As part of McMaster University's 2020-21 Cognitive Science of Language lecture series, Yoonjung Kang (faculty) is giving a virtual talk on Monday, November 16, at 2:30 PM: "Speaking and listening, fast and slow." It incorporates joint work with Tim Gadanidis (Ph.D.), Na-Young Ryu (Ph.D. 2019, now at Pennsylvania State University), and Connie Ting (MA 2018).
Speech is highly variable: the same words are produced differently depending on the context and the speaker. For a long time, variability was considered a problem to overcome in search of invariance. More recently, however, researchers recognize that highly structured variation aids communication by providing cues to linguistic context and speaker identity. This talk will focus on one particular type of speech variation: variation due to how fast one speaks. Speech rate variation is ubiquitous and is one of the major causes of variability in speech. Fast speech introduces 'lenition' processes and shortens segments, thereby obscuring contrasts between 'long' and 'short' sounds. I will discuss the results from a series of perception experiments on English, Japanese, and Korean that explore the extents and the limits of speech rate-induced variation in perception, and discuss their potential implications for the mechanism of perceptual compensation.
Attendance is free, but registration is required. To register, please visit this link. Note that a recording will be made available after the presentation.
No comments:
Post a Comment