Spoken Word Recognition
Spoken word recognition is the process of mapping a continuous, time-varying acoustic signal onto words in the mental lexicon.
Definition
The recognition of words from spoken input, including the activation, competition, and selection of lexical candidates over time.
Scope
This topic covers how listeners segment continuous speech, activate and select among candidate words as the signal unfolds, and cope with variability and ambiguity. It includes the cohort, TRACE, and Shortlist models and the debate over whether top-down information feeds back into perception.
Core questions
- How do listeners recognize words in continuous speech without clear boundaries?
- How do candidate words compete as the acoustic signal unfolds?
- Does lexical knowledge feed back to influence speech perception?
Key concepts
- cohort
- uniqueness point
- lexical competition
- speech segmentation
- interactive versus autonomous access
Key theories
- Cohort model
- Word-initial information activates a set of candidates that is narrowed as the signal continues until one word is recognized, often before its end (the uniqueness point).
- TRACE (interactive-activation) model
- McClelland and Elman's connectionist model with feature, phoneme, and word levels that excite and inhibit one another, allowing top-down lexical influence on perception.
- Shortlist / autonomous models
- Norris and McQueen's Bayesian, feedforward account in which lexical knowledge optimally informs decisions without on-line feedback into perception.
History
The cohort model of the 1980s and the TRACE model of 1986 set the terms for spoken-word-recognition research, with later autonomous and Bayesian models such as Shortlist challenging the need for interactive feedback.
Debates
- Feedback versus feedforward processing
- Whether lexical knowledge feeds back to alter perceptual processing of speech (TRACE) or only informs later decisions without changing perception (Shortlist).
Key figures
- William Marslen-Wilson
- James McClelland
- Jeffrey Elman
- Dennis Norris
Related topics
Seminal works
- marslenwilson1987
- mcclellandelman1986
- norrismcqueen2008
Frequently asked questions
- What is the uniqueness point of a word?
- It is the point in a spoken word at which it diverges from all other words sharing its onset, after which the word can in principle be recognized even before it finishes.