Acoustic/phonological saliency

[Ray Weitzman]

Hi Katie,

'Saliency' is a term that is used in speech perception to refer to the
relative control a particular acoustic parameter (duration, intensity,
formant frequency, pitch, etc.) has in discriminating one phoneme from
another, one syllable from another, one word from another, one phrase from
another, or even one sentence from another.  Comparisions of different
acoustic parameters as cues to in speech perception are referred to as the
relative perceptual salience of the parameters or more technically as
auditory cue weighting.  As far as I know it has nothing to do with why a
child might show a particular preference for particular words or sounds,
much "explain" those preferences.

Ray Weitzman

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alcock, Katherine" <k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk>
To: <info-childes at mail.talkbank.org>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 3:42 AM
Subject: Acoustic/phonological saliency


> I have a question about this concept which seems to be bandied about a lot
in the language acquisition literature.  While there do seem to be some
empirical studies, for example of the amplitude of particular phonemes
compared to other phonemes, it also seems to be a concept that many assume
in studies - for example, assuming that initial syllables or phonemes, or
final ones, or stressed ones, will be more salient to children learning
language.  I am using this concept in the field of literacy (spelling, in
particular) and although I can find many papers in spoken language
acquisition which draw on the concept of saliency to explain children's
preferences for particular words/sounds, I can't seem to find any discussion
of the concept per se, or measurements, either acoustic or behavioural, of
some aspects of salience.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas - is this lost in the mists of time, or
something that linguists take in with their mothers' milk and I missed out
in my neuroscience education? Or am I confusing two different concepts?
>
> thanks
>
> Katie Alcock
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