Two proceedings papers accepted for ICPhS 2023
Two proceedings papers from our group have been accepted for presentation at ICPhS 2023. Read them here!
Rate normalization
In Severijnen et al. (2023), Giulio Severijnen tested which acoustic and linguistic cues underlie rate normalization in speech perception. He observed that the tempo of Dutch context phrases can change people’s perception of vowel length in a following word: a preceding context with twice as many syllables per unit time biases people to report hearing long /a:/, a slower context towards short /ɑ/. However, this relationship between contextual speech rate and vowel length perception is not linear. That is, contexts with three times as many syllables do not lead to even more long /a:/ responses. Therefore, syllable rate is not the only determining factor in rate normalization.
Converging to F2
When having a conversation, interlocutors tend to sound more like each other over the course of the conversation. In Ulusahin et al. (2023), Orhun Uluşahin set out to test the automaticity and grain-size of this phonetic convergence. He presented participants with single words that - unaware to the participants - had the second formant frequency (F2) shifted way down. When participants repeated these words back, we unfortunately did not find any downward shift in participants’ own F2. As such, these results question theories which view convergence as a product of automatic integration between perception and production.
Come and find these two posters this summer at ICPhS 2023!
Full reference
(2023). Syllable rate drives rate normalization, but is not the only factor. In Proceedings of ICPhS 2023.
(2023). No evidence for convergence to sub-phonemic F2 shifts in shadowing. In Proceedings of ICPhS 2023.