Prosody, phonology and parsing in closure ambiguities

Warren, Paul; Grabe, Esther; Nolan, Francis

doi:10.1080/01690969508407112

Cited by 101 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Moreover, ERP data have demonstrated that in adults prosodic information influences syntactic parsing very fast, that is in a very early phase during speech comprehension (Eckstein and Friederici, 2006) and that the brain's sensitivity to prosodic features is present not only in adults (Pannekamp et al, 2005), but also in infants (Pannekamp et al, 2006). Psycholinguistic studies in adults (Marslen-Wilson et al, 1992;Warren et al, 1995) have provided evidence for an interaction of prosodic and syntactic processes during auditory language comprehension (Frazier et al, 2006), and psycholinguistic models of language acquisition state a strong reliance on prosodic information during early language processing (Weissenborn and Höhle, 2001). The shorter right than left BOLD latencies for children in our study seem to match these electrophysiological data and, moreover, are consistent with the psycholinguistic models.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

2008

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The perisylvian region of the human cortex is known to play a major role in language processing. Especially the superior temporal cortex (STC) and the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) have been investigated with respect to their particular involvement in language comprehension. In the present research, the timing of recruitment of these language-related brain areas in both hemispheres was examined as a function of age using functional imaging data of 6-year-old children and adults with a special focus on blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response time courses. The results show that children's activation time courses differ from that of adults. First, children show an overall later peak of BOLD responses. Second, children's IFC responds much later than their STC, while in adults the difference between both regions is less pronounced. Within the STC, both groups show similar regionally U-shaped activation patterns with fastest peaks in voxels at the STC's mid-portion around Heschl's gyrus and longer latencies in anterior and posterior directions, suggesting a coarsely similar information flow in adults and children in the temporal region. Finally, children in contrast to adults, display a temporal primacy of right over left hemispheric activation. The observed overall latency differences between children and adults are in line with the assumption of ongoing maturation in perisylvian brain regions and the connections between them. A functional perspective on BOLD timing argues for a developmental change from higher processing costs in children compared to adults due to slower and less automatic language processes, in particular those located in the IFC. The observed hemispheric differences are discussed in the context of developmental models assuming a high reliance on right-hemisphere-based suprasegmental information processing during language comprehension in childhood.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

2008

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“…The evidence for this point is not extensive but is convincing. Behavioral and event-related brain potential studies (ERPs) in healthy populations suggest an interaction of linguistic prosodic cues with language-specific subprocesses, such as syntax (e.g., Cutler, Dahan, & van Donselaar, 1997;Steinhauer, Alter, & Friederici, 1999;Warren, Grabe, & Nolan, 1995). Regarding the role of non-linguistic prosodic cues that correlate with emotional prosody in language comprehension, results of recent brain potential studies (Kotz, Alter, Besson, Schirmer, & Friederici, 2000;Pihan, Ackermann, & Altenm€ u uller, 1997, 2000 and of two brain imaging studies (Buchanan et al, 2000;George et al, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the lateralization of emotional prosody: An event-related functional MR investigation

et al. 2003

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In order to investigate the lateralization of emotional speech we recorded the brain responses to three emotional intonations in two conditions, i.e., ''normal'' speech and ''prosodic'' speech (i.e., speech with no linguistic meaning, but retaining the Ôslow prosodic modulationsÕ of speech). Participants listened to semantically neutral sentences spoken with a positive, neutral, or negative intonation in both conditions and judged how positive, negative, or neutral the intonation was on a five-point scale. Core peri-sylvian language areas, as well as some frontal and subcortical areas were activated bilaterally in the normal speech condition. In contrast, a bilateral fronto-opercular region was active when participants listened to prosodic speech. Positive and negative intonations elicited a bilateral fronto-temporal and subcortical pattern in the normal speech condition, and more frontal activation in the prosodic speech condition. The current results call into question an exclusive right hemisphere lateralization of emotional prosody and expand patient data on the functional role of the basal ganglia during the perception of emotional prosody.

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“…In fact even before the listener hears the familiar final word, the prosody might be sufficient to indicate that the deaccented unfamiliar word is not the last word in the phrase. Several studies have shown that adults can use this type of prosodic information to determine whether they have heard the final word in a sentence or whether the sentence will continue (Grosjean, 1983;Grosjean & Hirt, 1996;Warren, Grabe, & Nolan, 1995). Thus the experienced listener could know that the novel word blane is not phrase-final even before getting to the final noun, a real-time processing cue potentially indicating that the unknown word is in the prenominal position unique to adjectives.…”

Section: That's Very Blanementioning

confidence: 99%

Knowing what a novel word is not: Two-year-olds ‘listen through’ ambiguous adjectives in fluent speech

Thorpe

Fernald

2006

Cognition

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Three studies investigated how 24-month-olds and adults resolve temporary ambiguity in fluent speech when encountering prenominal adjectives potentially interpretable as nouns. Children were tested in a looking-while-listening procedure to monitor the time course of speech processing. In Experiment 1, the familiar and unfamiliar adjectives preceding familiar target nouns were accented or deaccented. Target word recognition was disrupted only when lexically ambiguous adjectives were accented like nouns. Experiment 2 measured the extent of interference experienced by children when interpreting prenominal words as nouns. In Experiment 3, adults used prosodic cues to identify the form class of adjective/noun homophones in string-identical sentences before the ambiguous words were fully spoken. Results show that children and adults use prosody in conjunction with lexical and distributional cues to 'listen through' prenominal adjectives, avoiding costly misinterpretation. KeywordsLanguage development; Speech processing; Ambiguity resolution; Eye movements; Eye-tracking; On-line measures; Speed of processing; Adjectives; Prenominal adjectives; Form class; Prosody; Lexical development; Grammatical development Adults interpret spoken language incrementally, assigning structure to linguistic input continuously as the speech signal unfolds. Although the process of comprehension seems effortless to the fluent adult, incremental processing in fact leads inevitably and continuously to potential problems of ambiguity as the listener attempts to interpret the meaning of a spoken utterance. Because speech unfolds from moment to moment, it is frequently the case that a number of alternative interpretations are possible at a particular point in time, only one of which will be correct. In a sentence such as Susie fixed her back porch, there is ambiguity at multiple levels of linguistic structure at different time points. For example, halfway through the verb, fix-, the sentence could go on to describe how Susie either fixes or fixates something, and on hearing Susie fixed her back-, the listener might prematurely infer that Susie had consulted a chiropractor rather than a carpenter. For adults, the process of recognizing words and resolving temporary ambiguities in spoken language is remarkably fast and efficient, enabled by the use of predictive cues from multiple sources of information in the speech stream. Using extensive knowledge of language and the world, adults can typically rely on linguistic and contextual information to constrain the possibilities of interpretation, so that understanding happens accurately and effortlessly as the sentence unfolds (e.g.

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Prosody, phonology and parsing in closure ambiguities

Cited by 101 publications

References 22 publications

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

Temporal dynamics of perisylvian activation during language processing in children and adults

On the lateralization of emotional prosody: An event-related functional MR investigation

Knowing what a novel word is not: Two-year-olds ‘listen through’ ambiguous adjectives in fluent speech

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