CUES TO WORD SEGMENTATION FOR ADULT LEARNERS
File(s)
Date
2009-05Author
Horn, Rebecca A.
Advisor(s)
Rauscher, Frances
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
An important step in acquiring a language is the ability to segment words from
speech streams. Typical speech contains many cues to word segmentation, but cues are
not always consistent. In studying the efficacy of particular cues, it has been suggested
that some non-linguistic information, such as music, may actually help with word
segmentation. Although it is traditionally accepted that music and language are treated as
separate types of information by the brain, recent evidence suggests that there may be
shared structural, though likely not semantic, properties.
The current study was designed to compare the effects of cues to word
segmentation on learning rates in order to determine if tonal information could provide a
benefit beyond that provided by regular speech cues. Participants listened to a speech
stream of pseudo-randomly repeated nonsense words. Speech streams were of four types:
monotone, prosody-enhanced (final vowel lengthened), tonally-enhanced (each syllable
"sung" on a particular tone), and tonal-word (every "word" "sung" in the same series of
three tones). On a forced-choice test participants were asked to choose which in a pair of
syllable strings most resembled a word from the exposure stream. Learning was
measured by the number of correct responses on the forced-choice test.
Results showed a significant facilitory effect of the prosodic cue (i.e., final vowel
lengthening), but no effect of either tonal condition, suggesting a privileged status for
language-specific cues to word segmentation. Failure to replicate previous findings of
tonal facilitation are discussed in relation to the detrimental effects of two unexpectedly
high between-word transitional probabilities as well as a potential lack of statistical
power.
Subject
Language acquisition
Word linguistics
Adult learning
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/46809Description
A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science Psychology - Experimental