21.2670, Diss: Lang Acq/Phonology/Psycholing: Hatfield: 'Temporal Expectancy...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2670. Tue Jun 22 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2670, Diss: Lang Acq/Phonology/Psycholing: Hatfield: 'Temporal Expectancy...'

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1)
Date: 21-Jun-2010
From: Hunter Hatfield < hunterh at hawaii.edu >
Subject: Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in Language Processing
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:53:57
From: Hunter Hatfield [hunterh at hawaii.edu]
Subject: Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in Language Processing

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Institution: University of Hawai'i at M?noa 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2010 

Author: Hunter B Hatfield

Dissertation Title: Temporal Expectancy and the Experience of Statistics in
Language Processing 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Phonology
                     Psycholinguistics


Dissertation Director(s):
William O'Grady

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation assesses the relationship between statistical learning and 
temporal perception. It starts entertaining a bold hypothesis: that former 
demonstrations of statistical learning were actually demonstrations that 
isochronous word onsets could be used to segment words within speech. To 
assess this, two languages are created. One language employs varying word 
lengths (2 and 3 syllables) and varying word durations. The second employs 
varying word lengths and identical word durations. It is expected that 
learning will be better in the case with identical word durations.

Three conclusions are reached through analysis of the resulting data. 1) The 
data cannot be adequately explained without positing knowledge of the 
statistical distributions of syllables. This then rejects the hypothesis that 
isochronous word onset intervals created a confound in previous work. 
However, the statistical knowledge is most consistent with the notion that 
the distributional patterns are signaling a prosodic break, not a lexical one. 
The Information / Duration hypothesis is presented along with this 
argument. This hypothesis states that an increase in uncertainty will be 
experienced as an increase in duration. 2) The time course of word 
segmentation should not be overlooked. Previous claims that one cue is 
stronger for segmentation than another cue might be better explained by 
temporal priority. Cues that are encountered first will set expectations more 
than later cues. 3) Statistical learning should result in greater 
demonstrations of learning than seen in the experimental results. This is 
most consistent with the presence of a competing cue. Entrainment to a 
rhythmic stimulus, the earlier proposed confound, is the most natural 
competing cue here. Much of the work is interpreted within theories of time 
perception based upon dynamic oscillators. 

The main result is that attention is a prime mechanism to control what sorts 
of items are calculated in statistical learning, and rhythm is one method to 
control attention. The dissertation also assesses what it is like for a speaker 
to experience a statistical distribution rather than simply calculate it. 




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