Effects of cognitive load on speech recognition

Mattys, Sven L.; Wiget, Lukas

doi:10.1016/j.jml.2011.04.004

Cited by 119 publications

(211 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…The fact that a load effect was only found for the between-category pairs could therefore indicate that cognitive load affected predominantly postcategorisation processes. A caveat here is that the overall level of discrimination on within-category trials in Mattys and Wiget (2011) was near chance in the no-load condition, which makes it impossible to distinguish a locus account from a floor effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…For example, Mattys and Wiget (2011) tested the acuity of speech perception under two conditions: a no-load baseline in which participants only performed a speech-perception task and a load condition in which participants performed a concurrent visual search task-finding a red square among an array of black squares and red triangles. The results showed that speech perception suffered in the dual-task condition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How does cognitive load influence speech perception? An encoding hypothesis

Mitterer

Mattys

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Two experiments investigated the conditions under which cognitive load exerts an effect on the acuity of speech perception. These experiments extend earlier research by using a different speech perception task (four-interval oddity task) and by implementing cognitive load through a task often thought to be modular, namely, face processing. In the cognitive-load conditions, participants were required to remember two faces presented before the speech stimuli. In Experiment 1, performance in the speech-perception task under cognitive load was not impaired in comparison to a no-load baseline condition. In Experiment 2, we modified the load condition minimally such that it required encoding of the two faces simultaneously with the speech stimuli. As a reference condition, we also used a visual search task that in earlier experiments had led to poorer speech perception. Both concurrent tasks led to decrements in the speech task. The results suggest that speech perception is affected even by loads thought to be processed modularly, and that, critically, encoding in working memory might be the locus of interference.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does cognitive load influence speech perception? An encoding hypothesis

Mitterer

Mattys

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…The statistical powers of Experiment 1 and 3 were the same, as were the average response latencies. A possible explanation comes from the earlier finding that if memory load is higher, listeners tend to use less acoustic detail in speech comprehension (e.g., Mattys and Wiget, 2011). The combination of two types of variation in Experiment 3 made Experiment 3 more demanding than Experiment 1, since the greater variation made linking the acoustic signal to semantic representations more effortful for the participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How robust are exemplar effects in word comprehension?

Hanique

Aalders

Ernestus

2015

Benjamins Current Topics

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This paper studies the robustness of exemplar effects in word comprehension by means of four long-term priming experiments with lexical decision tasks in Dutch. A prime and target represented the same word type and were presented with the same or different degree of reduction. In Experiment 1, participants heard only a small number of trials, a large proportion of repeated words, and stimuli produced by only one speaker. They recognized targets more quickly if these represented the same degree of reduction as their primes, which forms additional evidence for the exemplar effects reported in the literature. Similar effects were found for two speakers who differ in their pronunciations. In Experiment 2, with a smaller proportion of repeated words and more trials between prime and target, participants recognized targets preceded by primes with the same or a different degree of reduction equally quickly. Also, in Experiments 3 and 4, in which listeners were not exposed to one but two types of pronunciation variation (reduction degree and speaker voice), no exemplar effects arose. We conclude that the role of exemplars in speech comprehension during natural conversations, which typically involve several speakers and few repeated content words, may be smaller than previously assumed.Keywords: speech comprehension, exemplar effects, pronunciation variation, acoustic reduction 3 Several models of speech comprehension assume that the mental lexicon stores the pronunciation of a word with two types of representations, namely abstract representations and exemplars (e.g., Goldinger, 2007;McLennan, Luce, and Charles-Luce, 2003). Abstract representations are strings of sound symbols like phonemes or phonological features, which only contain information about acoustic properties that distinguish between these symbols. In contrast, clouds of exemplars represent many occurrences of words that the language user has uttered or heard. Each exemplar is a detailed representation corresponding to the speech signal of one occurrence and thus contains subtle acoustic information, for example about the word's exact pronunciation or the speaker's voice. Many articles in the literature point to a role of exemplars in word comprehension. This study investigates the robustness of these exemplar effects.Exemplar effects have been established in several priming experiments (e.g., Bradlow, Nygaard, and Pisoni, 1999;Craik and Kirsner, 1974;Goh, 2005;Goldinger, 1996;Janse, 2008;Mattys and Liss, 2008;McLennan et al., 2003;McLennan and Luce, 2005;Palmeri, Goldinger, and Pisoni, 1993).These experiments contained repeated words and the comprehension of the second occurrence of a word (the target) is expected to be facilitated by the first occurrence (the prime). Primes and targets were completely identical, that is the same token, or they differed in speech rate, time-compression, the realization of a certain segment (e.g., intervocalic /t,d/ produced as [t,d] or as a flap in American English), or the speaker's voice. Most experiments showed...

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“…As reviewed above, attention has been shown to play a role in signal optimization during early processing stage of speech perception (e.g. Gordon et al, 1993;Mattys & Wiget, 2011). However, these studies did not measure individuals' attentional ability, and it remains unclear which components of attention may influence the acoustic analysis during perception.…”

Section: Cognitive Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the operation of attention in speech perception is proposed to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio in the encoding of acoustic cues (Gordon, Eberhardt, & Rueckl, 1993). Mattys and Wiget (2011) found decreased accuracy in discriminating voice onset time (VOT) differences in the presence of a cognitive load due to dual task compared to a single-task condition, suggesting that detailed phonetic analysis would be compromised if attentional resources are reduced. It appears that attention improves contrast sensitivity and signal segmentation by engaging the attentional focus onto relevant information to intensify the signal (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive basis of individual differences in speech perception, production and representations: The role of domain general attentional switching

Law

2017

Atten Percept Psychophys

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This study investigated whether individual differences in cognitive functions, attentional abilities in particular, were associated with individual differences in the quality of phonological representations, resulting in variability in speech perception and production. To do so, we took advantage of a tone merging phenomenon in Cantonese, and identified three groups of typically developed speakers who could differentiate the two rising tones (high and low rising) in both perception and production [+Per+Pro], only in perception [+Per-Pro], or in neither modalities [-Per-Pro]. Perception and production were reflected, respectively, by discrimination sensitivity d′ and acoustic measures of pitch offset and rise time differences. Components of event-related potential (ERP)-the mismatch negativity (MMN) and the ERPs to amplitude rise time-were taken to reflect the representations of the acoustic cues of tones. Components of attention and working memory in the auditory and visual modalities were assessed with published test batteries. The results show that individual differences in both perception and production are linked to how listeners encode and represent the acoustic cues (pitch contour and rise time) as reflected by ERPs. The present study has advanced our knowledge from previous work by integrating measures of perception, production, attention, and those reflecting quality of representation, to offer a comprehensive account for the underlying cognitive factors of individual differences in speech processing. Particularly, it is proposed that domain-general attentional switching affects the quality of perceptual representations of the acoustic cues, giving rise to individual differences in perception and production.

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Effects of cognitive load on speech recognition

Cited by 119 publications

References 59 publications

How does cognitive load influence speech perception? An encoding hypothesis

How does cognitive load influence speech perception? An encoding hypothesis

How robust are exemplar effects in word comprehension?

Cognitive basis of individual differences in speech perception, production and representations: The role of domain general attentional switching

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