Forced-choice Identification Task Research Articles

The effect of native language and bilingualism on multimodal perception in speech: A study of audio-aerotactile integrationa).

Previous studies of speech perception revealed that tactile sensation can be integrated into the perception of stop consonants. It remains uncertain whether such multisensory integration can be shaped by linguistic experience, such as the listener's native language(s). This study investigates audio-aerotactile integration in phoneme perception for English and French monolinguals as well as English-French bilingual listeners. Six step voice onset time continua of alveolar (/da/-/ta/) and labial (/ba/-/pa/) stops constructed from both English and French end points were presented to listeners who performed a forced-choice identification task. Air puffs were synchronized to syllable onset and randomly applied to the back of the hand. Results show that stimuli with an air puff elicited more "voiceless" responses for the /da/-/ta/ continuum by both English and French listeners. This suggests that audio-aerotactile integration can occur even though the French listeners did not have an aspiration/non-aspiration contrast in their native language. Furthermore, bilingual speakers showed larger air puff effects compared to monolinguals in both languages, perhaps due to bilinguals' heightened receptiveness to multimodal information in speech.

Harmony in transition: Exploring the perception-production relationship in sound change

This study investigates the perception-production dynamics of [æ] and [e] in an ongoing merger in Asante Twi’s Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony system. Traditional descriptions state that [-ATR] /a/ is realized as [+ATR] [æ] before [+ATR] vowels /i, u, o/. Yet, recent acoustic evidence points to an ongoing sound change in different Twi-speaking communities: in contrast to traditional (rural/suburban) Twi speakers, urban speakers raise and merge [æ] with phonemic /e/ before /i, u/, a change that is more advanced in men and younger speakers (Kpogo, 2023). The present study aims to ascertain whether merger in production correlates with perceptual merger among the same participants in Kpogo (2023). Data from a forced-choice identification task suggests that the presence of a perceptual merger is associated with the participant’s locality. Traditional participants consistently identified [æ] and [e] correctly, suggesting separate mental representations for these vowels. Conversely, urban participants often perceived [æ] as [e], suggesting less distinct representations influenced by their own production. Concerning the perception-production relationship, evidence of a link was observed across localities but, crucially, not within each locality. This study contributes to theoretical discussions on the perception-production relationship during sound change, hinting at a co-evolving link between the two modalities.

The role of auditory processing in L2 vowel learning: evidence from recasts

Developing adequate second language (L2) speech has increasingly become one of the important goals in today’s globalized world. The current study set out to investigate how the provision of recasts can facilitate English vowels /i/-/ɪ/ learning by Chinese native speakers and how such learning gains resulting from recasts can be tied to individual differences in auditory processing. An experimental group of thirty young adults was engaged in ten treatment sessions of recasts lasting ninety minutes each to notice and practice English vowels /i/-/ɪ/. Their learning gains were tested through a forced-choice identification task, a controlled word-reading task, and a spontaneous picture-narrative task before and after receiving recasts. A control group of the same number of participants was also included to receive comparable sessions without receiving any recasts to check for test-retest effects. Quantitative analysis showed that recasts significantly helped Chinese native speakers facilitate their learning of English vowels /i/-/ɪ/ regardless of time and lexical context. Such learning gains resulting from recasts were significantly correlated with specific constructs of auditory processing. Namely, perceptual acuity was significantly correlated with gains from recasts in identifying L2 vowels, and audio-motor integration with gains from recasts in controlled/spontaneous production of L2 vowels. The findings suggest that recasts can serve as ideal instructional techniques of L2 vowel learning for Chinese native speakers and that the auditory processing profiles of individuals can suggest how they can benefit the most from recasts.

Cue Weighting in Perception of the Retroflex and Non-Retroflex Laterals in the Zibo Dialect of Chinese.

This study investigated cue weighting in the perception of the retroflex and non-retroflex lateral contrast in the monosyllabic words /ɭə/ and /lə/ in the Zibo dialect of Chinese. A binary forced-choice identification task was carried out among 32 natives, using computer-modified natural speech situated in a two-dimensional acoustic space. The results showed that both acoustic cues had a significant main effect on lateral identification, with F1 of the following schwa being the primary cue and the consonant-tos-vowel (C/V) duration ratio as a secondary cue. No interaction effect was found between these two acoustic cues. Moreover, the results indicated that acoustic cues were not equally weighted in production and perception of the syllables /ɭə/ and /lə/ in the Zibo dialect. Future studies are suggested involving other acoustic cues (e.g., the F1 of laterals) or adding noise in the identification task to better understand listeners' listening strategies in their perception of the two laterals in the Zibo dialect.

Characteristics and predictive factors of visual function improvements after monocular perceptual learning in amblyopia

Monocular perceptual learning has shown promising performance in restoring visual function in amblyopes beyond the critical period in the laboratory. However, the treatment outcome is variable and indeterminate in actual clinical and neuroscientific practice. We aimed to explore the efficacy of monocular perceptual learning in the clinical setting. By combining continuous monitoring of perceptual learning and clinical measurements, we evaluated the efficacy and characteristics of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity function improvement and further explored the individualized effect after perceptual learning. Amblyopes (average age:17 ± 7 years old) were trained in a monocular two-alternative forced choice identification task at the 50% contrast threshold of the amblyopic eye for 10–15 days. We found that monocular perceptual learning improves both visual acuity and contrast sensitivity function in amblyopia. The broader activation of spatial contrast sensitivity, with a significant improvement in lower spatial frequencies, contributed to improving visual acuity. Visual acuity changes in the early stage can predict the endpoint treatment outcomes. Our results confirm the efficacy of monocular perceptual learning and suggest potential predictors of training outcomes to assist in the future management of clinical intervention and vision neuroscience research in amblyopia beyond the critical period of visual plasticity.

Jordanian EFL Students' Perception of Noncontrastive Allophonic Cues in English Speech Segmentation.

The prominent role of allophonic cues in English speech segmentation has widely been recognized by phonologists and psycholinguists. However, very meager inquiry was devoted to analysing the perception of these noncontrastive allophonic cues by Arab EFL learners. Accordingly, the present study is an attempt to examine the exploitation of allophonic cues, mainly aspiration, glottalization and approximant devoicing to English word junctures by 40 Jordanian PhD students. Moreover, it aims to find out which allophonic cues are perceived more accurately during the segmentation process and if there is any evidence for Universal Grammar markedness. The experiment is led through a forced-choice identification task adopted from Altenberg (Second Lang Res 21:325-358, 2005) and Rojczyk et al. (Res Lang 1:15-29, 2016). The results of ANOVA unveiled that there is a statistically significant difference between the three types of allophonic cues, viz. aspiration, glottalization and approximant devoicing. This implies that the participants outperformed in stimuli marked by glottalization than by aspiration and approximant devoicing. This result provided further evidence for the universality of glottalization as a boundary cue in English speech segmentation. Overall, the Jordanian PhD students failed in perceiving the allophonic cues accurately and exploiting them to detect word boundaries. The present inquiry has the potential to provide several recommendations for syllabus designers, and second/foreign language teachers and learners.

The effects of phonetics training on the production and perception of rhotic vowels in American English

This talk examines how the American “r” phoneme affects the production and perception of American English front vowels in pre-rhotic positions. Rhotic vowels challenge listeners in accurately identifying the phonetic quality of vowels due to r-coloring affecting formants (Chung etal., 2021; MacAllister et al., 2017). For example, the vowel in “beer” is commonly perceived as [i] by listeners, yet can be produced as either a tense or lax high front vowel. This challenge is particularly concerning to aspiring clinicians learning phonetic transcription. This study investigates speakers’ acoustic identity of pre-rhotic high and mid front vowels, and listeners’ ability to accurately perceive pre-rhotic vowel identities. This study examines a 50-speaker sample of college-age participants separated into two groups (with and without phonetics training). All participants read a 100-word wordlist and completed a 200-word four-alternative forced-choice identification (AFCI) task. Furthermore, the AFCI task presents each word twice by either a male or a female voice. Listeners select from four options (“BEAT,” “BIT,” “BATE,” “BET”) and rate their confidence level for each choice. Preliminary data, demarcated in PRAAT, processed using FAVE-extract, and analyzed using R software, indicate the mapping between production and perception to be strongest for those with previous phonetic training.

Effects of dialect familiarity on word identification in a visual-world eye-tracking task

The acoustic closeness of vowels across American English dialects results in cross-dialect lexical competition among minimal pair words. In the current study, we investigated how listener familiarity with specific dialects affects performance in a cross-dialect visual-world eye-tracking task. Listeners heard both acoustically close and control minimal pairs in each of three regional American English dialects (New England, Southern, and Northern) in a four-alternative forced-choice identification task. Listener dialect familiarity was assessed for each dialect based on each individual’s self-reported residential history for themselves, their parents, and their significant others. Preliminary analyses revealed more accurate and faster responses to New England talkers as familiarity with the New England dialect increased, consistent with talker and accent familiarity effects in the literature. However, responses to Southern talkers were slower as familiarity with the Southern dialect increased, contrary to the typical pattern. Responses to Northern talkers were not affected by familiarity with the Northern dialect, consistent with the lack of enregisterment of this variety. Together, these findings suggest that listener dialect familiarity has different effects on the resolution of cross-dialect lexical competition, reflecting both the nature of the variation and the social stereotypes associated with the dialect. Analysis of the eye-tracking data is ongoing.

German Word-Final Devoicing in Naturally-Produced and TTS Speech

This study explores the production and perception of word-final devoicing in German across text-to-speech (from technology used in common voice-AI “smart” speaker devices—specifically, voices from Apple and Amazon) and naturally produced utterances. First, the phonetic realization of word-final devoicing in German across text-to-speech (TTS) and naturally produced word productions was compared. Acoustic analyses reveal that the presence of cues to a word-final voicing contrast varied across speech types. Naturally produced words with phonologically voiced codas contain partial voicing, as well as longer vowels than words with voiceless codas. However, these distinctions are not present in TTS speech. Next, German listeners completed a forced-choice identification task, in which they heard the words and made coda consonant categorizations, in order to examine the intelligibility consequences of the word-final devoicing patterns across speech types. Intended coda identifications are higher for the naturally produced productions than for TTS. Moreover, listeners systematically misidentified voiced codas as voiceless in TTS words. Overall, this study extends previous literature on speech intelligibility at the intersection of speech synthesis and contrast neutralization. TTS voices tend to neutralize salient phonetic cues present in natural speech. Subsequently, listeners are less able to identify phonological distinctions in TTS. We also discuss how investigating which cues are more salient in natural speech can be beneficial in synthetic speech generation to make them more natural and also easier to perceive.

A cross-linguistic study of audio-aerotactile perceptual integration using voicing continua

Previous studies on multimodal integration in speech perception have found that not only auditory and visual cues, but also tactical sensation—such as an air-puff on skin that simulates aspiration—can be integrated in the perception of speech sounds (Gick & Derrick, 2009). However, most previous investigations have been conducted with English listeners, and it remains uncertain whether such multisensory integration can be shaped by linguistic experience. The current study investigates audio-aerotactile integration in phoneme perception for three groups: English, French monolingual and English-French bilingual listeners. Six step VOT continua of labial (/ba/—/pa/) and alveolar (/da/—/ta/) stops constructed from both English and French endpoint models were presented to listeners who performed a forced-choice identification task. Air-puffs synchronized to syllable onset and applied to the hand at random increased the number of ‘voiceless’ responses for the /da/—/ta/ continuum by both English and French listeners, which suggests that audio-aerotactile integration can occur even though some of the listeners did not have aspiration/non-aspiration contrasts in their native language. Furthermore, bilingual speakers showed larger air-puff effects for English stimuli compared to English monolinguals, which suggests a complex relationship between linguistic experience and multisensory integration in perception.

Cross-language perception of Japanese consonant length by speakers from Italian- and Mandarin-speaking backgrounds

This study compared individuals from two first language (L1) backgrounds (Italian, Mandarin) to determine how they may differ in their perception of Japanese consonant length (i.e. singleton vs. geminate) according to the phonemic status of length in L1 and experience with Japanese. The participants included two groups of non-native learners of Japanese: 14 native Italian speakers (NI + Japanese), 18 native Mandarin speakers (NM + Japanese) and two control groups: 14 native Italian (NI – Japanese) speakers naïve to Japanese, 10 native Japanese (NJ) speakers. The participants’ length perception accuracy was examined in a forced-choice identification task. The NJ listeners hardly misperceived any tokens, but the non-native listeners were generally accurate (> 85%) in identifying the Japanese length category. The NI – Japanese group was slightly (albeit non-significantly) more accurate than the NM + Japanese group, suggesting the possibility that the use of phonemic length in L1 was facilitative. The direction of misperception (i.e. singleton as geminate or geminate as singleton) differed according to different group. Non-native learners’ results also provided evidence for plasticity in cross-linguistic perception in adulthood.

All TRs are not created equal: L1 and L2 perception of English cluster affrication

This paper describes a perception experiment with L1 Polish and L1 English listeners on the affrication of initial English /tr/ and /dr/ (TR) consonant clusters. The goal was to test phonological predictions formulated within the Onset Prominence (OP) framework. OP offers two distinct structural configurations for representing rising sonority onset clusters. One predicts synchronous cluster articulation in English, giving rise to affrication, while the other predicts asynchronous cluster articulation in Polish. Two groups of listeners performed a two-alternative forced choice identification task on stimuli that included affricated clusters, unaffricated clusters, affricates, and CəC-initial words. For L1 English listeners, the unaffricated cluster-initial items induced the slowest responses. For L1 Polish listeners, the lack of affrication facilitated cluster identification, while the CəC-initial words induced the slowed responses. The results suggest cross-language interaction by which Polish listeners equate L1 unaffricated clusters with L2 CəC-initial words, in accordance with the OP proposal.

Power mediates the processing of gender during sibilant categorization

Prior studies suggest that listeners are more likely to categorize a sibilant ranging acoustically from [∫] to [s] as /s/ if provided auditory or visual information about the speaker that suggests male gender. Social cognition can also be affected by experimentally induced differences in power. A powerful individual’s impression of another tends to show greater consistency with the other person’s broad social category, while a powerless individual’s impression is more consistent with the specific pieces of information provided about the other person. This study investigated whether sibilant categorization would be influenced by power when the listener is presented with inconsistent sources of information about speaker gender. Participants were experimentally primed for behavior consistent with powerful or powerless individuals. They then completed a forced choice identification task: They saw a visual stimulus (a male or female face) and categorized an auditory stimulus (ranging from ‘shy’ to ‘sigh’) as /∫/ or /s/. As expected, participants primed for high power were sensitive to a single cue to gender, while those who received the low power prime were sensitive to both, even if the cues did not match. This result suggests that variability in listener power may cause systematic differences in phonetic perception.

How explicit instruction improves phonological awareness and perception of L2 sound contrasts in younger and older adults

Abstract Despite the importance of conscious awareness in second language acquisition theories, little is known about how L2 speech perception can be improved by explicit phonetic instruction. This study examined the relationship between phonological awareness and perception in Dutch younger and older adult L2 listeners, focusing on English contrasts of two types: a familiar contrast in an unfamiliar position (word-final /t/-/d/) and an unfamiliar contrast (/æ/-/ε/). Awareness was assessed with a task in which written minimal pairs and homophone pairs had to be judged as sounding the same or different. Perception was assessed with a two-alternative forced-choice identification task with auditorily presented words from minimal pairs. We investigated whether listeners’ awareness and perception improved after a video-based explicit instruction that oriented their attention to one of these contrasts, and we tested whether including information about the phonetic cue of vowel duration increased learning. Awareness and perception of each contrast were shown to be moderately correlated at the study’s outset. Furthermore, awareness and perception for each contrast generally improved more after the instruction drawing attention to that contrast. However, the effectiveness of explicit phonetic instruction varied depending on the combination of the contrast, cue information, and listener age group.

Acoustic cues to non-native-directed speech

Facing linguistic barriers to communication, talkers spontaneously adjust their speech, facilitating perception by their listener. These adjustments characteristically involve hyperarticulation, such as reduced speech rate, increased vowel dispersion, and increased segmental duration. Listener-based hyperarticulation could result from listener modeling, in which the talker monitors their listener’s comprehension. Hyperarticulation could also result from rich phonological representations, in which listener-based variation is directly represented. This study examined predictions of monitoring and representational accounts of listener-based hyperarticulation using a perception task. Participants completed a forced-choice identification task which tasked them with identifying the background of an interlocutor from recorded speech. That speech was originally produced to imagined and real and to native and non-native interlocutors. If listener-based variation originates with listener modeling, accuracy should be high and similar for each listener background. If that variation originates from rich representations, accuracy should be low, variable, and different across listener backgrounds. The results revealed poor accuracy, even for speech directed toward imagined non-natives, the most hyperarticulate speech. Participants’ choices were influenced most by speech rate, second by vowel dispersion, but not by vowel duration. We discuss the implications of these results for cognitive models of listener-based phonetic variation.

Perception of checked tones in Xiapu Min

Xiapu Min is a variety of Min Chinese spoken in Xiapu, Fujian, China. The language has seven tones, two of which (T53 and T21) are checked tones that only appear in syllables with a glottal stop coda (Chai and Ye, 2019). Compared with their unchecked counterparts, checked tones have distinct f0 contours, glottalization at the end of the syllable, and are of shorter duration. In this study, we investigate whether those acoustic features are used by listeners of Xiapu Min to identify whether a tone is checked or not. We ran a forced-choice identification task with resynthesized audio stimuli. Stimuli consisted of a natural unchecked token resynthesized with five distinct f0 contours. Each vowel was further modified to have a short versus long duration and presence versus absence of glottalization. The results indicate that the listeners are more likely to identify a stimulus as having a checked tone when it has a high-falling f0 contour (similar to checked T53), shorter duration, or glottalization, among which the duration has the largest coefficient. Thus, all three phonetic parameters found in checked tone production also influence checked tone identification. However, duration is more likely to matter for the identification of checkedness than f0 or glottalization.

Individual Differences in Categorization Gradience As Predicted by Online Processing of Phonetic Cues During Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence From Eye Movements.

Recent studies have documented substantial variability among typical listeners in how gradiently they categorize speech sounds, and this variability in categorization gradience may link to how listeners weight different cues in the incoming signal. The present study tested the relationship between categorization gradience and cue weighting across two sets of English contrasts, each varying orthogonally in two acoustic dimensions. Participants performed a four-alternative forced-choice identification task in a visual world paradigm while their eye movements were monitored. We found that (a) greater categorization gradience derived from behavioral identification responses corresponds to larger secondary cue weights derived from eye movements; (b) the relationship between categorization gradience and secondary cue weighting is observed across cues and contrasts, suggesting that categorization gradience may be a consistent within-individual property in speech perception; and (c) listeners who showed greater categorization gradience tend to adopt a buffered processing strategy, especially when cues arrive asynchronously in time.

‘Grandpa’ or ‘opera’? Production and perception of unstressed /a/ and /əʁ/ in German

In the description of German phonology, two distinct phonetic symbols are currently recommended for the transcription of the vowels [a] (a central low vowel, phonemically /a/) and [ɐ] (phonemically /əʁ/) in word-final, unstressed positions. The present study examines whether differences between these two vowels exist in production and perception of Standard German speakers from the north of Germany. In Experiment 1, six speakers produced a series of minimal pairs that were embedded in meaningful sentences and varied with respect to their accentuation and position within a prosodic phrase. In Experiment 2, the minimal pairs produced by the six speakers of the first experiment were extracted from their respective contexts and tested with 44 native German listeners in a forced-choice identification task. Perceptual results showed a better-than-chance performance for one male speaker of the corpus only. Phonetic analyses also confirmed that only this male speaker produced subtle, but consistent F2/F3 differences between [a] and [ɐ] while the contrast was completely neutralised in the rest of the corpus. We discuss the role of prosody in vowel neutralisation with a specific focus on unstressed vowels and make suggestions for phonetic and phonological accounts of Standard German.

Unconscious perception of one's own name modulates amplitude of the P3B ERP component

The P3 event-related potential has been known for over 50 years, but its function is still a matter of ongoing debate. Current theories interpret P3b either as a correlate of perceptual consciousness, or as reflecting cognitive processes, like working memory and executive functions. Unexpectedly, recent studies indicate that P3b might occur in response to unconsciously presented stimuli which, if further replicated, will be important for defining its functional role. Therefore, in the present study we investigated the P3b component in response to participants' own name - a stimulus which is subjectively extremely salient and known to evoke a robust P3b response. The self-name and control (other) names were presented supra- and subliminally (backward-masked), in a subjective rating task and in a forced-choice identification task. We found that a consciously perceived self-name evoked a P3b of larger amplitude than the other-name in both tasks, which confirms that the self-name was processed preferentially. When the self-name was presented subliminally it was associated with larger P3b amplitude than the other-name in the identification task, but not in the subjective rating task. This indicates that a salient stimulus can in principle modulate the P3b amplitude even when processed outside of awareness, but also that subliminal processing depends on the task-set and top-down factors. Taken as a whole, our results provide evidence against the interpretation of P3b as a correlate of consciousness (and more generally conflict with the Global Workspace Theory) and will allow a more precise description of the relation between P3b and cognitive processes.

CONCEPTUALLY CUED PERCEPTUAL CATEGORIZATION IN ADULT L2 LEARNERS

AbstractPrevious studies attest that early bilinguals can modify their perceptual identification according to the fine-grained phonetic detail of the language they believe they are hearing. Following Gonzales et al. (2019), we replicate the double phonemic boundary effect in late learners (LBs) using conceptual-based cueing. We administered a forced choice identification task to 169 native English adult learners of Spanish in two sessions. In both sessions, participants identified the same /b/-/p/ voicing continuum, but language context was cued conceptually using the instructions. The data were analyzed using Bayesian multilevel regression. Learners categorized the continuum in a similar manner when they believed they were hearing English. However, when they believed they were hearing Spanish, “voiceless” responses increased as a function of L2 proficiency. This research demonstrates the double phonemic boundary effect can be conceptually cued in LBs and supports accounts positing selective activation of independent perception grammars in L2 learning.