Question 1

Which kind of sound contrast differs along the sound dimension that is called "manner of articulation"?

Accepted Answer

Manner of articulation refers to how speech sounds are made based on the degree and nature of constriction in the vocal tract. Sounds that differ in manner of articulation are contrasted by whether flow of air through the vocal tract is completely stopped or only partially constricted by a narrowed passage somewhere in the vocal apparatus. Examples of manner of articulation include stops, fricatives, affricates, and nasals. A is incorrect as it describes the place of articulation. C is incorrect as it describes the voicing contrast. D is incorrect as it describes the place of articulation based on the height of the tongue.

Question 2

Which sound contrasts differ in their place of articulation?

Accepted Answer

/p/ is a bilabial sound, while /k/ is a velar sound, differing in their place of articulation.

Question 3

Which response is not a challenge engineers faced in designing automated speech recognition software?

Accepted Answer

This response is not a challenge engineers faced in designing automated speech recognition software, as it refers to the need for a toy dog to understand the meaning of individual words, which is outside the scope of speech recognition software. A, B, and D are all challenges that engineers faced in designing automated speech recognition software.

Question 4

Which of the following adds nothing to variability between different instances of the same phoneme in speech?

Accepted Answer

Morphemic content refers to the meaning and grammatical function of a particular word or morpheme within a sentence. It does not have any direct influence on the variability between different instances of the same phoneme in speech, unlike the other options. Differences in the vocal apparatus between different speakers, coarticulation, and the allophones included in the spoken language can all contribute to variability in the realization of a phoneme.

Question 5

Two or more similar sounds that are variants of the same phoneme are called

Accepted Answer

Allophones are different variations of the same phoneme that are pronounced slightly differently in different contexts or positions within a word. For example, the English "p" sound can be pronounced with a small puff of air, aspirated, in the initial position of a word (as in "pie"), but is usually unaspirated in the final position (as in "spy"). These are two different allophones of the same phoneme /p/.

Question 6

Which speech-perception task would place the greatest demand on short-term memory (working memory)?

Accepted Answer

In an ABX discrimination task, the subject has to remember the first sound (A) and compare it to the second sound (B) and then make a decision about whether the third sound (X) matches the first or second sound. This requires a high demand on short-term memory (working memory) as the subject has to hold the first sound in memory while comparing it to the second sound and then make a decision about the third sound. The other tasks (A, B, and C) do not require as much working memory demand.

Question 7

In a test for categorical perception, participants hear two sounds and are asked to say whether the sounds are the same phoneme or different phonemes. What have such tests found?

Accepted Answer

Tests for categorical perception have consistently found that performance is poor despite large acoustic differences if the sounds fall within the same phoneme category. This supports the idea that listeners perceive speech sounds categorically, rather than continuously.

Question 8

Suppose researchers ask participants to identify syllables from a set of stimuli that were created such that they vary systematically by equal steps of difference in voice onset time. How well will the participants identify stimuli?

Accepted Answer

Participants will consistently hear each syllable as a good example of one or the other phoneme on either side of the phoneme boundary in VOT. This is known as categorical perception, where listeners perceive sounds as belonging to distinct categories rather than as a continuous range of sounds. This phenomenon has been widely studied and replicated for various phonetic continua.

Question 9

How is categorical perception different from continuous perception?

Accepted Answer

Categorical perception involves perceiving distinct categories of stimuli, with a very steep slope in identification proportion around a category boundary that is not based on physical differences. In contrast, continuous perception involves responding equally to any kind of change along a physical gradient, without perceiving distinct categories. Option A describes graded perception, where some exemplars of a stimulus category are perceived as better than others. Option D describes dynamic perception, where perception continuously updates in response to changing stimuli.

Question 10

Which statement accurately describes a similarity or difference in the way acoustic speech and visual sign languages are perceived?

Accepted Answer

Both acoustic speech and visual sign languages are processed in complex ways by the brain, and both types of languages adapt and vary according to the community of speakers or signers. This highlights the shared principles of visual and auditory perception in language processing.

Question 11

______ is a clear example of how visual perception can influence how we hear speech.

Accepted Answer

The McGurk effect is a phenomenon where what we see can influence what we hear, resulting in a perceived phoneme that is different from the actual spoken phoneme. For example, if someone says "ga" but the person watching sees their lips say "ba," they may perceive the sound as "da." This effect highlights the important role that visual perception plays in our perception of speech.

Question 12

Imagine that you were a participant in William Ganong's 1980 study, and you were asked to report whether you heard the word bid or pid when presented with an ambiguous phoneme sound between /b/ and /p/ at the start of _id. You would

Accepted Answer

According to William Ganong's study, participants were found to be biased towards perceiving the ambiguous phoneme sound between /b/ and /p/ as belonging to the word category that would result in a real word. This means that if the phoneme was followed by "id," participants were more likely to report hearing "bid" as opposed to "pid." Therefore, choice C is the best answer.

Question 13

The Ganong effect is to linguistic perceptual invariance as _______ is to visual perceptual invariance.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The Ganong effect is to linguistic perceptual...

Question 14

_______ occurs when a participant reports hearing both the missing phoneme as well as the non-linguistic sound, such as a sneeze, that replaced it.

Accepted Answer

The phoneme restoration effect is a phenomenon where the brain "fills in" a missing sound within a spoken word, based on context and past experience. In some cases, a non-linguistic sound may replace the missing phoneme, and the listener may report hearing both the missing phoneme and the non-linguistic sound, leading to the phoneme restoration effect. Compensation for coarticulation refers to the adjustment of speech sounds based on their surrounding sounds and is not related to the phenomenon described in the question. A mondegreen is a misinterpretation of a phrase or lyric due to mishearing or misinterpreting the sound of words. Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds within words, and is also not related to the phenomenon described in the question.

Question 15

What determines which sound features become prioritized as cues about sound category distinctions?

Accepted Answer

Research has shown that various factors such as context, variability, talker, and language can influence how different sound features are weighted as cues for categorizing speech sounds. Different languages and dialects may prioritize different sound features as more important depending on their linguistic structures and the phonemic inventory. Variability in talker voice and acoustic characteristics can also affect how certain features are prioritized. Finally, contextual information, such as the surrounding sounds or the listener's expectations, can also influence the weight given to different acoustic cues.

Question 16

When testing the perceptual effects of music training, why should a researcher use random assignment of participants to a musical group or control activity?

Accepted Answer

Random assignment helps to eliminate the possibility of pre-existing differences between groups, such as individuals in the music group having superior listening skills before beginning the training. This increases the internal validity of the study and ensures that any observed effects can be attributed to the music training itself, rather than other potential factors.

Question 17

Emily Myers (2009) performed fMRI brain imaging on subjects who were hearing and watching stimuli that produced the McGurk illusion. What aspects of the stimuli predicted selective brain activity?

Accepted Answer

According to Emily Myers' study, some neural regions responded selectively to an abstract sound category (the McGurk effect), while other neural regions responded selectively to acoustic details even within a category. This suggests that different regions of the brain are responsible for processing different aspects of the stimuli that produce the McGurk illusion. Option A is incorrect because neural responses during the McGurk effect were different from those during trials without the effect. Option B is incorrect because auditory neural regions represented both the phonemic category and the acoustic gradient within it. Option C is incorrect because auditory neural regions did not respond to any kind of perceptible acoustic change, but rather to specific aspects of the stimuli that produced the McGurk illusion.

Question 18

When a 50-year-old man says the name Rex, he pronounces the vowel with a lot of intensity at 500 Hz. When a 7-year-old girl says the name Rex, she pronounces the vowel without a strong component in the frequency range around 500 Hz. You have no trouble hearing both of their speech as examples of the same word. This phenomenon is known as

Accepted Answer

This phenomenon is known as perceptual invariance, which refers to the ability to recognize the same word spoken by different speakers despite variations in the acoustic signal.

Question 19

While researching a language that linguists have not catalogued before, you discover that there are very strong accents within it. In a paper presenting a hypothesis about the origin of the accents, you use Bill Labov's research in the United States to corroborate your hypothesis. Your hypothesis is most likely:

Accepted Answer

Bill Labov's research, particularly his studies in Martha's Vineyard, supports the idea that accents can serve as social markers. People may adopt certain speech patterns to identify with specific groups within a population, especially if those groups are esteemed or perceived as under threat. This aligns with option C, which suggests that accents can be a way to signal identity with a particular subset of the population.

Question 20

When dubbing a film into another language has been done very well, the sound team has taken advantage of which aspect of speech perception?

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is D because voicing and tongue gestures, which are crucial components of speech production, are not easily visible to viewers. This allows the sound team to dub the film in another language without the visual cues conflicting significantly with the auditory cues, making the dubbing less noticeable and more seamless.

Quiz 6: Speech Perception