Effects of virtual acoustics on target-word identification performance in multi-talker environments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atul Rungta ◽  
Nicholas Rewkowski ◽  
Carl Schissler ◽  
Philip Robinson ◽  
Ravish Mehra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Identification Performance ◽  
Virtual Acoustics

scholarly journals Reading sentences of words with rotated letters: An eye movement study

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (7) ◽  
pp. 1790-1804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hazel I Blythe ◽  
Barbara J Juhasz ◽  
Lee W Tbaily ◽  
Keith Rayner ◽  
Simon P Liversedge
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Systematic Change ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Total Fixation ◽  
Movement Study

Participants’ eye movements were measured as they read sentences in which individual letters within words were rotated. Both the consistency of direction and the magnitude of rotation were manipulated (letters rotated all in the same direction, or alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise, by 30° or 60°). Each sentence included a target word that was manipulated for frequency of occurrence. Our objectives were threefold: To quantify how change in the visual presentation of individual letters disrupted word identification, and whether disruption was consistent with systematic change in visual presentation; to determine whether inconsistent letter transformation caused more disruption than consistent letter transformation; and to determine whether such effects were comparable for words that were high and low frequency to explore the extent to which they were visually or linguistically mediated. We found that disruption to reading was greater as the magnitude of letter rotation increased, although even small rotations affected processing. The data also showed that alternating letter rotations were significantly more disruptive than consistent rotations; this result is consistent with models of lexical identification in which encoding occurs over units of more than one adjacent letter. These rotation manipulations also showed significant interactions with word frequency on the target word: Gaze durations and total fixation duration times increased disproportionately for low-frequency words when they were presented at more extreme rotations. These data provide a first step towards quantifying the relative contribution of the spatial relationships between individual letters to word recognition and eye movement control in reading.

The Effect of Text Orientation, Visual Meridian, and Inter-Character Spacing on Word Identification in the Retinal Periphery

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p5118 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (11) ◽  
pp. 1339-1350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Chaparro ◽  
Corrina Liao
Keyword(s):  
Word Identification ◽  
Major Axis ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Lateral Interaction ◽  
Peripheral Retina ◽  
Horizontal Meridian ◽  
Identification Performance ◽  
Character Space ◽  
Retinal Periphery ◽  
The Right

Previous research has demonstrated that the masking effects of flankers about a target in the peripheral retina are not isotropic. Rather, regions of lateral interaction are ellipsoid in shape with the major axis oriented radially along a meridian through the fovea. This finding leads to the counterintuitive prediction that horizontal text positioned to the right of fixation might be read more slowly than similarly positioned text oriented diagonally or vertically. Similarly, vertically oriented text above fixation might be read more slowly than horizontally or diagonally oriented text above fixation. We investigated the effect of text orientation and inter-character spacing on word identification in the retinal periphery. Text was presented by rapid serial visual presentation. Words were centered 3° from fixation along four visual field meridians (VM) (right horizontal, upper-right diagonal, vertical, and upper-left diagonal). Regardless of VM identification, performance was best for horizontal text, declining slightly for orientations between +60° and −60° and declining more quickly for acute orientations. A weak effect of VM was observed for text with normal inter-character spacing. Performance was best for text centered along the horizontal meridian and declined slightly along the other VM. Finally, identification rates increased by ∼33 words min−1 with the addition of one character space between adjacent letters. The word-recognition processes are very tolerant of text orientation, exhibiting a modest decline for orientations within ±60° of horizontal regardless of VM.

EXPRESS: Does omitting the accent mark in a word affect sentence reading? Evidence from Spanish

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110446
Author(s):  
Ana Marcet ◽  
Manuel Perea
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
Spanish Word ◽  
First Pass ◽  
Total Reading Time

Lexical stress in multisyllabic words is consistent in some languages (e.g., first syllable in Finnish), but it is variable in others (e.g., Spanish, English). To help lexical processing in a transparent language like Spanish, scholars have proposed a set of rules specifying which words require an accent mark indicating lexical stress in writing. However, recent word recognition using that lexical decision showed that word identification times were not affected by the omission of a word's accent mark in Spanish. To examine this question in a paradigm with greater ecological validity, we tested whether omitting the accent mark in a Spanish word had a deleterious effect during silent sentence reading. A target word was embedded in a sentence with its accent mark or not. Results showed no reading cost of omitting the word's accent mark in first-pass eye fixation durations, but we found a cost in the total reading time spent on the target word (i.e., including re-reading). Thus, the omission of an accent mark delays late, but not early, lexical processing in Spanish. These findings help constrain the locus of accent mark information in models of visual word recognition and reading. Furthermore, these findings offer some clues on how to simplify the Spanish rules of accentuation.

scholarly journals Dynamic large-scale connectivity of intrinsic cortical oscillations supports adaptive listening in challenging conditions

PLoS Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. e3001410
Author(s):  
Mohsen Alavash ◽  
Sarah Tune ◽  
Jonas Obleser
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Frontoparietal Network ◽  
Cortical Oscillations ◽  
Listening Behavior ◽  
Flexible Adaptation

In multi-talker situations, individuals adapt behaviorally to the listening challenge mostly with ease, but how do brain neural networks shape this adaptation? We here establish a long-sought link between large-scale neural communications in electrophysiology and behavioral success in the control of attention in difficult listening situations. In an age-varying sample of N = 154 individuals, we find that connectivity between intrinsic neural oscillations extracted from source-reconstructed electroencephalography is regulated according to the listener’s goal during a challenging dual-talker task. These dynamics occur as spatially organized modulations in power-envelope correlations of alpha and low-beta neural oscillations during approximately 2-s intervals most critical for listening behavior relative to resting-state baseline. First, left frontoparietal low-beta connectivity (16 to 24 Hz) increased during anticipation and processing of spatial-attention cue before speech presentation. Second, posterior alpha connectivity (7 to 11 Hz) decreased during comprehension of competing speech, particularly around target-word presentation. Connectivity dynamics of these networks were predictive of individual differences in the speed and accuracy of target-word identification, respectively, but proved unconfounded by changes in neural oscillatory activity strength. Successful adaptation to a listening challenge thus latches onto 2 distinct yet complementary neural systems: a beta-tuned frontoparietal network enabling the flexible adaptation to attentive listening state and an alpha-tuned posterior network supporting attention to speech.

scholarly journals Word skipping: Effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 250-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J Slattery ◽  
Mark Yates
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Mixed Models ◽  
Word Length ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Reading Speed ◽  
Linear Mixed Models ◽  
Reading Skill ◽  
Spelling Skill ◽  
Word Skipping

Readers’ eyes often skip over words as they read. Skipping rates are largely determined by word length; short words are skipped more than long words. However, the predictability of a word in context also impacts skipping rates. Rayner, Slattery, Drieghe and Liversedge reported an effect of predictability on word skipping for even long words (10-13 characters) that extend beyond the word identification span. Recent research suggests that better readers and spellers have an enhanced perceptual span. We explored that whether reading and spelling skill interact with word length and predictability to impact word skipping rates in a large sample ( N = 92) of average and poor adult readers. Participants read the items from Rayner et al., while their eye movements were recorded. Spelling skill (zSpell) was assessed using the dictation and recognition tasks developed by Sally Andrews and colleagues. Reading skill (zRead) was assessed from reading speed (words per minute) and comprehension accuracy of three 120 word passages each with 10 comprehension questions. We fit linear mixed models to the target gaze duration data and generalized linear mixed models to the target word skipping data. Target word gaze durations were significantly predicted by zRead, while the skipping likelihoods were significantly predicted by zSpell. Additionally, for gaze durations, zRead significantly interacted with word predictability as better readers relied less on context to support word processing. These effects are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and eye movement models of reading.

Aphasic Word Identification as a Function of Logical Relationship and Association Strength

1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth H. Wiig ◽  
Diane Globus
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Association Strength ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Logical Relationship ◽  
High Association ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The University ◽  
Target Words

Aphasic word identification as a function of logical relationship and restricted association strength of clues was investigated to (1) establish the relative efficiency of strategies in eliciting word identificatons, and (2) compare aphasic and nonaphasic performance on the experimental task. Subjects were eleven aphasic adults from the University of Michigan aphasia program and eleven randomly selected college students. All aphasic subjects had completed college premorbidly. The word identification task was designed to elicit twenty target words (nouns). For each target word four clue words were selected which represented the following relationships to the target word: (1) logical, high association, (2) infralogical, high association, (3) in-fralogical, low association, and (4) logical, low association. Analysis of variance of the data indicated no significant difference between the groups in total number of words identified. The effect of the different clue combinations on word identification and the interaction between subjects and treatments were highly significant. The findings suggest similar patterns of facilitation of target word identification for both subject groups. However, high logical and high infralogical clues were more efficient in eliciting target words from nonaphasic than from aphasic subjects, while low infralogical and low logical clues were equally efficient.

scholarly journals Perceptual Similarity Modulates Context Effects in Online Compensation for Phonological Variation

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Chong ◽  
Megha Sundara
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
American English ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Lexical Representation ◽  
Perceptual Similarity ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Perceptual Distance

Using a cross-modal word identification task and an eye-tracking visual-world experiment, we investigated the importance of phonological context in the recovery of tap variants of /t/- and /d/-final words in American English. In Experiment 1, listeners were less accurate when they heard a tap variant of a /t/ word in a non-licensing environment (before a consonant) than when they heard it in a licensing environment (before an unstressed vowel). Contrastively, there was no difference in accuracy for tap variants of /d/ words across different contexts. Similarly, in Experiment 2, listeners looked less often at the target word when they heard tap variants of /t/ words in a mismatching context than a matching one. A mismatch context, however, did not result in fewer looks to the target with tap variants of /d/ words. Importantly, both accuracy and proportion of looks to the target word were higher in the mismatch phonological context than when presented with mispronounced forms. Our results contrast with previous findings on tap variants of /t/. These findings also suggest that contextual information is less important when a surface form is a closer perceptual match to the lexical representation (canonical stops and tap variants of /d/). Thus a model of word recognition must take into account both frequency of a variant in context and the perceptual distance between a variant and its lexical representation.

scholarly journals An Automated Complex Word Identification from Text: A Survey

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 612-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaspreet Singh ◽  
Gurvinder Singh ◽  
Rajinder Singh Virk
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Harmonic Mean ◽  
Complex Word

Complex Word Identification (CWI) is the process of locating difficult words from a given sentence. The aim of automated CWI system is to make non-native English user understand the meaning of target word in the sentence. CWI systems assist second language learners and dyslexic users through simplification of text. This study introduces the CWI process and investigates the performance of twenty systems submitted in the SemEval -2016 for CWI. The G-score measure which is harmonic mean of accuracy and recall is taken for the performance evaluation of systems. This paper explores twenty CWI systems and identifies that why sv000gg system outperformed with highest G-score as 0.773 and 0.774 for the two respective submissions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document