La perception de la parole

Ce chapitre a pour objectif de présenter un aperçu général des recherches sur la perception de la parole, dans leur relation avec la phonétique et la phonologie. Nous commençons par exposer les travaux visant à explorer les processus employés dans l'identification des phonèmes. Nous abordons ensuite les questions relatives à la forme et à la fonction des représentations phonétiques et phonologiques dans le traitement de la parole

La perception de la parole

Ce chapitre a pour objectif de présenter un aperçu général des recherches sur la perception de la parole, dans leur relation avec la phonétique et la phonologie. Nous commençons par exposer les travaux visant à explorer les processus employés dans l'identification des phonèmes. Nous abordons ensuite les questions relatives à la forme et à la fonction des représentations phonétiques et phonologiques dans le traitement de la parole

Acoustic aspects of vowel harmony in French [Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS)]

International audienceThis paper explores acoustic and articulatory aspects of regressive vowel-to-vowel assimilation known as vowel harmony (VH) in French. Based on three speakers' renditions of 136 pairs of disyllabic word pairs containing a mid-vowel in the first, and a low or a non-low vowel in the second, syllables of each pair, we examined assimilatory effects of final vowels on the duration and spectral properties of non-final mid-vowels. Results show that /e/ and /o/ have longer duration, and occupy a more peripheral position in two speakers' vowel spaces when followed by a non-low rather than a low vowel. Phonological implications of these findings could be that vocalic contrasts referred to as tense-lax distinction in other languages and varieties of French would allow characterizing the assimilatory behavior of mid vowels of standard French in a uniform way

L'influence de la langue maternelle sur les capacités de l'auditeur dans la perception de la parole

Les études en psycholinguistique et en neurosciences cognitives ont permis de grandes avancées quant à la compréhension des mécanismes impliqués dans la perception des sons de parole. Nous présentons une revue sélective que nous espérons représentative des recherches sur la perception de la parole. Plus particulièrement, les recherches présentées montrent que notre système perceptif se façonne dès la première année de vie, de manière à exploiter finement les régularités phonologiques de notre langue maternelle. En conséquence, notre système de perception de la parole est mal adapté pour l'écoute de langues ne respectant pas les contraintes phonologiques de la langue maternelle, nous rendant ainsi sourd à des contrastes, non discriminatifs dans notre propre langue

How much imitation is there in a shadowing task?

International audiencePhonetic imitation, also called phonetic convergence, is currently at the heart of numerous investigations since it can inform us on both the nature of lexical representations and the link between production and perception processes in spoken language communication. A task that has been largely used to study phonetic imitation is the shadowing task, in which participants merely listen to and repeat isolated words. In this study, we examined the extent to which the phonetic convergence effect found when participants shadow auditory tokens, is an imitation of the speaker. We thus compared the phonetic convergence effect observed in a shadowing task to that observed when participants were explicitly instructed to imitate the productions they were exposed to. Although the phonetic convergence effect was greater when participants intentionally imitated the speaker's productions, shadowing and imitation instructions led to the same degree of convergence in a post-exposure task. Hence, the convergence effect found in a shadowing task and that found in an imitation task seem to share a general mechanism which is automatic and which taps into the long-term representations of the words in memory. At a more theoretical level, our results reinforce the claim that detailed auditory traces associated with perceived words are stored in memory and are later used for production

Un changement de voix affecte t-il le processus de reconnaissance des mots parlés?

International audienceAccording to McLennan and Luce [1], variability in talker identity affects spoken word recognition when processing is slow and effortful. In the present study, we tested this hypothesis by manipulating the neighbourhood density of target words in a repetition priming experiment. Both for words with few and many phonological neighbours, the amount of priming for repeated words was not affected by a voice change. Such observation supports the claim that abstract representations exist and underlie spoken word recognition.Dans cette étude, nous avons examiné l'impact d'un changement de voix sur le processus de reconnaissance des mots parlés

Acoustic aspects of vowel harmony in French [Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS)]

International audienceThis paper explores acoustic and articulatory aspects of regressive vowel-to-vowel assimilation known as vowel harmony (VH) in French. Based on three speakers' renditions of 136 pairs of disyllabic word pairs containing a mid-vowel in the first, and a low or a non-low vowel in the second, syllables of each pair, we examined assimilatory effects of final vowels on the duration and spectral properties of non-final mid-vowels. Results show that /e/ and /o/ have longer duration, and occupy a more peripheral position in two speakers' vowel spaces when followed by a non-low rather than a low vowel. Phonological implications of these findings could be that vocalic contrasts referred to as tense-lax distinction in other languages and varieties of French would allow characterizing the assimilatory behavior of mid vowels of standard French in a uniform way

Assessment of an electromagnetometric system for the investigation of articulatory movements in speech production

International audienceElectromagnetometry can be used to track articulatory movements during speech production by means of small electromagnetic receivers attached to the articulators. This study was aimed at determining the measurement accuracy of the Movetrack system marketed by Botronic (Sweden). The average difference between a position transduced by Movetrack and the actual position, obtained from a precision mechanical device, was less than 0.4 mm, when the receiver was placed in the midsagittal plane and parallel to the transmitters at a distance of about 25 cm from each transmitter. Higher deviations were observed when the receiver was tilted with respect to the transmitters. Thus the device appears to be capable of delivering accurate measures of position for rigid anatomical structures like the jaw, which are not likely to produce tilt

Temporal integration in the perception of speech: Introduction

International audienceIn studies of speech perception, temporal integration refers to how chunks of information arriving at the ears at different times are linked together by the listener in mapping speech sounds onto meaning. Classical models focused on the perceptual grouping of acoustic cues contained in short stretches of time in the identification of phonetic segments. In recent years, however, a different view has emerged as speech perception has come to be studied within a broader context and from a multidisciplinary perspective. Thus, the relevance of non-local, long-domain cues to phonological contrasts has been demonstrated. The status of the phonetic segment as a basic perceptual unit has been debated. And the primacy of the auditory channel over the visual channel has been questioned. These issues have profound implications for how temporal integration is defined and accounted for

Temporal integration in the perception of speech: Introduction

International audienceIn studies of speech perception, temporal integration refers to how chunks of information arriving at the ears at different times are linked together by the listener in mapping speech sounds onto meaning. Classical models focused on the perceptual grouping of acoustic cues contained in short stretches of time in the identification of phonetic segments. In recent years, however, a different view has emerged as speech perception has come to be studied within a broader context and from a multidisciplinary perspective. Thus, the relevance of non-local, long-domain cues to phonological contrasts has been demonstrated. The status of the phonetic segment as a basic perceptual unit has been debated. And the primacy of the auditory channel over the visual channel has been questioned. These issues have profound implications for how temporal integration is defined and accounted for