Question 1

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

Accepted Answer

A)  The McGurk effect 
B)  Coarticulation 
C)  The Ganong effect 
D)  Complementary distribution

Question 2

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

Accepted Answer

A)  Whether air is closed off between the two lips or near the glottis 
B)  Whether flow is completely stopped or is only partially constricted by a narrowed passage somewhere in the vocal apparatus 
C)  Whether or not the vocal folds vibrate 
D)  A contrast caused by the relative height of the tongue during sound production

Question 3

What general cognitive skill may support adaptation to variations of the sound categories in speech?

Accepted Answer

A)  Managing attention to adjust the weights of multiple sound cues in speech 
B)  Managing attention to think of how the sound really ought to be produced 
C)  Refreshing working memory more often by forgetting recent exposures 
D)  Actively perceiving every acoustic detail as if it might become relevant in identifying phonemes

Question 4

Refer to the figure.
  If the figure refers to the categorical perception of /ba/ and /pa/, summarize how a person would interpret these sounds as the VOT changed for each.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Refer to the figure.
  If the...

Question 5

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

A)  be equally as likely to report hearing pid as bid. 
B)  be more likely to report hearing pid than bid. 
C)  be more likely to report hearing bid than pid. 
D)  likely be unable to recognize which word you heard.

Question 6

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

A)  Syllables are identified correctly only if they occur frequently in the language. 
B)  Subjects will be unable to perceive syllables near the VOT boundary between phonemes. 
C)  On either side of the phoneme boundary in VOT, subjects will consistently hear each syllable as a good example of one or the other phoneme. 
D)  On either side of the phoneme boundary in VOT, subjects will guess the syllable at close to a chance level.

Question 7

Refer to the figure.
  Figure. Average looking time was measured while broadcast phonemes either alternated (between Hindi /d_/ and /dj/) or stayed the same (repeating /d_/, or repeating /dj/). Observations were taken when infants sucked on either a U-shaped teether that allowed free tongue movement (left bar) or a flat teether that immobilized subjects' tongues (right bar). Scores greater than zero indicate a preference for the alternating phonemes. Error bars denote Standard Error of the Mean. The asterisk marks a significant difference from zero.
Infants spend more time looking at a loudspeaker, on average, if they detect an acoustic change within a stream of repeating sounds that it broadcasts. Based on the figure from Bruderer et al.'s 2015 study of speech perception by 6-month-old English-speaking infants (above), does the articulatory system of infants influence whether the babies hear phoneme distinctions between non-English consonants? Explain briefly.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Refer to the figure.
  Figure. Average...

Question 8

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

Accepted Answer

A)  Vocally produced sounds vary in several acoustic dimensions, whereas only the shape of a hand gesture matters in sign language. 
B)  Experienced listeners of spoken language can ignore sound variations, whereas even those fluent in sign language never learn to ignore variation in hand shape. 
C)  Speakers acquire the accent of their communities, whereas signers produce universally stereotyped hand movements and shapes no matter where they use sign language. 
D)  There are no major differences-visual perception shares many principles with auditory perception, and both types of language function in an equally complex manner.

Question 9

Judging from the psycholinguistic evidence, what is a benefit of raising a toddler with exposure to a variety of voices and vocal accents?

Accepted Answer

A)  The toddler will become a better speller. 
B)  The toddler will distinguish words from nonsense words at a younger age. 
C)  The toddler will grow up to be speak multiple languages. 
D)  The toddler will be better at recognizing words spoken with many emotional tones.

Question 10

Suppose you are trying to automate the production of speech using computer software and a loudspeaker. Why would it fail to sound natural if your message was generated by splicing together exemplar phonemes that had been spoken one at a time in isolation on a recording?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Suppose you are trying to automate the...

Question 11

Describe examples of evidence that show how context can help a listener comprehend specific phonemes or syllables.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Describe examples of evidence that show how...

Question 12

What was the result when researchers used fMRI to image brain activity while subjects listened to syllables that differed in place of articulation?

Accepted Answer

A)  The motor region for lip movements was more active when hearing /p/, and the tongue movement area was more active when hearing /t/. 
B)  The motor region for tongue movements was more active when hearing /p/, and the lip movement area was more active when hearing /t/. 
C)  Brain activity during passive listening did not overlap with the brain regions active during speaking tasks. 
D)  Upon hearing any speech sound, all the articulatory regions were activated at once, as predicted by the motor theory of speech perception.

Question 13

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

Accepted Answer

A)  Differences in the vocal apparatus between men, women, and children speakers 
B)  Morphemic content 
C)  Coarticulation 
D)  The allophones included in the spoken language

Question 14

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

A)  perceptual invariance. 
B)  simultaneous activation of multiple word meanings. 
C)  incremental language processing. 
D)  crossmodal priming.

Question 15

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

Accepted Answer

A)  Cues are weighted differently depending on the context, variability, talker, and language. 
B)  The most salient features stay the same because the auditory system constrains perception. 
C)  All cues are on equal footing as important dimensions of speech sounds. 
D)  Voice-onset time is always prioritized over pitch because pitch has the additional functions of cuing speaker identity or prosody.

Question 16

Refer to the figure.
  Based on the figure from Kuhl and Miller's 1975 study of categorical perception in chinchillas, what can you conclude about humans' and chinchillas' abilities to detect sound boundaries and language?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Refer to the figure.
  Based on...

Question 17

What would be the best stage name for a ventriloquist, in order to best support the illusion that the dummy is the one saying the name during the script?

Accepted Answer

A)  Bob, because the ventriloquist could simply substitute an altered /d/ for the /b/. 
B)  Pip William, because it is long and with categorically perceived consonants. 
C)  Henrietta, because it is long and the lips do not have to move. 
D)  Famous Mave, because this name takes full advantage of the Ganong effect.

Question 18

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

A)  The inherited physical traits of each group's vocal tracts lead them to produce slightly different sounds, giving them an accent. 
B)  When people move into a new area, they develop an accent that propagates better in that environment, based on its acoustic features. 
C)  Identifying with an esteemed, yet otherwise threatened, subset of the population can motivate speakers to signal that identity by an accent. 
D)  Subsets of a population that value education less will acquire an accent out of sloppiness.

Question 19

How is categorical perception different from continuous perception?

Accepted Answer

A)  Some exemplars of a stimulus category are perceived as much better than others. 
B)  Subjects respond equally well to any kind of change along a physical gradient. 
C)  The proportion of identifications as one vs. another category of stimuli has a very steep slope around some boundary that is not based on physical differences. 
D)  It involves a continuously updating perception.

Question 20

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

A)  Participants are usually equally glad to be assigned to any kind of activity. 
B)  Otherwise, the direction of causation is questionable, since those in the music group may already have superior listening skills that made them more likely to want to play music. 
C)  Random assignment makes the music group more diverse. 
D)  Random assignment minimizes individual differences within each group, making the groups easier to reason about.

Exam 6: Speech Perception