TY - JOUR A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Kager, Rene T1 - OCP-Place in speech segmentation JF - Language and speech N2 - OCP-Place, a cross-linguistically well-attested constraint against pairs of consonants with shared [place], is psychologically real. Studies have shown that the processing of words violating OCP-Place is inhibited. Functionalists assume that OCP arises as a consequence of low-level perception: a consonant following another with the same [place] cannot be faithfully perceived as an independent unit. If functionalist theories were correct, then lexical access would be inhibited if two homorganic consonants conjoin at word boundaries-a problem that can only be solved with lexical feedback. Here, we experimentally challenge the functional account by showing that OCP-Place can be used as a speech segmentation cue during pre-lexical processing without lexical feedback, and that the use relates to distributions in the input. In Experiment 1, native listeners of Dutch located word boundaries between two labials when segmenting an artificial language. This indicates a use of OCP-Labial as a segmentation cue, implying a full perception of both labials. Experiment 2 shows that segmentation performance cannot solely be explained by well-formedness intuitions. Experiment 3 shows that knowledge of OCP-Place depends on language-specific input: in Dutch, co-occurrences of labials are under-represented, but co-occurrences of coronals are not. Accordingly, Dutch listeners fail to use OCP-Coronal for segmentation. KW - Artificial language learning KW - OCP-Place KW - phonotactics KW - speech segmentation KW - pre-lexical processing Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830913508074 SN - 0023-8309 SN - 1756-6053 VL - 57 IS - 3 SP - 394 EP - 421 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Kager, René T1 - OCP-PLACE in speech segmentation T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - OCP-Place, a cross-linguistically well-attested constraint against pairs of consonants with shared [place], is psychologically real. Studies have shown that the processing of words violating OCP-Place is inhibited. Functionalists assume that OCP arises as a consequence of low-level perception: a consonant following another with the same [place] cannot be faithfully perceived as an independent unit. If functionalist theories were correct, then lexical access would be inhibited if two homorganic consonants conjoin at word boundaries-a problem that can only be solved with lexical feedback. Here, we experimentally challenge the functional account by showing that OCP-Place can be used as a speech segmentation cue during pre-lexical processing without lexical feedback, and that the use relates to distributions in the input. In Experiment 1, native listeners of Dutch located word boundaries between two labials when segmenting an artificial language. This indicates a use of OCP-Labial as a segmentation cue, implying a full perception of both labials. Experiment 2 shows that segmentation performance cannot solely be explained by well-formedness intuitions. Experiment 3 shows that knowledge of OCP-Place depends on language-specific input: in Dutch, co-occurrences of labials are under-represented, but co-occurrences of coronals are not. Accordingly, Dutch listeners fail to use OCP-Coronal for segmentation. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 386 KW - artificial language learning KW - OCP-Place KW - phonotactics KW - speech segmentation KW - pre-lexical processing Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-404141 IS - 386 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Bhatara, Anjali A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Processing of rhythm in speech and music in adult dyslexia JF - Brain Sciences N2 - Recent studies have suggested that musical rhythm perception ability can affect the phonological system. The most prevalent causal account for developmental dyslexia is the phonological deficit hypothesis. As rhythm is a subpart of phonology, we hypothesized that reading deficits in dyslexia are associated with rhythm processing in speech and in music. In a rhythmic grouping task, adults with diagnosed dyslexia and age-matched controls listened to speech streams with syllables alternating in intensity, duration, or neither, and indicated whether they perceived a strong-weak or weak-strong rhythm pattern. Additionally, their reading and musical rhythm abilities were measured. Results showed that adults with dyslexia had lower musical rhythm abilities than adults without dyslexia. Moreover, lower musical rhythm ability was associated with lower reading ability in dyslexia. However, speech grouping by adults with dyslexia was not impaired when musical rhythm perception ability was controlled: like adults without dyslexia, they showed consistent preferences. However, rhythmic grouping was predicted by musical rhythm perception ability, irrespective of dyslexia. The results suggest associations among musical rhythm perception ability, speech rhythm perception, and reading ability. This highlights the importance of considering individual variability to better understand dyslexia and raises the possibility that musical rhythm perception ability is a key to phonological and reading acquisition. KW - developmental dyslexia KW - Iambic/Trochaic Law KW - rhythmic grouping KW - musicality KW - speech perception KW - rhythm perception Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10050261 SN - 2076-3425 VL - 10 IS - 5 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - GEN A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Bhatara, Anjali A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Processing of rhythm in speech and music in adult dyslexia T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Recent studies have suggested that musical rhythm perception ability can affect the phonological system. The most prevalent causal account for developmental dyslexia is the phonological deficit hypothesis. As rhythm is a subpart of phonology, we hypothesized that reading deficits in dyslexia are associated with rhythm processing in speech and in music. In a rhythmic grouping task, adults with diagnosed dyslexia and age-matched controls listened to speech streams with syllables alternating in intensity, duration, or neither, and indicated whether they perceived a strong-weak or weak-strong rhythm pattern. Additionally, their reading and musical rhythm abilities were measured. Results showed that adults with dyslexia had lower musical rhythm abilities than adults without dyslexia. Moreover, lower musical rhythm ability was associated with lower reading ability in dyslexia. However, speech grouping by adults with dyslexia was not impaired when musical rhythm perception ability was controlled: like adults without dyslexia, they showed consistent preferences. However, rhythmic grouping was predicted by musical rhythm perception ability, irrespective of dyslexia. The results suggest associations among musical rhythm perception ability, speech rhythm perception, and reading ability. This highlights the importance of considering individual variability to better understand dyslexia and raises the possibility that musical rhythm perception ability is a key to phonological and reading acquisition. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 630 KW - developmental dyslexia KW - Iambic/Trochaic Law KW - rhythmic grouping KW - musicality KW - speech perception KW - rhythm perception Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469781 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 630 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Fritzsche, Tom A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Hullebus, Marc A1 - Gafos, Adamantios I. T1 - Respect the surroundings BT - effects of phonetic context variability on infants' learning of minimal pairs JF - JASA Express Letters N2 - Fourteen-month-olds' ability to distinguish a just learned word, /bu?k/, from its minimally different word, /du?k/, was assessed under two pre-exposure conditions: one where /b, d/-initial forms occurred in a varying vowel context and another where the vowel was fixed but the final consonant varied. Infants in the experiments benefited from the variable vowel but not from the variable final consonant context, suggesting that vowel variability but not all kinds of variability are beneficial. These results are discussed in the context of time-honored observations on the vowel-dependent nature of place of articulation cues for consonants. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003574 SN - 2691-1191 VL - 1 IS - 2 PB - AIP Publ. CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Bhatara, Anjali A1 - Unger, Annika A1 - Nazzi, Thierry A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Rhythmic grouping biases in simultaneous bilinguals JF - Bilingualism : language and cognition N2 - This study provides a novel approach for testing the universality of perceptual biases by looking at speech processing in simultaneous bilingual adults learning two languages that support the maintenance of this bias to different degrees. Specifically, we investigated the Iambic/Trochaic Law, an assumed universal grouping bias, in simultaneous French-German bilinguals, presenting them with streams of syllables varying in intensity, duration or neither and asking them whether they perceived them as strong-weak or weak-strong groupings. Results showed robust, consistent grouping preferences. A comparison to monolinguals from previous studies revealed that they pattern with German-speaking monolinguals, and differ from French-speaking monolinguals. The distribution of simultaneous bilinguals' individual performance was best explained by a model fitting a unimodal (not bimodal) distribution, failing to support two subgroups of language dominance. Moreover, neither language experience nor language context predicted their performance. These findings suggest a special role for universal biases in simultaneous bilinguals. KW - simultaneous bilingualism KW - universal bias KW - rhythm KW - rhythmic grouping KW - Iambic KW - Trochaic Law Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728920000140 SN - 1366-7289 SN - 1469-1841 VL - 23 IS - 5 SP - 1070 EP - 1081 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - New York ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bhatara, Anjali A1 - Laukka, Petri A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Granjon, Lionel A1 - Elfenbein, Hillary Anger A1 - Bänziger, Tanja T1 - Second language ability and emotional prosody perception T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The present study examines the effect of language experience on vocal emotion perception in a second language. Native speakers of French with varying levels of self-reported English ability were asked to identify emotions from vocal expressions produced by American actors in a forced-choice task, and to rate their pleasantness, power, alertness and intensity on continuous scales. Stimuli included emotionally expressive English speech (emotional prosody) and non-linguistic vocalizations (affect bursts), and a baseline condition with Swiss-French pseudo-speech. Results revealed effects of English ability on the recognition of emotions in English speech but not in non-linguistic vocalizations. Specifically, higher English ability was associated with less accurate identification of positive emotions, but not with the interpretation of negative emotions. Moreover, higher English ability was associated with lower ratings of pleasantness and power, again only for emotional prosody. This suggests that second language skills may sometimes interfere with emotion recognition from speech prosody, particularly for positive emotions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 503 KW - recognizing emotions KW - basic emotions KW - recognition KW - language KW - vocalizations KW - speech KW - models Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-411860 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 503 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bhatara, Anjali A1 - Laukka, Petri A1 - Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie A1 - Granjon, Lionel A1 - Elfenbein, Hillary Anger A1 - Banziger, Tanja T1 - Second Language Ability and Emotional Prosody Perception JF - PLoS one N2 - The present study examines the effect of language experience on vocal emotion perception in a second language. Native speakers of French with varying levels of self-reported English ability were asked to identify emotions from vocal expressions produced by American actors in a forced-choice task, and to rate their pleasantness, power, alertness and intensity on continuous scales. Stimuli included emotionally expressive English speech (emotional prosody) and non-linguistic vocalizations (affect bursts), and a baseline condition with Swiss-French pseudo-speech. Results revealed effects of English ability on the recognition of emotions in English speech but not in non-linguistic vocalizations. Specifically, higher English ability was associated with less accurate identification of positive emotions, but not with the interpretation of negative emotions. Moreover, higher English ability was associated with lower ratings of pleasantness and power, again only for emotional prosody. This suggests that second language skills may sometimes interfere with emotion recognition from speech prosody, particularly for positive emotions. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0156855 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 11 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER -