Periodic energy mass on head and edge tones in Maltese wh-constructions

This paper is concerned with the relation between tonal association and prosodic strength in different tone bearing positions in Maltese wh-words. In these words, tones are associated with the stressed syllable (head association) in indirect and quoted questions, but with the initial syllable (edge association) in direct questions. In a language that has pitch accents to cue prominence (a head prominence language according to Jun's typology), the initial syllable, if not stressed, would not typically cue prominence, but rather juncture. Using periodic energy mass as a measure of strength, and thus prominence, we found that mass enhancement is not conditioned by tonal association (either head or edge) but rather by the lexical stress. Whereas the present study shows that the word-initial H tone does not affect the relative prominence between the stressed syllable and the word-initial one, and thus does not cue prominence on the initial syllable, there is a potentially different prominence-cueing function of this early H peak. That is, for example a prominence cueing function at the word level (i.e., one which makes the entire word more prominent) driven by modality or pragmatic force.peer-reviewe

Word-level prominence and “stress deafness” in Maltese English bilinguals

This study investigates “stress deafness” in bilingual speakers of Maltese and Maltese English. Although both reportedly have lexical stress, the acoustic cues to prominence appear to be relatively weak. Further, word-initial pitch peaks make pitch an unreliable cue to lexical stress, which can be elsewhere in the word. In a sequence recall task, we show that speakers dominant in Maltese exhibit a classic “stress deafness” effect, similar to speakers of French. Speakers who identify as balanced or Maltese English dominant have more diverse results and do not show such a strong tendency towards “stress deafness”. These speakers may rely on their exposure to other varieties of English to identify (and recall) word prominences. This study suggests that the nature of stress in Maltese might need to be revisited.peer-reviewe

Multidimensional signals and analytic flexibility: Estimating degrees of freedom in human speech analyses

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis which can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time. Even greater flexibility is to be expected in fields in which the primary data lend themselves to a variety of possible operationalizations. The multidimensional, temporally extended nature of speech constitutes an ideal testing ground for assessing the variability in analytic approaches, which derives not only from aspects of statistical modeling, but also from decisions regarding the quantification of the measured behavior. In the present study, we gave the same speech production data set to 46 teams of researchers and asked them to answer the same research question, resulting insubstantial variability in reported effect sizes and their interpretation. Using Bayesian meta-analytic tools, we further find little to no evidence that the observed variability can be explained by analysts’ prior beliefs, expertise or the perceived quality of their analyses. In light of this idiosyncratic variability, we recommend that researchers more transparently share details of their analysis, strengthen the link between theoretical construct and quantitative system and calibrate their (un)certainty in their conclusions

A test battery for measuring individual cognitive variability

Modified versions of the Digit Span (Wechsler 1987), Flanker (Eriksen & Eriksen 1974), Odd-man-out (Frearson & Eyesenck 1986), and Simon (Simon & Craft 1970) tasks

Suppl. materials and scripts for Lialiou, Sotiropoulou & Gafos. Spatiotemporal coordination in word-medial stop-lateral and s-stop clusters of American English.

EMA study on the spatiotemporal coordination in word-medial stop-lateral and s-stop clusters of American English

Data & Scripts for Katsika et al. (2022). The influence of case and word order in children and adults’ processing of relative clauses in Greek

Data and scripts for the reported analysis in our paper "The Influence of Case and Word Order in Child and Adult Processing of Relative Clauses in Greek

LAB special issue

Data and scripts for the analysis reported in our LAB paper "Bilingual children’s online processing of relative clauses: evidence from heritage Greek

Attention Allocation to Deviants with Intonational Rises and Falls: Evidence from Pupillometry

This pupillometric study investigates the relevance of domain-final intonation for attention-orienting in German, employing a changing-state oddball paradigm with rising, falling and neutral intonation on deviant stimuli. Pupil dilation responses (PDR) to deviants were shown to be affected by their intonation contours, strengthening the case for the role of intonational edge tones in attention-orienting. Moreover, the magnitude and duration of the PDR response was higher for rises than falls, indicating the fundamental role of intonational rises for the activation of the attention-orienting mechanism in speech perception

The Influence of Case and Word Order in Child and Adult Processing of Relative Clauses in Greek

Previous cross-linguistic studies have shown that object relative clauses (ORCs) are typically harder to parse than subject relative clauses (SRCs). The cause of difficulty, however, is still under debate, both in the adult and in the developmental literature. The present study investigates the on-line processing of SRCs and ORCs in Greek-speaking 11- to 12-year-old children and adults, and provides evidence on relative clause processing in Greek—a free word order language. We conducted a self-paced listening task in which we manipulated the type of relative clause (SRC vs. ORC), the RC internal word order (canonical vs. scrambled), and the type of relativizer (relative pronoun vs. complementizer). The results showed that SRCs were overall processed faster than ORCs, providing evidence that children follow similar processing strategies to adults. In addition, accusative case marking facilitated the processing of non-canonical structures in adults but less so in children. Children showed heavy reliance on word order, as they processed nominative and accusative pre-verbal NPs in exactly the same way, while they were strongly garden-pathed in ORCs with post-verbal nominative NPs. We argue that these results are compatible with the Competition Model

The Influence of Case and Word Order in Child and Adult Processing of Relative Clauses in Greek

Previous cross-linguistic studies have shown that object relative clauses (ORCs) are typically harder to parse than subject relative clauses (SRCs). The cause of difficulty, however, is still under debate, both in the adult and in the developmental literature. The present study investigates the on-line processing of SRCs and ORCs in Greek-speaking 11- to 12-year-old children and adults, and provides evidence on relative clause processing in Greek—a free word order language. We conducted a self-paced listening task in which we manipulated the type of relative clause (SRC vs. ORC), the RC internal word order (canonical vs. scrambled), and the type of relativizer (relative pronoun vs. complementizer). The results showed that SRCs were overall processed faster than ORCs, providing evidence that children follow similar processing strategies to adults. In addition, accusative case marking facilitated the processing of non-canonical structures in adults but less so in children. Children showed heavy reliance on word order, as they processed nominative and accusative pre-verbal NPs in exactly the same way, while they were strongly garden-pathed in ORCs with post-verbal nominative NPs. We argue that these results are compatible with the Competition Model