Signal-driven computations in speech processing. Peña, M., Bonatti, L. L, Nespor, M., & Mehler, J. Science, 298(5593):604-7, 2002.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Learning a language requires both statistical computations to identify words in speech and algebraic-like computations to discover higher level (grammatical) structure. Here we show that these computations can be influenced by subtle cues in the speech signal. After a short familiarization to a continuous speech stream, adult listeners are able to segment it using powerful statistics, but they fail to extract the structural regularities included in the stream even when the familiarization is greatly extended. With the introduction of subliminal segmentation cues, however, these regularities can be rapidly captured.
@Article{Pena2002,
  author   = {Pe{\~n}a, Marcela and Bonatti, Luca L and Nespor, Marina and Mehler, Jacques},
  journal  = {Science},
  title    = {Signal-driven computations in speech processing.},
  year     = {2002},
  number   = {5593},
  pages    = {604-7},
  volume   = {298},
  abstract = {Learning a language requires both statistical computations to identify
	words in speech and algebraic-like computations to discover higher
	level (grammatical) structure. Here we show that these computations
	can be influenced by subtle cues in the speech signal. After a short
	familiarization to a continuous speech stream, adult listeners are
	able to segment it using powerful statistics, but they fail to extract
	the structural regularities included in the stream even when the
	familiarization is greatly extended. With the introduction of subliminal
	segmentation cues, however, these regularities can be rapidly captured.},
  doi      = {10.1126/science.1072901},
  keywords = {Adult, Cues, France, Human, Language, Learning, Linguistics, Phonetics, Probability, Speech Perception, Statistics, Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Vocabulary, 12386323},
}

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