[LIN 112] Speech Perception quiz

Direct Realism

Listeners can directly perceive the articulatory behavior of speakers

Exemplar Theory

Speech is perceived by comparing incoming acoustic forms to stored memories/examples of previous speech experiences.

Auditory Theories

Speech is perceived through general auditory and cognitive mechanisms rather than articulatory simulation.

Motor Theory

Listeners perceive speech by internally simulating articulatory gestures in the motor system.

Categorical Perception

A key observation in speech perception research that incremental increases in acoustic features do not correspond to incremental increases in identification rates.

Cue

An acoustic characteristic used to distinguish speech sounds.

Perception

The sensation, identification, and interpretation of external stimuli by sensory mechanisms

Discrimination

The ability to distinguish stimuli as being different from each other

Lack of Invariance

The idea that speech segments and their acoustic realizations do not have a one-to-one relationship

Bottom-up processing

Speech perception is built from acoustic input upward toward interpretation.

Top-down processing

Higher-level expectations and knowledge influence perception.

Why does categorical perception support bottom-up processing?

Listeners respond directly to acoustic distinctions like VOT.

Why does the phoneme restoration effect support top-down processing?

Listeners use context and expectations to “fill in” missing sounds.

Why do animal studies support auditory theories?

Animals can perceive speech distinctions despite lacking human speech production systems.

What is the production–perception link?

Individual differences in speech perception are related to how individuals themselves produce speech.

What did the Coetzee et al. study investigate?

Whether speakers who produce stronger vowel nasalization are also more sensitive to nasalization perceptually.

Did the Coetzee et al. study support the production–perception link?

Yes. Participants who produced earlier/more extensive nasalization used nasality cues more efficiently in perception.

Why is studying production useful for understanding perception?

Production patterns may explain why listeners weight perceptual cues differently.

What additional information does eye tracking provide over reaction-time tasks?

Real-time processing information showing when listeners shift attention during perception.

Co-articulation

The overlap between neighboring speech sounds, where articulation of one sound influences another because speech is produced continuously rather than segment-by-segment.

Why is eye tracking useful for studying coarticulation?

Coarticulatory cues unfold over time, and eye tracking reveals when listeners begin using those cues.

Why are contour tone languages especially suitable for eye tracking studies?

Pitch changes dynamically across the syllable, so eye tracking reveals when listeners integrate changing pitch information.

What is a speech continuum experiment?

Researchers create gradual acoustic changes between two speech sounds and measure category judgments.

What does a perceptual boundary represent?

The point along a continuum where listeners switch from identifying one category to another.

In sound change studies, what does a shifted perceptual boundary suggest?

Different expectations or cue weighting across groups.

How would Motor Theory predict a production–perception link?

Because perception relies on articulatory simulation, production and perception should strongly correlate.

How would Exemplar Theory predict a production–perception link?

Stored speech experiences include both heard and produced speech, so production influences perceptual expectations.

Why could the Coetzee study support both bottom-up and top-down processing?

Bottom-up because listeners use acoustic nasality cues; top-down because expectations about coarticulation guide interpretation.

How can coarticulation function as a perceptual cue?

Listeners use anticipatory information from one sound (like vowel nasalization) to predict upcoming segments.

Why do listeners vary in cue weighting?

Different linguistic experiences and production habits shape perceptual expectations.