactions in speech. A better understanding of the relation between perception and production may shed light on the ways in which disorders of one domain may be related to the disorders of the other. For example, individuals with non-fluent aphasia have difficulty with speech production but generally not with speech perception, and they have been shown to improve on certain production tasks through multi-sensory speech perception training. This research therefore has potential long-term benefits for revealing clinically relevant insights into the mechanisms of new treatment approaches. In addition, the methods used to collect and analyze response time data along with the computational modeling component in this project will add new important components in an existing training framework introducing undergraduates to integrative methods in theoretical and experimental linguistics.

该项目将解决有关产生和感知语音之间联系的性质的基本问题。现有的实验证据表明语音感知期间语音生产系统的自动和非自愿激活。该项目的一个目标是研究在感知生产链接中哪些语音属性很重要，这一问题尚未系统地解决。语音产生涉及空间特性，这些言语示意剂会在声音区域和时间属性中进行限制，以及这些收缩方式如何相对于彼此的及时排列。将进行一系列提示分散器实验，以阐明语音中感知产生相互作用的条件。通过测量参与者对产生的音节的反应时间（提示），而另一个音节被感知（干扰物），将检测到这种相互作用。在提示和干扰物具有空间特性的情况下，将比较受试者的反应时间（例如，“ pa”和“ ba”，既涉及上下嘴唇的关闭）或时间属性（例如，“ ba”和“ da”，涉及口服闭合和元音之间的相似时机）。通过分析此类任务中的反应时间，我们将知道，感知到的干扰物引起的非自愿激活与对视觉提示的预期响应如何结合。该项目的第二个目标是开发一种正式的计算模型，以说明和统一此链接的现有和新证据。这项研究调查了动作与语音感知之间联系的特定实例，从而增强了我们对人类交流基础机制的理解。该项目将在涉及反应时间数据的特定实验范式中提供一个明确的计算模型。尽管在生产感知链接方面有多年的工作，但仍未开发这种模型。该模型将对该领域具有价值，因为它将有助于完善进一步的预测，从而设计新的实验，以增强我们对语音中感知运动相互作用的理解。更好地理解感知与生产之间的关系可能会阐明一个领域的疾病可能与另一个领域的疾病有关。例如，非素质失语症的个体在语音产生方面难以进行，但通常没有语音感知，并且已证明通过多感官语音感知训练可以改善某些生产任务。因此，这项研究具有潜在的长期益处，可以揭示对新治疗方法机制的临床相关见解。此外，用于收集和分析响应时间数据以及该项目中的计算建模组件的方法将在现有的培训框架中添加新的重要组成部分，该培训框架将本科生在理论和实验语言学中引入了综合方法。