Listener sensitivity to probabilistic conditioning of sociolinguistic variables: The case of (ING)

Vaughn, Charlotte; Kendall, Tyler

doi:10.1016/j.jml.2018.07.006

Cited by 13 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…In this experiment, listeners presented with the typical tokens endorsed /s/ items at higher rates than other token types in the exposure phase, and they showed the smallest evidence of perceptual learning. Such findings are consistent with previous work suggesting that listeners may rely less on top-down information when their certainty about bottom-up information in the signal is highest (e.g., Ganong, 1980;Kuperberg & Jaeger, 2016;Pitt & Samuel, 1993;Vaughn & Kendall, 2018;Warren, 1970). Assuming a Merge-B style mechanism where streams of information are considered and evaluated at a decision stage (Norris et al, 2000(Norris et al, , 2016, when bottom-up information is most uncertain (in this case, in the ambiguous, and to a lesser extent the atypical, condition), listeners weight top-down information more heavily (in this case, their Babel decision to classify an ambiguous item as a word).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

The Goldilocks Zone of Perceptual Learning

et al. 2019

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Background/Aims: Lexically guided perceptual learning in speech is the updating of linguistic categories based on novel input disambiguated by the structure provided in a recognized lexical item. We test the range of variation that allows for perceptual learning by presenting listeners with items that vary from subtle within-category variation to fully remapped cross-category variation. Methods: Experiment 1 uses a lexically guided perceptual learning paradigm with words containing noncanonical /s/ realizations from s/ʃ continua that correspond to “typical,” “ambiguous,” “atypical,” and “remapped” steps. Perceptual learning is tested in an s/ʃ categorization task. Experiment 2 addresses listener sensitivity to variation in the exposure items using AX discrimination tasks. Results: Listeners in experiment 1 showed perceptual learning with the maximally ambiguous tokens. Performance of listeners in experiment 2 suggests that tokens which showed the most perceptual learning were not perceptually salient on their own. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that perceptual learning is enhanced with maximally ambiguous stimuli. Excessively atypical pronunciations show attenuated perceptual learning, while typical pronunciations show no evidence for perceptual learning. AX discrimination illustrates that the maximally ambiguous stimuli are not perceptually unique. Together, these results suggest that perceptual learning relies on an interplay between confidence in phonetic and lexical predictions and category typicality.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

The Goldilocks Zone of Perceptual Learning

et al. 2019

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“…Importantly, the patterns of covariation uncovered in this paper for the entirety of the recorded sentences (N = 141 sentences x 2 variants = 282/speaker) are consistent with the frame/realization interaction found in Experiment 2 (VAUGHN; KENDALL, 2018) for the cross-spliced version of the selected subset of these stimuli, providing some suggestions about the basis of that interaction effect. The findings in the present paper cannot account, however, for the central question of interest inVaughn and Kendall (2018) regarding listener sensitivity to the (ING) word's grammatical category. 2 Nonetheless, due to the salience of -in and its representativeness of the enregistered Southern style, it is of course possible that speakers operationalized our instruction to produce the sentences with -in forms as an instruction to enact a style or persona associated with -in.…”

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confidence: 85%

“…Sumner et al (2013) found that a variant's realization (i.e., word-medial /t/ as tapped or released) is processed by listeners with reference to the speaking style in which that variant usually occurs (i.e., casually or carefully). And, Vaughn and Kendall (2018) found that when listeners were asked to classify which variant of (ING) they heard in a sentence (-ing or -in), they were sensitive to cues in the signal beyond the variant itself. In that study, the carrier "frame" sentence (whether the speaker originally produced the sentence with -ing or -in) significantly interacted with the actual realization of the variable (cross-spliced -ing or -in) to influence listeners' classifications, suggesting that covarying cues were used by listeners.…”

Section: Stylistic Covariation In Production and Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this study, we analyze production recordings collected as part of the stimulus creation process for Vaughn and Kendall (2018). 141 sentences were created, each containing one critical (ING) word (e.g., I'm having a hard time with my homework; see VAUGHN; KENDALL, 2018 for further details 1 ).…”

Section: The Task Speakers and Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These sentence recordings were collected in order to create stimuli forVaughn and Kendall (2018), a perception study examining listener sensitivity to the grammatical category conditioning of (ING). For that study, a subset of 24 unique sentences were selected for each speaker "based on naturalness, fluency, and prosodic similarity across frames" for a total of 96 sentences.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Stylistically coherent variants: Cognitive representation of social meaning / Variantes estilisticamente coerentes: representação cognitiva de significados sociais

Vaughn

Kendall

2019

RELIN

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The perception of social meanings and styles is dependent upon the contributions of a constellation of multiple covarying sociolinguistic variants. This suggests that listeners maintain associations between stylistically coherent variants and their social meanings in mental representation. The present paper expands upon this notion, aiming to gain converging evidence from production as a way to explore the cognitive representations of variants and their social meanings more deeply. To do this, four American English speakers were asked to produce sentences containing (ING) words (as in talking vs. talkin’), in their –in and –ing variants, in a laboratory setting. Productions were acoustically analyzed to evaluate whether the speakers also manipulated other stylistically-linked variables, even though prompted only to manipulate (ING). The variant –in has been shown to index a range of social meanings in American English, including Southern and casual. Results demonstrate that speakers indeed modulated other variables beyond (ING) in ways that align with the Southern and casual social meanings of –in. That producing one variant (–in) could lead to stylistically congruent realizations of other variables suggests that speakers not only hold indexical linkages between variants and styles in mental representation, but that variants are also linked to variants of other variables through associations with those styles. A better understanding of social meaning in cognition provides an important base upon which to advance research on sociolinguistic perception.Keywords: covariation; social meaning; cognitive representation; style.Resumo: A percepção de significados sociais e de estilos depende das constribuições de uma constelação de múltiplas variantes sociolinguísticas em covariação. Isto sugere que os falantes mantêm associações entre variantes estilisticamente coerentes e seus significados sociais numa representação mental. O presente trabalho expande essa noção, com o objetivo de ganhar evidências advindas da produção como meio de explorar mais profundamente as representações cognitivas de variantes e de seus significados sociais. Para isso, quatro falantes de inglês norte-americano foram convidados a produzir sentenças que contêm variantes de (ING) (como em talking vs. talkin’ ‘falando’), em contexto de laboratório. As produções foram acusticamente analisadas no sentido de avaliar se os falantes também manipularam estilisticamente outras variáveis, ainda que houvessem sido instruídos a manipular apenas (ING). Trabalhos anteriores já mostraram que a variante –in indicia uma grande extensão de significados sociais em inglês norte-americano, incluindo sotaque sulista e casualidade. Os resultados mostram que os falantes de fato modulam outras variáveis além de (ING) que se alinham a esses significados sociais de –in. O fato de que a produção de uma variante pode conduzir a realizações estilisticamente congruentes de variantes de outras variáveis sugere que os falantes não apenas detêm associações indiciais entre variantes e estilos em sua representação mental, mas também que variantes de diferentes variáveis estão ligadas entre si na sua associação a tais estilos. Entender melhor a significação social de múltiplas variáveis na cognição oferece uma base importante na qual deve avançar a pesquisa sobre percepção sociolinguística.Palavras-chave: covariação; significado social; representação cognitiva; estilo.

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