Perception Of Pauses Research Articles

Perceptual consequences of pauses: Credibility and fluency of native and non-native speech

Silent pauses are a natural part of speech and impact perception of speech. However, it is unclear how foreign accentedness influences perception of pauses. Specifically, studies have shown mixed results regarding whether listeners process pauses in native and non-native speech similarly or differently. A possible explanation for these results is that perceptual consequences of pauses differ depending on the type of processing that listeners engage in: a focus on the content/meaning of the speech versus characteristics/form of the speech. Thus, the present study examines the effect of silent pauses on listeners' perception of native and non-native speech in two different tasks, examining perceived credibility of the information conveyed in the speech, and perceived fluency of the speech. Specifically, we ask whether characteristics of silent pauses (e.g., presence or absence of a pause; syntactic location of a pause) influence listeners' perception differently for native versus non-native speech, and whether this pattern differs for perceived credibility and fluency. The results help us better understand how disfluency and foreign accent together impact listeners' perception. Further, this provides insight for how perceptual consequences of certain acoustic properties of the speech differ depending on how listeners are asked to evaluate the speech.

Representação fonológica e percepção de fala: O papel da pausa

Investigamos a percepção de pausas em fronteiras de frase entonacional (IP) no Português Brasileiro (PB) e abordamos a relação entre produção e percepção da fala. Vinte sujeitos adultos, falantes nativos do PB, sem distúrbios de linguagem e sem queixas auditivas, participaram de um teste experimental de identificação de pausa. Usamos estímulos auditivos nos quais a fronteira IP foi marcada por uma combinação de pausa e variação de altura ou apenas variação de altura. Os resultados são os seguintes: (i) quando os estímulos consistiam em uma combinação de pausa com variação de altura no limite IP, as pausas foram identificadas significativamente (ii) quando os estímulos não tinham variação de altura nos limites IP, as pausas não foram identificadas significativamente, (iii) quando somente ocorreu variação de altura, sem produção de silêncio, foram identificadas pausas na fronteira testada. Esses resultados corroboram o argumento de que a percepção de fala não depende inteiramente da recuperação de um padrão acústico e evidencia a importância da representação fonológica para a percepção e organização do estímulo auditivo percebido. Com base nos resultados, argumentamos que a percepção de pausa resultaria da ilusão perceptiva marcada pela combinação de diferentes tipos de informações linguísticas, em nível fonético-acústico e representacional.

Probing quality criteria in simultaneous interpreting

This article describes an empirical study designed to contribute to research into interpreting quality by moving towards a definition of the criterion of ‘fluency’ in the evaluation of simultaneous interpreting. Based on an interdisciplinary review of the literature and preliminary tests of the production and perception of pauses and their effect on speech comprehension, ‘silent pauses’ are investigated as a subparameter of fluency. Following the line of research initiated by Collados (1998), the study analyses the quality expectations of 43 expert users as well as their evaluation of German-Spanish interpretations manipulated by additional silent pauses. Although the differences found in the evaluation study cannot be shown to be statistically significant, there are trends indicating that the principal hypothesis, whereby silent pauses as a subparameter of fluency have a negative effect on fluency evaluation, has received some empirical support. Subjects appear to have detected and responded to the experimental stimulus (two levels of additional silent pauses between 2 and 6 seconds in duration) by giving lower mean ratings for ‘fluency’ to the experimental videos than to the control.

Effects of Musical Expertise and Boundary Markers on Phrase Perception in Music

A neural correlate for phrase boundary perception in music has recently been identified in musicians. It is called music closure positive shift ("music CPS") and has an equivalent in the perception of speech ("language CPS"). The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of musical expertise and different phrase boundary markers on the music CPS, using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and event-related magnetic fields (ERFs). Musicians and nonmusicians were tested while listening to binary phrased melodies. ERPs and ERFs of both subject groups differed considerably from each other. Phrased melody versions evoked an electric CPS and a magnetic CPSm in musicians, but an early negativity and a less pronounced CPSm in nonmusicians, suggesting different perceptual strategies for both subject groups. Musicians seem to process musical phrases in a structured manner similar to language. Nonmusicians, in contrast, are thought to detect primarily discontinuity in the melodic input. Variations of acoustic cues in the vicinity of the phrase boundary reveal that the CPS is influenced by a number of parameters that are considered to indicate phrasing in melodies: pause length, length of the last tone preceding the pause, and harmonic function of this last tone. This is taken as evidence that the CPS mainly reflects higher cognitive processing of phrasing, rather than mere perception of pauses. Furthermore, results suggest that the ERP and MEG methods are sensitive to different aspects within phrase perception. For both subject groups, qualitatively different ERP components (CPS and early negativity) seem to reflect a top-down activation of general but different phrasing schemata, whereas quantitatively differing MEG signals appear to reflect gradual differences in the bottom-up processing of acoustic boundary markers.

Effects of Musical Expertise and Boundary Markers on Phrase Perception in Music

Abstract A neural correlate for phrase boundary perception in music has recently been identified in musicians. It is called music closure positive shift (“music CPS”) and has an equivalent in the perception of speech (“language CPS”). The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of musical expertise and different phrase boundary markers on the music CPS, using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and event-related magnetic fields (ERFs). Musicians and nonmusicians were tested while listening to binary phrased melodies. ERPs and ERFs of both subject groups differed considerably from each other. Phrased melody versions evoked an electric CPS and a magnetic CPSm in musicians, but an early negativity and a less pronounced CPSm in nonmusicians, suggesting different perceptual strategies for both subject groups. Musicians seem to process musical phrases in a structured manner similar to language. Nonmusicians, in contrast, are thought to detect primarily discontinuity in the melodic input. Variations of acoustic cues in the vicinity of the phrase boundary reveal that the CPS is influenced by a number of parameters that are considered to indicate phrasing in melodies: pause length, length of the last tone preceding the pause, and harmonic function of this last tone. This is taken as evidence that the CPS mainly reflects higher cognitive processing of phrasing, rather than mere perception of pauses. Furthermore, results suggest that the ERP and MEG methods are sensitive to different aspects within phrase perception. For both subject groups, qualitatively different ERP components (CPS and early negativity) seem to reflect a top-down activation of general but different phrasing schemata, whereas quantitatively differing MEG signals appear to reflect gradual differences in the bottom-up processing of acoustic boundary markers.

Duration of silent interval as a perceptual cue of speech pauses.

The effect of duration of silent interval on the perception of pauses in speech was investigated. The stimuli consisted of 5 recorded sentences within which the words “lost” and “contact” were manipulated so that their syntactic relation to one another varied in complexity from sentence to sentence. Ss, working individually, mechanically adjusted the silent interval duration between the words “lost” and “contact” within each sentence in order to make judgments of (1) the pause-detection threshold, (2) the optimal fluent pause, and (3) the minimal hesitation pause. Across the 5 sentences, the mean durations were 23 msec., 186 msec., and 505 msec. for the three types of pause, respectively. Statistical analysis, however, showed that durations of silent interval for these three types of pause differed significantly only when occurring between phrases. This was not true of within-phrase pauses. Thus, contrary to usual assumptions in the literature, these results suggest that for within-phrase pauses, at least, duration of silent interval is an insufficient perceptual cue for differentiation of fluent and hesitation pauses.

Silent Interval Duration as a Perceptual Cue of Speech Pauses

The effect of silent-interval duration on the perception of pauses in speech was investigated. The stimuli consisted of five recorded sentences within which the words “lost” and “contact” were manipulated so that their syntactic relation to one another varied in complexity from sentence to sentence. Twelve subjects, working individually, mechanically adjusted the silent-interval duration between the words “lost” and “contact” within each sentence in order to locate (1) the pause detection threshold, (2) optimal fluent pause duration, and (3) minimal hesitation pause duration. Across the five sentences, the mean durations were 6, 186, and 505 msec, for the three pause types, respectively. Statistical analysis, however, showed that silent interval durations for these three pause types differed significantly only when occurring between phrases. This was not true of within-phrase pauses. Thus, contrary to usual assumptions in the literature, these results suggest that for within-phrase pauses, at least, silent-interval duration is an insufficient perceptual cue for differentiation of fluent and hesitation pauses. [Supported by NSF and NIH grants.]