Abstract

The current review provides specific predictions for the role of sleep-mediated memory consolidation in the formation of new speech sound representations. Specifically, this discussion will highlight selected literature on the different ideas concerning category representation in speech, followed by a broad overview of memory consolidation and how it relates to human behavior, as relevant to speech/perceptual learning. In combining behavioral and physiological accounts from animal models with insights from the human consolidation literature on auditory skill/word learning, we are in the early stages of understanding how the transfer of experiential information between brain structures during sleep manifests in changes to online perception. Arriving at the conclusion that this process is crucial in perceptual learning and the formation of novel categories, further speculation yields the adjacent claim that the habitual disruption in this process leads to impoverished quality in the representation of speech sounds.

Highlights

  • Categorical perception refers to the phenomenon by which listeners demonstrate non-linear perception of items across an acoustic-phonetic continuum

  • We argue that two types of learning are involved in the acquisition of categories: listeners must develop perceptual automaticity for selectively attending to familiar acousticphonetic features, and they must encode the context that dictates the relevance of these features

  • In relation to the acquisition of novel phonetic categories, we propose that synaptic www.frontiersin.org consolidation precipitates perceptual automaticity, while systems consolidation results in the context representation that specifies the acoustic-phonetic features of interest

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Categorical perception refers to the phenomenon by which listeners demonstrate non-linear perception of items across an acoustic-phonetic continuum. The formation of phonetic categories is mediated by different stages of memory processing, which encode one’s experience with novel speech sounds and lead to generalization away from the context of that initial encounter. We review the theoretical models of category representation, arriving at the conclusion that two distinct cognitive processes support the perception of phonological categories: selective attention to certain features within the acoustic signal, and the recollection of a context within which those features are relevant. We review selected literature on memory consolidation in auditory/perceptual skill and lexical form acquisition. Through this discussion, we illustrate that both types of learning are supported by memory encoding processes that take place during sleep. The construction of a new category representation requires the abstraction of information away from the individual acoustic events, such that knowledge of phonetic structure can be applied generally to novel tokens, new talkers, and different phonological www.frontiersin.org

Earle and Myers
Earle and Myers A

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