Sensation and Perception - Chapter 12

Aphasia

an impairment in language production or comprehension brought about by neurological damage

Broca’s aphasia

a form of aphasia resulting from damage to Broca’s area, causing a deficit in language production

Broca’s area

an important area in the production of speech, located in the left frontal lobe

Categorical perception

the perception of different acoustic stimuli as being identical phonemes up to a point at which perception flips to perceive another phoneme

Coarticulation

the phenomenon in which one phoneme affects the acoustic properties of subsequent phonemes

Consonants

speech sounds made with restricted airflow

Formants

frequency bands with higher amplitudes among the harmonics of a vowel sound; each individual vowel sound has a specific pattern of formants

General

mechanism theories

International Phonetic Alphabet

an alphabetic convention that provides a unique symbol for each and every phoneme in use in human languages

Larynx (voice box)

a structure that affects the pitches of sounds being made by the human vocal tract

Manner of articulation

how airflow restriction in the vocal tract occurs

McGurk effect

a phenomenon in which vision influences the sounds people report hearing

Motor theory of speech perception

the theory that the core of speech perception is that the system infers the sound from the movements of the vocal tract

Perceptual narrowing

the developmental process whereby regularly experienced phonemes are homed in on, with simultaneous diminishing of the ability to discriminate unfamiliar phonemes

Pharynx

the top portion of the throat

Phonemes

the basic units of sound in human language

Phonemic restoration effect

an illusion in which participants hear sounds that are masked by white noise, but context makes the missing sound apparent

Place of articulation

the point along the vocal tract at which the airflow is constricted

Special

mechanism theories

Trachea (windpipe)

the tube bringing air to and from the mouth

Unvoiced consonant

a consonant that is produced without using the vocal chords

Uvula

a flap of tissue at the top of the throat that can close off the nasal cavity

Voice area

an area located in the superior temporal sulcus that responds to the sound of the human voice but less so to other stimuli

Voiced consonant

a consonant that is produced using the vocal chords

Voicing

whether the vocal cords are vibrating or not

Voicing onset time

the production of certain consonants (called stop consonants) in which there is a difference between the first sound of the phoneme and the movement of the vocal cords (called voicing)

Vowels

speech sounds made with unrestricted airflow

Wernicke’s aphasia

a form of aphasia resulting from damage to Wernicke’s area, causing a deficit in language comprehension

Wernicke’s area

an important area in speech comprehension, located in the left temporal lobe

Word segmentation

the ability of speakers of a language to correctly perceive boundaries between words