Episodic memory reflected in printed word naming

Abstract

Although memory is typically measured by recall or recognition, it is also expressed by fluent or stylized task performance. In this experiment, 12 volunteers (called speakers) completed four experimental stages over a 2-week period. They read printed words aloud in two sessions, before and after exposure to auditory training tokens. They later completed a recognition memory test, discriminating old from new words. Groups of perceptual judges assessed the speakers' vocal imitation by comparing utterances recorded before and after training and deciding which sounded like "better imitations" of the training tokens. The data showed clear evidence of postexposure imitation, with systematic effects that preclude strategic explanations. The contents of episodic memory were reflected by participants' speaking style while they were reading aloud. Together, the imitation and recognition data suggest that memory preserves detailed traces of spoken words; those traces were apparently activated when participants later read the same words in the same context.

Visibility of speech articulation enhances auditory phonetic convergence

“…This effect of word frequency on rated convergence is consistent with the past literature (e.g., Goldinger, 1998;Goldinger & Azuma, 2004; but see Pardo et al, 2013). The lexical model also revealed ratings of convergence to be greater for low-density (M = .710) than for high-density (M = .664) words, β = 0.280, SE = 0.093, Z = 3.019, p < .003.…”

“…Our experiments also tested word stimuli that systematically varied in both their word frequency and phonological neighborhood density characteristics, consistent with some previous convergence studies (e.g., Goldinger, 1998;Goldinger & Azuma, 2004;Pardo, Jordan, Mallari, Scanlon, & Lewandowski, 2013). Perceivers have previously been found to converge more to the spoken utterances of words with lower frequencies of occurrence within the English lexicon (Goldinger, 1998;Goldinger & Azuma, 2004).…”

“…Perceivers have previously been found to converge more to the spoken utterances of words with lower frequencies of occurrence within the English lexicon (Goldinger, 1998;Goldinger & Azuma, 2004). Goldinger (1998) ascribed word frequency effects in phonetic convergence to stored representations within an episodic lexicon: Words with a lower rate of occurrence within the lexicon have fewer representations in memory.…”

Dialect divergence and convergence in New Zealand English

“…In what is known as a shadowing task or an auditory naming task where participants simply repeat single words after a model talker, Goldinger (1998) found that when participants repeat words, they acquire phonetic aspects of the model talker's voice. This general finding has been well replicated (Namy, Nygaard, & Sauerteig 2002, Goldinger & Azuma 2004. In the completion of a conversational map task, speakers were also found to converge phonetically on each other's productions; the direction of the convergence though was influenced by several social factors, namely gender and participant role (Pardo 2006).…”

Levels of Phonological Abstraction and Knowledge of Socially Motivated Speech-Sound Variation: A Review, a Proposal, and a Commentary on the Papers by Clopper, Pierrehumbert, and Tamati, Drager, Foulkes, Mack, and Smith, Hall, and Munson

“…There is considerable evidence that these encodings continue to play a role in adults' ongoing perception of language. That is, adults use far more fi ne phonetic detail in ongoing speech perception than can be captured in even detailed categorical phonetic transcriptions (e.g., Goldinger and Azuma 2004;McLennen and Luce 2005). The second is that phonological generalizations should track the statistics of the lexicon.…”