PHONOLOGY IN SPEECH PERCEPTION
Up to this point, we have
seen that specific phonetic features are recognized by the brain and stored. We
also know that the message that the brain has to understand is made out of
words, and words are composed of syllables and phonemes. So the brain somehow
has to get from a collection of phonetic information extracted from the sound
wave to a simple sequence of some phonological elements. Here are some factors
that need to be considered:
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We really don't know if the phoneme or the syllable or
some other unit is the basic building-block in speech perception.
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At this stage, prosodic information (particularly stress)
plays an important role, though it has tended to be overlooked in the past. Click. |
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It seems beyond doubt that the brain will use
"top-down" information based on knowledge of the phonology of the
particular language. We have only partial understanding of how this
information is used, but the most likely knowledge to be useful is
phonotactic knowledge: which sounds can follow which others, and how they
form syllables.
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