Choi Mihye, Shukla Mohinish
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA.
Brain Sci. 2021 Feb 1;11(2):177. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11020177.
Speech is an acoustically variable signal, and one of the sources of this variation is the presence of multiple speakers. Empirical evidence has suggested that adult listeners possess remarkably sensitive (and systematic) abilities to process speech signals, despite speaker variability. It includes not only a sensitivity to speaker-specific variation, but also an ability to utilize speaker variation with other sources of information for further processing. Recently, many studies also showed that young children seem to possess a similar capacity. This suggests continuity in the processing of speaker-dependent speech variability, and suggests that this ability could also be important for infants learning their native language. In the present paper, we review evidence for speaker variability and speech processing in adults, and speaker variability and speech processing in young children, with an emphasis on how they make use of speaker-specific information in word learning situations. Finally, we will build on these findings to make a novel proposal for the use of speaker-specific information processing in phoneme learning in infancy.
言语是一种在声学上具有变异性的信号，这种变异的来源之一是存在多个说话者。经验证据表明，成年听众尽管存在说话者变异性，但仍具备非常敏锐（且系统）的处理言语信号的能力。这不仅包括对特定说话者变异的敏感性，还包括利用说话者变异与其他信息源进行进一步处理的能力。最近，许多研究还表明幼儿似乎也具备类似的能力。这表明在处理依赖说话者的言语变异性方面具有连续性，并且表明这种能力对于婴儿学习母语也可能很重要。在本文中，我们回顾了关于成年人中说话者变异性与言语处理以及幼儿中说话者变异性与言语处理的证据，重点关注他们在单词学习情境中如何利用特定说话者的信息。最后，我们将基于这些发现，对婴儿音素学习中使用特定说话者信息处理提出一个新的提议。
