Fogerty Daniel, Montgomery Allen A, Crass Kimberlee A
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, 1621 Greene Street, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA,
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2014 Apr;76(3):852-63. doi: 10.3758/s13414-014-0624-4.
In the present study, we investigated the effect of initial-consonant intensity on lexical decisions. Amplification was selectively applied to the initial consonant of monosyllabic words. In Experiment 1, young adults with normal hearing completed an auditory lexical decision task with words that either had the natural or amplified initial consonant. The results demonstrated faster reaction times for amplified words when listeners randomly heard words spoken by two unfamiliar talkers. The same pattern of results was found when comparing words in which the initial consonant was naturally higher in intensity than the low-intensity consonants, across all amplification conditions. In Experiment 2, listeners were familiarized with the talkers and tested on each talker in separate blocks, to minimize talker uncertainty. The effect of initial-consonant intensity was reversed, with faster reaction times being obtained for natural than for amplified consonants. In Experiment 3, nonlinguistic processing of the amplitude envelope was assessed using noise modulated by the word envelope. The results again demonstrated faster reaction times for natural than for amplified words. Across all experiments, the results suggest that the acoustic-phonetic structure of the word influences the speed of lexical decisions and interacts with the familiarity and predictability of the talker. In unfamiliar and less-predictable listening contexts, initial-consonant amplification increases lexical decision speed, even if sufficient audibility is available without amplification. In familiar contexts with adequate audibility, an acoustic match of the stimulus with the stored mental representation of the word is more important, possibly along with general auditory properties related to loudness perception.
在本研究中，我们调查了首辅音强度对词汇判断的影响。放大处理被选择性地应用于单音节词的首辅音。在实验1中，听力正常的年轻人完成了一项听觉词汇判断任务，所用单词的首辅音要么是自然状态的，要么是经过放大的。结果表明，当听众随机听到两个不熟悉的说话者说出的单词时，对放大单词的反应时间更快。在所有放大条件下，将首辅音自然强度高于低强度辅音的单词进行比较时，也发现了相同的结果模式。在实验2中，让听众熟悉说话者，并在单独的组块中对每个说话者进行测试，以尽量减少说话者的不确定性。首辅音强度的影响发生了逆转，自然辅音的反应时间比放大辅音的更快。在实验3中，使用由单词包络调制的噪声来评估幅度包络的非语言处理。结果再次表明，自然单词的反应时间比放大单词的更快。在所有实验中，结果表明单词的声学语音结构会影响词汇判断的速度，并与说话者的熟悉度和可预测性相互作用。在不熟悉且可预测性较低的听力环境中，即使不进行放大也有足够的可听度，首辅音放大仍会提高词汇判断速度。在具有足够可听度的熟悉环境中，刺激与单词存储的心理表征的声学匹配可能更重要，这可能与响度感知相关的一般听觉特性有关。
