Anne Cutler †

Publications

Displaying 1 - 28 of 28
  • Cutler, A., Norris, D., & McQueen, J. M. (1996). Lexical access in continuous speech: Language-specific realisations of a universal model. In T. Otake, & A. Cutler (Eds.), Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies (pp. 227-242). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A., & Otake, T. (1996). Phonological structure and its role in language processing. In T. Otake, & A. Cutler (Eds.), Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies (pp. 1-12). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A. (1996). Prosody and the word boundary problem. In J. L. Morgan, & K. Demuth (Eds.), Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition (pp. 87-99). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A. (1996). The comparative study of spoken-language processing. In H. T. Bunnell (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing: Vol. 1 (pp. 1). New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

    Abstract

    Psycholinguists are saddled with a paradox. Their aim is to construct a model of human language processing, which will hold equally well for the processing of any language, but this aim cannot be achieved just by doing experiments in any language. They have to compare processing of many languages, and actively search for effects which are specific to a single language, even though a model which is itself specific to a single language is really the last thing they want.
  • Cutler, A., Van Ooijen, B., Norris, D., & Sanchez-Casas, R. (1996). Speeded detection of vowels: A cross-linguistic study. Perception and Psychophysics, 58, 807-822. Retrieved from http://www.psychonomic.org/search/view.cgi?id=430.

    Abstract

    In four experiments, listeners’ response times to detect vowel targets in spoken input were measured. The first three experiments were conducted in English. In two, one using real words and the other, nonwords, detection accuracy was low, targets in initial syllables were detected more slowly than targets in final syllables, and both response time and missed-response rate were inversely correlated with vowel duration. In a third experiment, the speech context for some subjects included all English vowels, while for others, only five relatively distinct vowels occurred. This manipulation had essentially no effect, and the same response pattern was again observed. A fourth experiment, conducted in Spanish, replicated the results in the first three experiments, except that miss rate was here unrelated to vowel duration. We propose that listeners’ responses to vowel targets in naturally spoken input are effectively cautious, reflecting realistic appreciation of vowel variability in natural context.
  • Cutler, A., & Otake, T. (1996). The processing of word prosody in Japanese. In P. McCormack, & A. Russell (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (pp. 599-604). Canberra: Australian Speech Science and Technology Association.
  • Kuijpers, C., Van Donselaar, W., & Cutler, A. (1996). Phonological variation: Epenthesis and deletion of schwa in Dutch. In H. T. Bunnell (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing: Vol. 1 (pp. 94-97). New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

    Abstract

    Two types of phonological variation in Dutch, resulting from optional rules, are schwa epenthesis and schwa deletion. In a lexical decision experiment it was investigated whether the phonological variants were processed similarly to the standard forms. It was found that the two types of variation patterned differently. Words with schwa epenthesis were processed faster and more accurately than the standard forms, whereas words with schwa deletion led to less fast and less accurate responses. The results are discussed in relation to the role of consonant-vowel alternations in speech processing and the perceptual integrity of onset clusters.
  • Otake, T., & Cutler, A. (Eds.). (1996). Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies. Berlin: Mounton de Gruyter.
  • Otake, T., Yoneyama, K., Cutler, A., & van der Lugt, A. (1996). The representation of Japanese moraic nasals. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 100, 3831-3842. doi:10.1121/1.417239.

    Abstract

    Nasal consonants in syllabic coda position in Japanese assimilate to the place of articulation of a following consonant. The resulting forms may be perceived as different realizations of a single underlying unit, and indeed the kana orthographies represent them with a single character. In the present study, Japanese listeners' response time to detect nasal consonants was measured. Nasals in coda position, i.e., moraic nasals, were detected faster and more accurately than nonmoraic nasals, as reported in previous studies. The place of articulation with which moraic nasals were realized affected neither response time nor accuracy. Non-native subjects who knew no Japanese, given the same materials with the same instructions, simply failed to respond to moraic nasals which were realized bilabially. When the nasals were cross-spliced across place of articulation contexts the Japanese listeners still showed no significant place of articulation effects, although responses were faster and more accurate to unspliced than to cross-spliced nasals. When asked to detect the phoneme following the (cross-spliced) moraic nasal, Japanese listeners showed effects of mismatch between nasal and context, but non-native listeners did not. Together, these results suggest that Japanese listeners are capable of very rapid abstraction from phonetic realization to a unitary representation of moraic nasals; but they can also use the phonetic realization of a moraic nasal effectively to obtain anticipatory information about following phonemes.
  • Van Donselaar, W., Kuijpers, C., & Cutler, A. (1996). How do Dutch listeners process words with epenthetic schwa? In H. T. Bunnell (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing: Vol. 1 (pp. 149-152). New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

    Abstract

    Dutch words with certain final consonant clusters are subject to optional schwa epenthesis. The present research aimed at investigating how Dutch listeners deal with this type of phonological variation. By means of syllable monitoring experiments, it was investigated whether Dutch listeners process words with epenthetic schwa (e.g., ’balluk’) as bisyllabic words or rather as monosyllabic words. Real words (e.g., ’balk’, ’balluk’) and pseudowords (e.g., ’golk’, ’golluk’) were compared, to examine effects of lexical representation. No difference was found between monitoring times for BAL targets in ’balluk’ carriers as compared to ’balk’ carriers. This suggests that words with epenthetic schwa are not processed as bisyllabic words. The effects for the pseudo-words paralleled those for the real words, which suggests that they are not due to lexical representation but rather to the application of phonological rules.
  • Boland, J. E., & Cutler, A. (1995). Interaction with autonomy: Defining multiple output models in psycholinguistic theory. Working Papers in Linguistic, 45, 1-10. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2066/15768.

    Abstract

    There are currently a number of psycholinguistic models in which processing at a particular level of representation is characterized by the generation of multiple outputs, with resolution involving the use of information from higher levels of processing. Surprisingly, models with this architecture have been characterized as autonomous within the domain of word recognition and as interactive within the domain of sentence processing. We suggest that the apparent internal confusion is not, as might be assumed, due to fundamental differences between lexical and syntactic processing. Rather, we believe that the labels in each domain were chosen in order to obtain maximal contrast between a new model and the model or models that were currently dominating the field.
  • Boland, J. E., & Cutler, A. (1995). Interaction with autonomy: Multiple Output models and the inadequacy of the Great Divide. Cognition, 58, 309-320. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(95)00684-2.

    Abstract

    There are currently a number of psycholinguistic models in which processing at a particular level of representation is characterized by the generation of multiple outputs, with resolution - but not generation - involving the use of information from higher levels of processing. Surprisingly, models with this architecture have been characterized as autonomous within the domain of word recognition but as interactive within the domain of sentence processing. We suggest that the apparent confusion is not, as might be assumed, due to fundamental differences between lexical and syntactic processing. Rather, we believe that the labels in each domain were chosen in order to obtain maximal contrast between a new model and the model or models that were currently dominating the field. The contradiction serves to highlight the inadequacy of a simple autonomy/interaction dichotomy for characterizing the architectures of current processing models.
  • Cutler, A., & Chen, H.-C. (1995). Phonological similarity effects in Cantonese word recognition. In K. Elenius, & P. Branderud (Eds.), Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences: Vol. 1 (pp. 106-109). Stockholm: Stockholm University.

    Abstract

    Two lexical decision experiments in Cantonese are described in which the recognition of spoken target words as a function of phonological similarity to a preceding prime is investigated. Phonological similaritv in first syllables produced inhibition, while similarity in second syllables led to facilitation. Differences between syllables in tonal and segmental structure had generally similar effects.
  • Cutler, A. (1995). Spoken word recognition and production. In J. L. Miller, & P. D. Eimas (Eds.), Speech, language and communication (pp. 97-136). New York: Academic Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter highlights that most language behavior consists of speaking and listening. The chapter also reveals differences and similarities between speaking and listening. The laboratory study of word production raises formidable problems; ensuring that a particular word is produced may subvert the spontaneous production process. Word production is investigated via slips and tip-of-the-tongue (TOT), primarily via instances of processing failure and via the technique of via the picture-naming task. The methodology of word production is explained in the chapter. The chapter also explains the phenomenon of interaction between various stages of word production and the process of speech recognition. In this context, it explores the difference between sound and meaning and examines whether or not the comparisons are appropriate between the processes of recognition and production of spoken words. It also describes the similarities and differences in the structure of the recognition and production systems. Finally, the chapter highlights the common issues in recognition and production research, which include the nuances of frequency of occurrence, morphological structure, and phonological structure.
  • Cutler, A. (1995). Spoken-word recognition. In G. Bloothooft, V. Hazan, D. Hubert, & J. Llisterri (Eds.), European studies in phonetics and speech communication (pp. 66-71). Utrecht: OTS.
  • Cutler, A. (1995). The perception of rhythm in spoken and written language. In J. Mehler, & S. Franck (Eds.), Cognition on cognition (pp. 283-288). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Cutler, A., & McQueen, J. M. (1995). The recognition of lexical units in speech. In B. De Gelder, & J. Morais (Eds.), Speech and reading: A comparative approach (pp. 33-47). Hove, UK: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A. (1995). Universal and Language-Specific in the Development of Speech. Biology International, (Special Issue 33).
  • Fear, B. D., Cutler, A., & Butterfield, S. (1995). The strong/weak syllable distinction in English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 97, 1893-1904. doi:10.1121/1.412063.

    Abstract

    Strong and weak syllables in English can be distinguished on the basis of vowel quality, of stress, or of both factors. Critical for deciding between these factors are syllables containing unstressed unreduced vowels, such as the first syllable of automata. In this study 12 speakers produced sentences containing matched sets of words with initial vowels ranging from stressed to reduced, at normal and at fast speech rates. Measurements of the duration, intensity, F0, and spectral characteristics of the word-initial vowels showed that unstressed unreduced vowels differed significantly from both stressed and reduced vowels. This result held true across speaker sex and dialect. The vowels produced by one speaker were then cross-spliced across the words within each set, and the resulting words' acceptability was rated by listeners. In general, cross-spliced words were only rated significantly less acceptable than unspliced words when reduced vowels interchanged with any other vowel. Correlations between rated acceptability and acoustic characteristics of the cross-spliced words demonstrated that listeners were attending to duration, intensity, and spectral characteristics. Together these results suggest that unstressed unreduced vowels in English pattern differently from both stressed and reduced vowels, so that no acoustic support for a binary categorical distinction exists; nevertheless, listeners make such a distinction, grouping unstressed unreduced vowels by preference with stressed vowels
  • McQueen, J. M., Cutler, A., Briscoe, T., & Norris, D. (1995). Models of continuous speech recognition and the contents of the vocabulary. Language and Cognitive Processes, 10, 309-331. doi:10.1080/01690969508407098.

    Abstract

    Several models of spoken word recognition postulate that recognition is achieved via a process of competition between lexical hypotheses. Competition not only provides a mechanism for isolated word recognition, it also assists in continuous speech recognition, since it offers a means of segmenting continuous input into individual words. We present statistics on the pattern of occurrence of words embedded in the polysyllabic words of the English vocabulary, showing that an overwhelming majority (84%) of polysyllables have shorter words embedded within them. Positional analyses show that these embeddings are most common at the onsets of the longer word. Although both phonological and syntactic constraints could rule out some embedded words, they do not remove the problem. Lexical competition provides a means of dealing with lexical embedding. It is also supported by a growing body of experimental evidence. We present results which indicate that competition operates both between word candidates that begin at the same point in the input and candidates that begin at different points (McQueen, Norris, & Cutler, 1994, Noms, McQueen, & Cutler, in press). We conclude that lexical competition is an essential component in models of continuous speech recognition.
  • Norris, D., McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A. (1995). Competition and segmentation in spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 1209-1228.

    Abstract

    Spoken utterances contain few reliable cues to word boundaries, but listeners nonetheless experience little difficulty identifying words in continuous speech. The authors present data and simulations that suggest that this ability is best accounted for by a model of spoken-word recognition combining competition between alternative lexical candidates and sensitivity to prosodic structure. In a word-spotting experiment, stress pattern effects emerged most clearly when there were many competing lexical candidates for part of the input. Thus, competition between simultaneously active word candidates can modulate the size of prosodic effects, which suggests that spoken-word recognition must be sensitive both to prosodic structure and to the effects of competition. A version of the Shortlist model ( D. G. Norris, 1994b) incorporating the Metrical Segmentation Strategy ( A. Cutler & D. Norris, 1988) accurately simulates the results using a lexicon of more than 25,000 words.
  • Otake, T., Davis, S. M., & Cutler, A. (1995). Listeners’ representations of within-word structure: A cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal investigation. In J. Pardo (Ed.), Proceedings of EUROSPEECH 95: Vol. 3 (pp. 1703-1706). Madrid: European Speech Communication Association.

    Abstract

    Japanese, British English and American English listeners were presented with spoken words in their native language, and asked to mark on a written transcript of each word the first natural division point in the word. The results showed clear and strong patterns of consensus, indicating that listeners have available to them conscious representations of within-word structure. Orthography did not play a strongly deciding role in the results. The patterns of response were at variance with results from on-line studies of speech segmentation, suggesting that the present task taps not those representations used in on-line listening, but levels of representation which may involve much richer knowledge of word-internal structure.
  • Cutler, A., & Fay, D. A. (Eds.). (1978). [Annotated re-issue of R. Meringer and C. Mayer: Versprechen und Verlesen, 1895]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Cutler, A., & Fay, D. (1978). Introduction. In A. Cutler, & D. Fay (Eds.), [Annotated re-issue of R. Meringer and C. Mayer: Versprechen und Verlesen, 1895] (pp. ix-xl). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Cutler, A., & Cooper, W. E. (1978). Phoneme-monitoring in the context of different phonetic sequences. Journal of Phonetics, 6, 221-225.

    Abstract

    The order of some conjoined words is rigidly fixed (e.g. dribs and drabs/*drabs and dribs). Both phonetic and semantic factors can play a role in determining the fixed order. An experiment was conducted to test whether listerners’ reaction times for monitoring a predetermined phoneme are influenced by phonetic constraints on ordering. Two such constraints were investigated: monosyllable-bissyllable and high-low vowel sequences. In English, conjoined words occur in such sequences with much greater frequency than their converses, other factors being equal. Reaction times were significantly shorter for phoneme monitoring in monosyllable-bisyllable sequences than in bisyllable- monosyllable sequences. However, reaction times were not significantly different for high-low vs. low-high vowel sequences.
  • Cutler, A. (1976). High-stress words are easier to perceive than low-stress words, even when they are equally stressed. Texas Linguistic Forum, 2, 53-57.
  • Cutler, A. (1976). Phoneme-monitoring reaction time as a function of preceding intonation contour. Perception and Psychophysics, 20, 55-60. Retrieved from http://www.psychonomic.org/search/view.cgi?id=18194.

    Abstract

    An acoustically invariant one-word segment occurred in two versions of one syntactic context. In one version, the preceding intonation contour indicated that a stress would fall at the point where this word occurred. In the other version, the preceding contour predicted reduced stress at that point. Reaction time to the initial phoneme of the word was faster in the former case, despite the fact that no acoustic correlates of stress were present. It is concluded that a part of the sentence comprehension process is the prediction of upcoming sentence accents.
  • Cutler, A. (1970). An experimental method for semantic field study. Linguistic Communications, 2, 87-94.

    Abstract

    This paper emphasizes the need for empirical research and objective discovery procedures in semantics, and illustrates a method by which these goals may be obtained. The aim of the methodology described is to provide a description of the internal structure of a semantic field by eliciting the description--in an objective, standardized manner--from a representative group of native speakers. This would produce results that would be equally obtainable by any linguist using the same method under the same conditions with a similarly representative set of informants. The standardized method suggested by the author is the Semantic Differential developed by C. E. Osgood in the 1950's. Applying this method to semantic research, it is further hypothesized that, should different members of a semantic field be employed as concepts on a Semantic Differential task, a factor analysis of the results would reveal the dimensions operative within the body of data. The author demonstrates the use of the Semantic Differential and factor analysis in an actual experiment.

Share this page