title: Accent detection is a slippery slope: Direction and rate of F0 change drives listeners' comprehension.
abstract: The present study tests whether listeners use F0, duration, or some combination of the two to identify the presence of an accented word in a short discourse. Participants' eye movements to previously mentioned and new objects were monitored as participants listened to instructions to move objects in a display. The name of the target object on critical trials was resynthesized from naturally-produced utterances so that it had either high or low F0 and either long or short duration. Fixations to the new object were highest when there was a steep rise in F0. Fixations to the previously mentioned object were highest when there was a steep drop in F0. These results suggest that listeners use F0 slope to make decisions about the presence of an accent, and that F0 and duration by themselves do not solely determine accent interpretation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
authors.forename: Angela M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Isaacs
authors.forename: Duane G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Watson
references.citation: J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1985 Dec;11(6):799-813
references.pmid: 2934509
references.citation: J Acoust Soc Am. 2005 Aug;118(2):1038-54
references.pmid: 16158659
references.citation: J Psycholinguist Res. 1995 Nov;24(6):409-36
references.pmid: 8531168
references.citation: J Exp Psychol Hum Learn. 1980 Mar;6(2):174-215
references.pmid: 7373248
references.citation: J Psycholinguist Res. 2003 Jan;32(1):25-36
references.pmid: 12647561
references.citation: Cognition. 2008 Jul;108(1):69-99
references.pmid: 18358460
references.citation: Lang Speech. 2007;50(Pt 3):281-310
references.pmid: 17974321
references.citation: Cognition. 2008 Mar;106(3):1548-57
references.pmid: 17697675
references.citation: Cognition. 1987 Mar;25(1-2):71-102
references.pmid: 3581730
references.citation: Science. 1995 Jun 16;268(5217):1632-4
references.pmid: 7777863
references.citation: J Acoust Soc Am. 1999 Sep;106(3 Pt 1):1543-54
references.pmid: 10489710
references.citation: Lang Speech. 2006;49(Pt 3):367-92
references.pmid: 17225671
references.citation: J Mem Lang. 2008 Feb;58(2):541-573
references.pmid: 19190719