The process by which the sounds of language are heard, interpreted and understood.
During Speech perception , our auditory system translate sounds perception seems perfectly easy and straightforward… but it is not.
An adult produce 15 sounds per seconds means 900 sounds / min.
Characteristics of Speech perception-
1.Phoneme pronunciation varies tremendously.
2.Context allows listener to fill in missing sounds .
3.Listeners can impose boundaries between sounds , even when these sounds are not separated by silence.
4.Visual cues from the speaker’s mouth help us interpret ambiguous sounds
Variability in Phoneme Pronunciation
a). Source
1- Tremendous variation in pitch and tone of voice.
2- Failure to produce phonemes in precise fashion.
3-Coarticulation-phoneme you produce varies slightly from time to time ,depending upon surrounding phonemes (Jusczyk & luce,2002).
Despite variations Context, Word boundaries and Visual cues helps us to manage to understand the speaker’s intended phoneme.
b). Context–
To figure out a sound or a word (Cleaey & Pisoni,2001).
Top down feature also influences speech perception
Phoneme restoration –kind of illusion. When a sound is missing from speech listener use context to perceive sound the missing sound
c). Word boundaries-
The actual acoustical stimulus of spoken language shows no clear cut pause to make the boundaries(Davis 2002).
An actual physical event such as pause –marks a word boundaries less than 40% of time(Cole Jakimilk,1980)
d). Visual cue-
speakers lips n face.
McGurk Effect: people use visual cues to facilitate speech perception . The McGurk effect shows how visual input can reshape auditory perception by pairing an auditory syllable with an incongruent visual syllable.
Problems With Speech Perception
According to George Miller (1990), there are two main problems –
1st – Speech is continuous- speaker rarely pause.
2nd – single phoneme sounds different.
How do we manage these problems in speech perception ?
Our speech is categorical – we force the sounds into discrete categories.
Theories of Speech Perception
1.The special mechanism (or speech-is-special) approach
Special mechanism and human skills.
Human are born with specialized device that allow us to decode speed stimuli.
Support-human possession of phonetic module (neural mechanism facilitates speech perception , rather than other kinds of auditory perception).
Does not rely other cognitive processes.
People processed speech sound very different from non-speech sound.
2.The General Mechanism Approach
Humans use the same neural mechanisms to process both speech sound & non-speech sounds therefore speech perception is learned ability.
At present ,the evidences supports a general mechanism approach.
Phoneme perception can be influenced by other cognitive processes .
3. Cohort Model:
Developed by William Marslen-Wilson (1980),
Suggests that speech perception occurs in a sequential manner.
As a word is heard, a “cohort” of potential candidate words is activated in the listener’s mind.
As more of the word is heard, the cohort is gradually reduced until only one candidate remains, leading to word recognition..
References for Speech Perception
Farmer, T. A., & Matlin, M. W. (2019). Cognition. John Wiley & Sons
Galotti, K. M. (2017). Cognitive psychology in and out of the laboratory. Sage Publications.
Sternberg, R.J., Sternberg, K., and Jeff, M. (2011). Cognitive Psychology. Wadsworth.