Speech Perception

Question 1

describe the process of speech perception

Answer 1

record–>transcribe–>perceive

Question 2

phoneme

Answer 2

the basic unit of spoken language (a, k, and th)

Question 3

How many phonemes are in the english language

Answer 3

40-45 phonemes

Question 4

describe how word boundaries work

Answer 4

normally no clear boundaries in speech so brain uses our knowledge of language to accurately place boundaries

Question 5

inter-speaker variability

Answer 5

dif speakers of same language produce the same sound differently

Question 6

coarticulation

Answer 6

phoneme changes depending on surrounding phonemes (don’t vs idle)

Question 7

McGurk effect

Answer 7

influence of visual info on speech perception when integrating both visual and auditory info (harder to identify colour word when word is different colour)

Question 8

Where in the brain is the McGurk effect found

Answer 8

superior temporal sulcus

Question 9

why is there not a lot of research on speech perception?

Answer 9

humans are the only ones who can understand spoken language (can’t test on animals)

Question 10

special mechanism approach

Answer 10

humans born with specialized device to decode speech which means quicker more accurate perception than other auditory stimuli

Question 11

phonetic module

Answer 11

special-purpose neural mechanism that specifically processes all aspects of speech perception (does not handle other auditory perception)

Question 12

categorical perception

Answer 12

hearing distinct phonemes instead of blends

Question 13

general mechanisms approach

Answer 13

neural mechanisms to process both speech sounds and nonspeech sounds

therefore a learned ability

Question 14

what is the preferred theory of speech perception

Answer 14

general mechanisms approach

Question 15

what proof is there for the general mechanisms approach

Answer 15

1. categorical perception for nonspeech sounds
2. ERP same for speech and music
3. McGurk effect

Question 16

how does speech perception proceed and what does it depend on?

Answer 16

proceeds in stages

depends on familiar cognitive processes such as feature recognition, learning, and decision making