LINGUIST List 21.2670
Tue Jun 22 2010
Diss: Lang Acq/Phonology/Psycholing: Hatfield: 'Temporal Expectancy...'
Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter
<evelynlinguistlist.org>
1. Hunter
Hatfield,
Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in Language Processing
Message 1: Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in Language Processing
Date: 21-Jun-2010
From: Hunter Hatfield <hunterhhawaii.edu>
Subject: Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in Language Processing
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Institution: University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2010
Author: Hunter B Hatfield
Dissertation Title: Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in Language Processing
Linguistic Field(s):
Language Acquisition
Phonology
Psycholinguistics
Dissertation Director:
William O'Grady
Dissertation Abstract:
This dissertation assesses the relationship between statistical learning andtemporal perception. It starts entertaining a bold hypothesis: that formerdemonstrations of statistical learning were actually demonstrations thatisochronous word onsets could be used to segment words within speech. Toassess this, two languages are created. One language employs varying wordlengths (2 and 3 syllables) and varying word durations. The second employsvarying word lengths and identical word durations. It is expected thatlearning will be better in the case with identical word durations.
Three conclusions are reached through analysis of the resulting data. 1) Thedata cannot be adequately explained without positing knowledge of thestatistical distributions of syllables. This then rejects the hypothesis thatisochronous word onset intervals created a confound in previous work.However, the statistical knowledge is most consistent with the notion thatthe distributional patterns are signaling a prosodic break, not a lexical one.The Information / Duration hypothesis is presented along with thisargument. This hypothesis states that an increase in uncertainty will beexperienced as an increase in duration. 2) The time course of wordsegmentation should not be overlooked. Previous claims that one cue isstronger for segmentation than another cue might be better explained bytemporal priority. Cues that are encountered first will set expectations morethan later cues. 3) Statistical learning should result in greaterdemonstrations of learning than seen in the experimental results. This ismost consistent with the presence of a competing cue. Entrainment to arhythmic stimulus, the earlier proposed confound, is the most naturalcompeting cue here. Much of the work is interpreted within theories of timeperception based upon dynamic oscillators.
The main result is that attention is a prime mechanism to control what sortsof items are calculated in statistical learning, and rhythm is one method tocontrol attention. The dissertation also assesses what it is like for a speakerto experience a statistical distribution rather than simply calculate it.
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