Boundaries and Pronunciation
The basic unit of spoken language that helps distinguish one word from another
What is a phoneme?
Helps the brain interpret ambiguous sounds based on what was heard first, and what will most likely be heard after
What is context?
This cue helps you understand ambiguous speech more accurately than simply talking over the phone
What are facial cues?
Humans are born with an innate, special device to decode speech
What is a special mechanism?
A special phonetic module is not needed in this approach
What is the general mechanism approach?
The space that separates one word from another in a sentence
What is a boundary?
This description of people is consistent with Theme 1 and specifies how they listen
What are active listeners?
Looking at this when someone is speaking helps you understand their words
What are lips?
The existence of a theoretical mechanism that only processes speech perception
What is a phonetic module?
Supporters of the general mechanism approach believe that humans use this to process both speech sounds and non-speech sounds
What are neural mechanisms?
Sound vibrations generated by someone talking are translated into a sequence of sounds during this process
What is speech perception?
The pastor coughed in the middle of a word, but you were able to fill in the missing phoneme using the context of her sentence
What is phonemic restoration?
The effect that refers to when individuals integrate visual and auditory information during speech perception
What is the McGurk effect?
This presumed module results in the accurate understanding of speech more than any other sound
What is a speech module?
A type of research that shows the sequence of shifts in the brain's electrical potential when humans listen to speech or non-speech sounds
What are event-related potentials (ERPs)?
A source of variability in phoneme pronunciation that depends on the previous and future phonemes in a sentence
What is coarticulation?
In contrast with ideas from classical behaviorism, this approach proposes that individuals seek information rather than passively wait for stimulus
What is the cognitive approach?
Context and visual cues help to solve the problem caused by this
What are ambiguous phonemes?
The special mechanism theory of perception is not the favored approach because humans also show categorical perception of these sounds
What are non-speech sounds?
Since speech perception is influenced by this, the argument of a special module in the brain for speech perception becomes flawed
What are visual cues?
This observation refers to how speakers of the same language can produce the same sounds differently due to their gender, age, regional dialect, or sloppy pronunciation
What is inter-speaker variability?
Phonemic restoration helps to overcome misunderstandings caused by this phenomenon that makes speakers of the same language sound differently
What is inter-speaker variability?
The part of the brain cortex that integrates sight and sound
What is the superior temporal sulcus?
When hearing a sound halfway between a b and a p, people claimed to hear either a clear-cut b or a clear-cut p.
What is categorical perception?
These abilities, combined with our perceptual abilities, help us to distinguish speech sounds
What are cognitive abilities?