Contrast and Conflict in Dutch Vowels

The nature of phonological representations has been extensively studied in phonology and psycholinguistics. While full specification is still the norm in psycholinguistic research, underspecified representations may better account for perceptual asymmetries. In this paper, we report on a mismatch negativity (MMN) study with Dutch listeners who took part in a passive oddball paradigm to investigate when the brain notices the difference between expected and observed vowels. In particular, we tested neural discrimination (indicating perceptual discrimination) of the tense mid vowel pairs /o/-/ø/ (place contrast), /e/-/ø/ (labiality or rounding contrast), and /e/-/o/ (place and labiality contrast). Our results show (a) a perceptual asymmetry for place in the /o/-/ø/ contrast, supporting underspecification of [CORONAL] and replicating earlier results for German, and (b) a perceptual asymmetry for labiality for the /e/-/ø/ contrast, which was not reported in the German study. A labial deviant [ø] (standard /e/) yielded a larger MMN than a deviant [e] (standard /ø/). No asymmetry was found for the two-feature contrast. This study partly replicates a similar MMN study on German vowels, and partly presents new findings indicating cross-linguistic differences. Although the vowel inventory of Dutch and German is to a large extent comparable, their (morpho)phonological systems are different, which is reflected in processing.

Perceptual Asymmetries and Auditory Processing of Estonian Quantities

Similar to visual perception, auditory perception also has a clearly described “pop-out” effect, where an element with some extra feature is easier to detect among elements without an extra feature. This phenomenon is better known as auditory perceptual asymmetry. We investigated such asymmetry between shorter or longer duration, and level or falling of pitch of linguistic stimuli that carry a meaning in one language (Estonian), but not in another (Russian). For the mismatch negativity (MMN) experiment, we created four different types of stimuli by modifying the duration of the first vowel [ɑ] (170, 290 ms) and pitch contour (level vs. falling pitch) of the stimuli words (‘SATA,’ ‘SAKI’). The stimuli were synthesized from Estonian words (‘SATA,’ ‘SAKI’) and follow the Estonian language three-way quantity system, which incorporates tonal features (falling pitch contour) together with temporal patterns. This made the meaning of the word dependent on the combination of both features and allows us to compare the relative contribution of duration and pitch contour in discrimination of language stimuli in the brain via MMN generation. The participants of the experiment were 12 Russian native speakers with little or no experience in Estonian and living in Estonia short-term, and 12 Estonian native speakers (age 18–27 years). We found that participants’ perception of the linguistic stimuli differed not only according to the physical features but also according to their native language, confirming that the meaning of the word interferes with the early automatic processing of phonological features. The GAMM and ANOVA analysis of the reversed design results showed that the deviant with longer duration among shorter standards elicited a MMN response with greater amplitude than the short deviant among long standards, while changes in pitch contour (falling vs. level pitch) produced neither strong MMN nor asymmetry. Thus, we demonstrate the effect of language background on asymmetric perception of linguistic stimuli that aligns with those of previous studies (Jaramillo et al., 2000), and contributes to the growing body of knowledge supporting auditory perceptual asymmetry.

Context Matters for Tone and Intonation Processing in Mandarin

In tonal languages such as Mandarin, both lexical tone and sentence intonation are primarily signaled by F0. Their F0 encodings are sometimes in conflict and sometimes in congruency. The present study investigated how tone and intonation, with F0 encodings in conflict or in congruency, are processed and how semantic context may affect their processing. To this end, tone and intonation identification experiments were conducted in both semantically neutral and constraining contexts. Results showed that the overall performance of tone identification was better than that of intonation. Specifically, tone identification was seldom affected by intonation information irrespective of semantic contexts. However, intonation identification, particularly question intonation, was susceptible to the final lexical tone identity and affected by the semantic context. In the semantically neutral context, questions ending with a rising tone and a falling tone were equally difficult to identify. In the semantically constraining context, questions ending with a falling tone were much better identified than those ending with a rising tone. This perceptual asymmetry suggests that top-down information provided by the semantically constraining context can play a facilitating role for listeners to disentangle intonational information from tonal information, but mainly in sentences with the lexical falling tone in the final position.

Modulating Subjective Timing through Looming and Receding Biological Motion

Our timing estimates are often prone to distortions from non-temporal attributes such as the direction of motion. Motion direction has been reported to lead to interval dilation when the movement is toward (i.e., looming) as compared to away from the viewer (i.e., receding). This perceptual asymmetry has been interpreted based on the contextual salience and prioritization of looming stimuli that allows for timely reactions to approaching objects. This asymmetry has mainly been studied through abstract stimulation with minimal social relevance. Focusing on the latter, we utilized naturalistic displays of biological motion and examined the aforementioned perceptual asymmetry in the temporal domain. In Experiment 1, we tested visual looming and receding human movement at various intervals in a reproduction task and found no differences in the participants’ timing estimates as a function of motion direction. Given the superiority of audition in timing, in Experiment 2, we combined the looming and receding visual stimulation with sound stimulation of congruent, incongruent, or no direction information. The analysis showed an overestimation of the looming as compared to the receding visual stimulation when the sound presented was of congruent or no direction, while no such difference was noted for the incongruent condition. Both looming and receding conditions (congruent and control) led to underestimations as compared to the physical durations tested. Thus, the asymmetry obtained could be attributed to the potential perceptual negligibility of the receding stimuli instead of the often-reported salience of looming motion. The results are also discussed in terms of the optimality of sound in the temporal domain.

Asymmetrical Pseudo-Extinction Phenomenon in the Illusory Line Motion

Illusory Line Motion (i.e., a static line, presented after a lateral cue, is perceived as movement in the opposite direction to the cue) has been used to study a phenomenon of perceptual asymmetry. We have demonstrated the presence of an illusion of leftward movement, even in the presence of bilateral symmetrical cues. We have classified this phenomenon as one of pseudo-extinction. The paradigm of the four experiments performed was always the same: a white line, briefly presented alone or preceded by one or two lateral cues (150 ms), was judged by a group of young participants to be moving either to one side or the other. The asymmetrical effect in the bilateral cue condition was observed with horizontal lines (Experiment 1 and 4), and not with vertical or oblique (Experiment 2 and 3). These results suggest that the effect is linked to the asymmetry of the horizontal spatial planum and the mechanisms of spatial attention. Experiment 4 verified whether the Illusory Line Motion involves the collicular pathway by using blue stimuli for the cues, which activate less the Superior Colliculus (SC), with negative results. We interpreted the asymmetrical pseudo-extinction phenomenon in terms of a right-space exogenous attention advantage.

The adaptation of French liquids in Haitian

Haitian, a French-lexifier creole with a Gbe substrate, shows an asymmetry in the way it has adapted French liquids: the French lateral was maintained in postvocalic coda position in Haitian, but the French rhotic was systematically deleted in this position. This paper presents the results of a perception study showing that the lateral is generally more perceptible than the rhotic in coda position in Modern French. The hypothesis that perception played a role in the phonological asymmetry in Haitian is compatible with these results. The paper sketches an analysis of how the perceptual asymmetry between French coda laterals and rhotics resulted in the emergence of a new phonological grammar, distinct from both the grammar of the substrate and superstrate languages. This analysis is in line with previous works on the role of perception in second language acquisition, loanword adaptation, creolization, and sound change more generally.