1. |
- Horne, Merle, et al.
(author)
-
Timing restrictions on prosodic phrasing
- 2006
-
In: Nordic Prosody IX. ; , s. 117-126
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Prosodic evidence for the existence of isochronal 2-2.5 sec speech production units is presented. Factors such as F0-declination patterns defined over these 2-2.5 sec. units, as well as boundary tones at the edges of these assumed planning units give support to the idea that prosodic structure serves as an important planning framework for an utterance. The findings provide support for the assumption of a ’Prosodic Planning Hypothesis’ such as that proposed by Shattuck-Hufnagel and Turk (1996) and Shattuck-Hufnagel (2000: 222), who assume that an utterance-specific frame ‘‘independent of its contents plays a role in production processing, and prosodic structure is a natural candidate for this structural frame’’. Similar ideas have also been presented by Wheeldon and Lahiri (1997: 377) who claim that ‘‘articulation is preceded by the generation of an abstract prosodic representation of an utterance’’. Breathing is assumed to play an important role in delimitation of the production units: Inspirations only occur at edges and can thus function as anchors for the grouping of speech into 2-2.5 sec speech chunks. Local prosodic information (pauses, boundary tones (H%/L%) and the timing restriction, can be used to make a further segmentation of spontaneous speech into 2-2.5 sec production units. The existence of such a timing restriction on speech planning can be used in the design of algorithms for the automatic segmentation of speech.
|
|
2. |
- Ayers, Gayle, et al.
(author)
-
Modelling intonation in dialogue
- 1995
-
In: Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. - 9171708367 ; 2, s. 278-281
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)
|
|
3. |
- Blomberg, Frida, et al.
(author)
-
Emotional arousal and lexical specificity modulate response times differently depending on ear of presentation in a dichotic listening task
- 2015
-
In: The Mental Lexicon. - : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 1871-1340 .- 1871-1375. ; 10:2, s. 221-246
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We investigated possible hemispheric differences in the processing of four different lexical semantic categories: SPECIFIC (e.g. bird), GENERAL (e.g. animal), ABSTRACT (e.g. advice), and EMOTIONAL (e.g. love). These wordtypes were compared using a dichotic listening paradigm and a semantic category classification task. Response times (RTs) were measured when participants classified testwords as concrete or abstract. In line with previous findings, words were expected to be processed faster following right-ear presentation. However, lexical specificity and emotional arousal were predicted to modulate response times differently depending on the ear of presentation. For left-ear presentation, relatively faster RTs were predicted for SPECIFIC and EMOTIONAL words as opposed to GENERAL and ABSTRACT words. An interaction of ear and wordtype was found. For right-ear presentation, RTs increased as testwords’ imageability decreased along the span SPECIFIC–GENERAL–EMOTIONAL–ABSTRACT. In contrast, for left ear presentation, EMOTIONAL words were processed fastest, while SPECIFIC words gave rise to long RTs on par with those for ABSTRACT words. Thus, the prediction for EMOTIONAL words presented in the left ear was borne out, whereas the prediction for SPECIFIC words was not. This might be related to previously found differences in processing of stimuli at a global or local level.
|
|
4. |
- Blomberg, Frida, et al.
(author)
-
Lexical specificity, imageability and emotional arousal modulate the N400 and the N700
- 2016
-
In: 8th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language. SNL 2016. ; , s. 207-207
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Introduction: The event-related potential (ERP) componentN400 as well as a later effect, often labeled ‘N700’ haverepeatedly been shown to increase for concrete as compared to abstract words (Barber, Otten, Kousta, & Vigliocco, 2013; Gullick, Mitra, & Coch, 2013; Kounios & Holcomb, 1994; Nittono, Suehiro, & Hori, 2002; West & Holcomb, 2000). In addition, pseudowords elicit greater N400s than real words (Lau, Phillips, & Poeppel, 2008). Previous interpretations of the N400 as indexing contextual integration or alternatively, activation of semantic features in long-term memory, do notfully explain the combination of these differences. The present study compared ERPs in the N400 and N700 time-windows for PSEUDOWORDS (e.g. ‘danalod’) and four noun categories differing in specificity and imageability: (SPECIFIC, e.g. ‘squirrel’, GENERAL, e.g. ‘animal’, EMOTIONAL, e.g. ‘happiness’ and ABSTRACT, e.g. ‘tendency’).Methods: EEGwas recorded from 32 scalp electrodes and response times were measured while 35 healthy, right-handed native Swedish speakers (age 20-37) performed an imageability rating (IR) task and a lexical decision (LD) task. The stimuli were 160 written nouns, 40 each of the above-mentioned semantic categories, and 160 phonologically legal pseudowords. Statistical comparisons of ERPs in the N400 (300-500 ms post-stimulus onset) and N700 (500-800 ms post-stimulus onset) time-windows were carried out using within-subjects ANOVAs.Results: In the LD task, N400 amplitudes increasedin the order EMOTIONAL < ABSTRACT < GENERAL < SPECIFIC < PSEUDOWORD. A largely similar pattern wasfound in the IR task as well as in the N700 time-window ofboth tasks. N400 and N700 effects were found for SPECIFIC-GENERAL test words also when they were matched for imageability, indicating that something other than imageabilityper se was driving the effects.Conclusion: The pattern of ERPamplitudes seen in the present study could be explained by a model which assumes that words with larger numbers of associated words in the mental lexicon yield smaller N400s, for example abstract as compared to concrete words and real words as compared to pseudowords. The fact that N400 andN700 effects were found for SPECIFIC-GENERAL test wordseven when they were matched for imageability indicates that other factors, possibly related to hierarchical semantic relationsbetween concrete noun categories, drive the effect. In line withthe suggested model, this might be explained by superordinate GENERAL nouns having a larger number of lexical associates than SPECIFIC nouns.References:Barber, H. A., Otten, L. J., Kousta, S.-T., & Vigliocco, G. (2013). Brain and Language, 125(1), 47–53.Gullick, M. M., Mitra, P., & Coch, D. (2013). Psychophysiology, 50(5), 431–440.Kounios, J., & Holcomb, P. J. (1994). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(4), 804–823.Lau, E. F., Phillips, C., & Poeppel, D. (2008). Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(12), 920–933.Nittono, H., Suehiro, M., & Hori, T. (2002). International Journal of Psychophysiology, 1–11.West, W. C., & Holcomb, P. J. (2000). Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(6), 1024–1037.
|
|
5. |
|
|
6. |
- Blomberg, Frida, et al.
(author)
-
The role of affective meaning, semantic associates, and orthographic neighbours in modulating the N400 in single words
- 2020
-
In: The Mental Lexicon. - : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 1871-1340 .- 1871-1375. ; 15:2, s. 161-188
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The N400 has been seen to be larger for concrete than abstract words, and for pseudowords than real words. Using a word vector analysis to calculate semantic associates (SA), as well as ratings for emotional arousal (EA), and a measure of orthographic neighbourhood (ON), the present study investigated the relation between these factors and N400 amplitudes during a lexical decision task using Swedish word stimuli. Four noun categories differing in concreteness: specific (squirrel), GENERAL (animal) emotional (happiness) and abstract (tendency) were compared with pseudowords (danalod). Results showed that N400 amplitudes increased in the order emotional < abstract < GENERAL < specific < PSEUDOWORD. A regression analysis showed that the amplitude of the N400 decreased the more semantic associates a word had and the higher the rating for emotional arousal it had. The N400 also increased the more orthographic neighbours a word had. Results provide support for the hierarchical organisation of concrete words assumed in lexical semantics. They also demonstrate how affective information facilitates meaning processing.
|
|
7. |
-
Brain Talk : discourse with and in the brain : papers from the first Birgit Rausing Language Program Conference in Linguistics, Lund, June 2008
- 2009
-
Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Brain Talk had as its theme, different aspects of language processing in the brain. The contributions focussed on the importance of context for the neurocognitive processing of language and speech in various communicative situations. The present volume, the first in the Birgit Rausing Language program conference series, contains papers from the Brain talk conference. They have been grouped in to six general areas of research in language processing in the brain: Lexicon, Syntax, Pragmatics, Prosody, Processing and modelling, and Clinical aspects.
|
|
8. |
- Bruce, Gösta, et al.
(author)
-
A Swedish accent journey
- 2006
-
In: Nordic Prosody IX. - 3631537441 - 0820477095 ; , s. 37-46
-
Book chapter (other academic/artistic)
|
|
9. |
- Bruce, Gösta, et al.
(author)
-
Developing the modelling of Swedish prosody in spontaneous dialogue
- 1996
-
In: ICSLP 96 : proceedings, Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing. - 0780335554 ; 1, s. 370-373
-
Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The main goal of our current research is the development of the Swedish prosody model. In our analysis of discourse and dialogue intonation, we are exploiting model-based resynthesis. By comparing synthesized default and fine-tuned pitch contours for the dialogues under study, we are able to isolate relevant intonation patterns. This analysis of intonation is related to an independent modelling of topic structure consisting of lexical-semantic analysis and text segmentation. Some results from our model-based acoustic analysis are presented, and its implementation in text-to-speech-synthesis is discussed.
|
|
10. |
|
|