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Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Continuous Speech

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Abstract

The present study examined the role of positional probability of syllables played in recognition of spoken word in continuous Cantonese speech. Because some sounds occur more frequently at the beginning position or ending position of Cantonese syllables than the others, so these kinds of probabilistic information of syllables may cue the locations of syllable boundaries in speech. Two word-spotting experiments were conducted to investigate the role of positional probability in the spoken word recognition process of Cantonese speech. It was found that listeners indeed made use of the positional probability of a syllable’s onset but not of a syllable’s ending sound in the spoken word recognition process. Together with other relevant studies in different languages, we propose that probabilistic phonotactics are one useful source of information in the spoken word recognition and speech segmentation process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Studies, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR

    Michael C. W. Yip

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  1. Michael C. W. Yip
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Correspondence to Michael C. W. Yip.

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This research was partially supported by funding from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee [GRF No.: 845613]. I would like to thank Carol Chan, Katherine Leung and Minna Zhai for their assistance in the present study and the constructive comments from the anonymous reviewers.

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Yip, M.C.W. Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Continuous Speech. J Psycholinguist Res 44, 775–787 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-014-9318-2

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