title: Relative salience of intonation fall and pause as cues to the perceptual segmentation of speech in an unfamiliar language.
abstract: The modification of subjects' attention by two prosodic features was investigated using their reaction times to a nonspeech stimulus which coincided with these features. By using a foreign language unfamiliar to the subjects (Czechoslovakian), the influence of semantic and syntactic knowledge was controlled. The results indicate that for native speakers of English intonation fall is a relatively more important cue to the perceptual segmentation of speech than is pause.
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time; D013067:Speech Perception