Buerki, A.

Ernestus, M.

Frauenfelder, U.

McQueen, J.

Viebahn, M.

MPG.PuRe

Learning multiple pronunciation variants of French novel words with orthographic formsMalte Viebahn, Audrey Bürki, James McQueen, Mirjam Ernestus, and Uli FrauenfelderMemory consolidation and word learning workshop, Nijmegen, March 2015Participants & Materials40 novel French words consisting of 20 minimal pairs (e.g. feluge - felube).40 black-and-white drawings of non-existing objects.36 native French speakers from the University of Geneva.2 AFC with objects+"Cliquez sur le ﬂuge."/fəlyb//ﬂyʒ//fəlyb//ﬂyʒ//bəlaʒ/ /blaf/"Oui, c'est bien le ﬂuge.""Non, voici le ﬂuge."Orfeluge felubebelaphebelagefelugeLearning phase tasks"Cliquez sur le ﬂuge.""Cliquez sur le ﬂuge."/fəlyb//ﬂyʒ//bəlaʒ/ /blaf/+Test phase tasks[only visual feedback][no feedback]Procedure4 AFC with objects4 AFC with printed words4 AFC with objects witheye tracking/ﬂyʒ/+ Picture naming"Cliquez sur le ﬂuge." "Oui, c'est bien le ﬂuge.""Non, voici le ﬂuge."Or2 AFC with objects4 AFC with objects4 AFC with printedwords4 AFC with objects4 AFC with printedwordsDay 12 AFC with objects4 AFC with objects4 AFC with printedwordsDay 2 Day 32 AFC with objects4 AFC with objects4 AFC with printedwordsTEST: 4 AFC withobjects + eye trackingTEST: Picture namingDesignwith <e>no <e>We investigated this question using an artiﬁcial lexicon paradigm in which we taught participants novel words that either did or did not contain a schwa.No schwaWith schwa/pəlim/<pelime>/plim/<pelime>/plim/<plime>SpellingSchwa presenceIn an orthographic exposure phase, the words without schwa were presented with a printed form that either did or did not contain the letter <e>.IntroductionIn conversational speech, the vowel schwa is often omitted. For example, the French word chemin (road) is oftend produced as ch'min. It has been argued that orthographic information plays an important role in how listeners learn and store such phonological variants.Previous research has shown that orthographic information can induce the generation of schwa variants of schwaless novel words in word production[1]. In the present study, we investigate whether orthographic information can also generate schwa variants of schwaless words in word recognition.Learning phase results2 objects 4 objects printed words0.70.80.91.01 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3DayAccuracywith schwa, with <e> no schwa, no <e> no schwa, with <e>Learning phase accuracy2 objects 4 objects printed words100012501500175020001 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3DayRTwith schwa, with <e> no schwa, no <e> no schwa, with <e>Learning phase RTParticipants learned to identify the novel words quite fast.For printed words, RT were slower if the orthography and the phonology did not match.No diﬀerences in lear-ning performance across conditions.Learning of the novel words is also reﬂected in a decrease in identiﬁcation responses across the three days.Discussion & conclusionsListeners were able to learn 40 novel French words quite quickly. Inconsistent orthographic information slowed down processing during learning but did not decrease accuracy.More importantly, we found evidence for more lexical competition if schwaless words were spelled with <e> than without <e> during production and recognition.These results suggest that learners can generate phonological variants based on orthographic information. These representations engage in lexical competition during speaking and listening.ReferencesBuerki, A., Spinelli, E., & Gaskell, M. G. (2012). A written word is worth a thousand spoken words: The inﬂuence of spelling on spoken-word production. Journal of Memory and Language, 67(4), 449–467.Mirman, D., Dixon, J. A., & Magnuson, J. S. (2008). Statistical and computational models of the visual world paradigm: Growth curves and individual diﬀerences. Journal of Memory and Language, 59(4), 475–494.[1][2]Test phase resultsEye movementsPicture namingMore ﬁxations to the competitors relative to the distractors if the schwa-less competitor was spelled with <e> than if it was spelled without <e>.Fixation probabilities were modeled using Growth Curve Analysis[2].Cross-over for the target-competitor diﬀerences: more ﬁxations to schwaless competitors with <e> in the beginning, but fewer later on.Trend suggesting higher accuracy for schwaless words spelled with-out <e> than with <e>.Schwaless words spelled with <e> were more likely to be pro-duced with schwa than schwa-less words spelled without <e>.0.02.55.07.510.0no schwawith <e>no schwano <e>% with schwaSchwa production5060708090no schwawith <e>no schwano <e>Mean accuracyNaming accuracyp = 0.07p < 0.001

Learning multiple pronunciation variants of French novel words with orthographic forms

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