Speech perception during spoken-language processing in French: How comprehension processes interact with the perception of on-going speech

Abstract

A study group of 60 common untrained French listeners (30 female and 30 male equally distributed in three age groups and two language groups) was used to investigate the rote of word-recognition processes and sentential context on acoustic-phonetic input processing. The monitoring latencies to a nonsense CV syllable occurring in three different contexts (acoustic-phonetic analysis alone; word-recognition processes; or contextual constraints) was examined. The results show that, in spite of slow RTs with age and more laborious acoustic-phonetic analysis with bilingualism, the word-recognition processes and the contextual constaints have a similar effect. These effects are discussed within the theoretical framework of interactive models of spoken-language comprehension.

Key Words:

• Speech perception
• auditory comprehension
• on-line language processing
• word recognition