This program of research seeks to understand how listeners recognize phonological variants of spoken words as the word intended by the talker. As a first step in achieving this goal, research will focus on developing a clear and accurate description of phonological variation by collecting, transcribing, and analyzing a 100, 000-word corpus of conversational speech. Two types of analyses will be performed. Phonological analyses will center on developing a picture of phonological variation that the recognition system encounters on a regular basis, calculating the forms of variation, their frequency, and the contexts in which they occur. Acoustic analyses of variants will be carried out to develop a detailed description of variation that is tightly linked to the speech signal itself. The results from both lines of work should provide a solid foundation on which the recognition of phonological variants can be profitably studied in future work.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC004330-02
Application #
6476028
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-3 (01))
Program Officer
Cooper, Judith
Project Start
2000-12-22
Project End
2003-11-30
Budget Start
2001-12-01
Budget End
2003-11-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$183,750
Indirect Cost
Name
Ohio State University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
098987217
City
Columbus
State
OH
Country
United States
Zip Code
43210
Kim, Dahee; Stephens, Joseph D W; Pitt, Mark A (2012) How does context play a part in splitting words apart? Production and perception of word boundaries in casual speech. J Mem Lang 66:509-529
Pitt, Mark A; Dilley, Laura; Tat, Michael (2011) Exploring the role of exposure frequency in recognizing pronunciation variants. J Phon 39:304-311
Dilley, Laura C; Pitt, Mark A (2010) Altering context speech rate can cause words to appear or disappear. Psychol Sci 21:1664-70
Pitt, Mark A (2009) The strength and time course of lexical activation of pronunciation variants. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 35:896-910
Pitt, Mark A (2009) How are pronunciation variants of spoken words recognized? A test of generalization to newly learned words. J Mem Lang 61:19-36
Dilley, Laura C; Pitt, Mark A (2007) A study of regressive place assimilation in spontaneous speech and its implications for spoken word recognition. J Acoust Soc Am 122:2340-53
Pitt, Mark A; Samuel, Arthur G (2006) Word length and lexical activation: longer is better. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 32:1120-35