Event-related prosody reveals distinct acoustic manifestations of accuracy and confidence in speech

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Goupil ◽  
Jean-Julien Aucouturier
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Psychological Variables ◽  
Psychophysical Procedure ◽  
Speech Prosody ◽  
Subjective Confidence ◽  
Sensory Evidence

Speech prosody constitutes a fundamental way through which speakers communicate their levels of confidence. Yet, it remains unknown whether prosodic markers of uncertainty constitute mere indices, that are constitutively present when speakers feel doubtful, or rather, whether they reflect other underlying psychological variables. By combining a psychophysical procedure with an acoustic analysis of verbal reports, we tease apart the contributions of sensory evidence, accuracy, and subjective confidence to epistemic prosody. We find that loudness, duration and intonation reflect distinct underlying mental processes: while loudness is predominantly impacted by accuracy, duration and intonation truly reflect subjective confidence, over and beyond sensory evidence and accuracy. We also find that speakers’ accuracy can still be heard beyond their own metacognitive awareness, and that at the level of intonation, speakers who display better metacognitive sensitivity are also the best signalers. Our results highlight prosody as a fundamental interface through which confidence can be shared.

Interference of Introspection with Thinking in Concept Identification

1983 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 641-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald T. Kellogg ◽  
Candace S. Holley
Keyword(s):  
Hypothesis Testing ◽  
Concept Identification ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
Within Subjects

We examined changes in learning and in the content of verbal reports as a function of the regularity of introspective probes. Using a within-subjects design, concurrent undirected introspection was required on 0%, 50%, or 100% of the trials of a concept-identification task. The data for 18 subjects showed no differences in learning across 3 conditions. Verbal reports were classified according to the types of mental processes they indicated, e.g., hypothesis-testing. Analysis of the proportions of observed types suggested that the attention of subjects under the 100% condition wandered more to thoughts unrelated to the task than under the 50% condition; otherwise, the content of the verbal reports was uniform across these conditions. Undirected concurrent introspection seems to be a noninterfering, useful method for studying the nature of complex thinking.

scholarly journals Сomputer Technologies in Acoustic Analysis of English Television Advertising Discourse

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Valigura ◽  
Liubov Kozub ◽  
Iryna Sieriakova
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Television Advertising ◽  
Sound Processing ◽  
Speech Prosody ◽  
Computer Technologies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Processing Software ◽  
Advertising Discourse ◽  
Television Audience

Research studies in a variety of linguistic areas indicate that scholars often refer to computer technologies that become popular as a tool to reinforce the findings and provide the validity of the experimental results. This paper discusses the use of computer technologies in the acoustic analysis of speech prosody focused on the English television advertising discourse. The article aims to determine what the main prosodic characteristics of English advertising discourse are, and how they contribute to the maximum influence on the television audience. Therefore, the study relies upon the acoustic analysis using sound processing software WaveLab, Cool Edit Pro, SpectraLAB, Wasp, Sound Forge to ensure the reliability and validity of the obtained results. Moreover, the computer programs used in this research allowed us to measure the pronunciation accuracy and present results based on many experimental data, not only on the assumptions. Besides, the linguistic interpretation of the data of the perceptual and acoustic analysis of the English television advertising discourse prosody proves a strong correlation of these data. The obtained results indicate that detailed analysis of the quantitative prosodic characteristics of speech enables to get a clear picture of the prosodic organization of the English television advertising discourse. The research proves that the prosody of the English advertising discourse closely correlates with its pragmatic potential and some sociolinguistic features, namely, the social status of the viewer, contribute to the maximum influence on the television audience.

Discrimination of Sleep Onset Stages: Behavioral Responses and Verbal Reports

1982 ◽  
Vol 55 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1023-1037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gibson ◽  
Franklin Perry ◽  
Dana Redington ◽  
Joe Kamiya
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Stimulus ◽  
Behavioral Response ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Sleep Onset ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Mental Processes

In a descriptive experiment on discrimination five human subjects were studied during the transitional period of sleep onset. Subjects were aroused by an abrupt auditory stimulus, attempted to discriminate the pre-arousal stage by a behavioral response, and answered a series of standardized questions. These questions focused on specific characteristics of private experience associated with sleep onset. Of 180 awakenings, subjects correctly identified 109 sleep-onset stages. Subjects' answers were analyzed to determine what criteria were used to make the discrimination among sleep-onset stages and to examine their self-awareness of changes in private experience. It was established that there are stage-related changes in mental processes and content and that these may aid subjects in making such discriminations. Implications of the methodological approach used in this study are discussed.

Distinct signatures of subjective confidence and objective accuracy in speech prosody

Cognition ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 212 ◽  
pp. 104661
Author(s):  
Louise Goupil ◽  
Jean-Julien Aucouturier
Keyword(s):  
Speech Prosody ◽  
Subjective Confidence

scholarly journals Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.

1977 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Nisbett ◽  
Timothy D. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Reports ◽  
Mental Processes

scholarly journals Unexpected arousal modulates the influence of sensory noise on confidence

eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah Allen ◽  
Darya Frank ◽  
D Samuel Schwarzkopf ◽  
Francesca Fardo ◽  
Joel S Winston ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nonlinear Interaction ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Inference Models ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Internal States ◽  
Subjective Confidence ◽  
Sensory Noise

Human perception is invariably accompanied by a graded feeling of confidence that guides metacognitive awareness and decision-making. It is often assumed that this arises solely from the feed-forward encoding of the strength or precision of sensory inputs. In contrast, interoceptive inference models suggest that confidence reflects a weighted integration of sensory precision and expectations about internal states, such as arousal. Here we test this hypothesis using a novel psychophysical paradigm, in which unseen disgust-cues induced unexpected, unconscious arousal just before participants discriminated motion signals of variable precision. Across measures of perceptual bias, uncertainty, and physiological arousal we found that arousing disgust cues modulated the encoding of sensory noise. Furthermore, the degree to which trial-by-trial pupil fluctuations encoded this nonlinear interaction correlated with trial level confidence. Our results suggest that unexpected arousal regulates perceptual precision, such that subjective confidence reflects the integration of both external sensory and internal, embodied states.

Discourse Prosody in Children's Rhyme Speech Produced by Prelingually Deaf Mandarin-Speaking Children With Cochlear Implants

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 1736-1751
Author(s):  
Jue Yu ◽  
Yiyuan Liao ◽  
Shengyi Wu ◽  
Yun Li ◽  
Meiping Huang
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Speech Prosody ◽  
Connected Discourse ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Speech Genre ◽  
Prelingually Deaf

Purpose This study aimed to obtain a comprehensive understanding about how Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) performed speech prosody in a connected discourse and to what extent their prosodic scenario differed from those normal-hearing (NH) peers. Method Fifteen prelingually deaf Mandarin-speaking children with unilateral multichannel CIs were chosen and 15 age-matched NH controls were recruited. Speech samples were spontaneously elicited by children's rhyme speech genre and subject to phonetic annotation. Acoustic analysis was conducted on all speech samples, mainly focusing on the measurements of duration and fundamental frequency (F0). Tempo measures included temporal fluency, syllable-lengthening, and rhythm metrics, whereas melodic measures included both local and global F0 variations under different prosodic domains. Results The CI children generally achieved compatible temporal performance with the NH children in spontaneous discourse, except that they were somewhat arbitrary when operationalizing lengthening strategy and pausing strategy at different prosodic boundaries. With regard to melodic performance, CI children may not sufficiently modulate local phonetic nuances of F0 variation, and meanwhile, they performed atypically in the global F0 declination pattern and overall F0 resetting pattern, failing to signal the specific structure of children's rhyme discourse. Early age at implantation and longer CI experience did not play a significant role in the temporal performance of the CI children but did facilitate their articulation of dynamic pitch variation in the spontaneous discourse to some extent. Conclusion CI children did exhibit atypical prosodic patterns in discourse context, especially the overall mapping between the prosodic manifestation and the discourse structure.

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