Kai Alter

Newcastle Auditory GroupNewcastle Auditory Group

Segmentation in speech:

On the processing of boundaries and

accents

In this talk…

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

prosodic boundaries

segmentation in dialogues

other boundaries

Scientific background

Synamps2 system and Neuroscan QuickCap

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

prosodic boundaries

Intonational boundaries are essential to understanding speech

IPh = Intonational phrase boundary

(A)..............]IPh................................. ]

(B)................................]IPh ....... ]

When it rains]IPh cats and dogs stay at home

When it rains cats and dogs]IPh stay at home

Grand average over 48 sentences per condition / 48 adults; German materials

FZ

CZ

PZ

F8FC4

CP6

O2

F7FC3

CP5

O1

Steinhauer, Alter & Friederici, Nature Neuroscience. 1999

Processing Intonational boundaries - the Closure Positive Shift (CPS)

(A).................]IPh..................... ]

(B)........]IPh.................]IPh......... ]

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

prosodic boundaries

Intonational boundaries are essential to understanding speech

IPh boundary

CPS

IPh boundary

CPS

acoustic input

phonological encoding

neural response

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

prosodic boundaries

• in relative clauses (Isel, Alter & Friederici. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2005)

• in parenthetical constructions(Toepel & Alter. Speech Prosody, 2002)

• in hummed speech(Pannekamp et al., Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2005)(fMRI: Ischebeck, Friederici & Alter. Cerebral Cortex 2008)

• in music (Knoesche et al., Journal of Human Brain Mapping, 2005)

• CPS independent from prosodic cues

(Grube, Griffiths & Alter, in preparation)

CPS as a brain marker for sound segmentation

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

prosodic boundaries

Where accentuation intervenes...Influence of context (focus)

Peter promises to SUPPORT ANNA and ...

Please note: accents are ‚focus accents‘ induced by a preceding wh-questionGerman materials with verb-final and focus in-situ patterns

what? whom?

accent accent

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

segmentation in dialogues

CPS as a brain marker for segmentation

Please note: if presented in isolation, the CPS ‚moves‘ to the position of the IPhAlter, K. in: Lacheret, A. & J. Francois (eds.). Fonctions et moyens d'expression de la focalisation. 2004

focus accent

CPS

acoustic input

phonological encoding

neural response

basic mechanisms of sound segmentation

segmentation in dialogues

The CPS is a useful tool to investigate sequencing in sound processing

Summary

Thank you for your attention