Human observers (comprehenders) segment dynamic information into discrete events. That is, although there is continuous sensory information, comprehenders perceive boundaries between two meaningful units of information. In narrative comprehension, comprehenders use linguistic, non-linguistic , and physical cues for this event boundary perception. Yet, it is an open question – both from a theoretical and an empirical perspective – how linguistic and non-linguistic cues contribute to this process. The current study explores how linguistic cues contribute to the participants’ ability to segment continuous auditory information into discrete, hierarchically structured events. Native speakers of German and non-native speakers, who neither spoke nor understood German, segmented a German audio drama into coarse and fine events. Whereas native participants could make use of linguistic, non-linguistic, and physical cues for segmentation, non-native participants could only use non-linguistic and physical cues. We analyzed segmentation behavior in terms of the ability to identify coarse and fine event boundaries and the resulting hierarchical structure. Non-native listeners identified almost identical coarse event boundaries as native listeners, but missed some of the fine event boundaries identified by the native listeners. Interestingly, hierarchical event perception (as measured by hierarchical alignment and enclosure) was comparable for native and non-native participants. In summary, linguistic cues contributed particularly to the identification of certain fine event boundaries. The results are discussed with regard to the current theories of event cognition.

中文翻译：

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听觉动态事件中的语言信息有助于检测精细而非粗糙的事件边界

人类观察者（理解者）将动态信息分割成离散事件。也就是说，尽管存在连续的感官信息，但理解者会感知两个有意义的信息单元之间的界限。在叙事理解中，理解者使用语言、非语言和物理线索来感知这个事件边界。然而，从理论和经验的角度来看，这是一个悬而未决的问题——语言和非语言线索如何促成这一过程。当前的研究探索了语言线索如何有助于参与者将连续的听觉信息分割成离散的、分层结构的事件的能力。母语为德语的人和既不说也不懂德语的非母语人士将德语音频剧分为粗略和精细的事件。本地参与者可以利用语言、非语言和物理线索进行分割，而非本地参与者只能使用非语言和物理线索。我们根据识别粗细事件边界的能力以及由此产生的层次结构分析了分割行为。非本地侦听器识别出与本地侦听器几乎相同的粗略事件边界，但遗漏了一些由本地侦听器识别的精细事件边界。有趣的是，对于本地和非本地参与者，分层事件感知（通过分层对齐和封闭来衡量）具有可比性。总之，语言线索特别有助于识别某些精细的事件边界。讨论了当前事件认知理论的结果。