The motor theory of speech perception revised.
| Number | 519 |
|---|---|
| Year | 1985 |
| Drawer | 9 |
| Entry Date | 11/18/1999 |
| Authors | Liberman, A. M. & Mattingly, I. G. |
| Contact | |
| Publication | Cognition, 21, 1-36. |
| url | http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0519.pdf |
| Abstract | Presents a motor theory of speech perception, initially proposed to account for results of early experiments with synthetic speech, that has been revised to accommodate recent findings and to relate the assumptions of the theory to those that might be made about other perceptual modes. According to the revised theory, phonetic information is perceived in a biologically distinct system, a module specialized to detect the intended gestures of the speaker that are the basis for phonetic categories. Built into the structure of this module is the lawful relationship between the gestures and the acoustic patterns in which they are variously overlapped. It is proposed that the module causes perception of phonetic structure without translation from preliminary auditory impressions. It is suggested that the module of the present model is comparable to other modules in nature, such as that which enables an animal to localize sound. Peculiar to the phonetic module are the relation between perception and production and the fact that it must compete with other modules for the same stimulus variations. Experimental evidence of the theory is presented in relation to articulation, coarticulation, the divergence of acoustic signal to phonetic and auditory modes, convergence of acoustic and optical signals on the phonetic mode, and phonetic and auditory responses to cues. |
| Notes |
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