ABSTRACT

Speech in everyday conversations is riddled with discourse markers (DMs), such as well, you know, and like. However, in many lab-based studies of speech comprehension, such DMs are typically absent from the carefully articulated and highly controlled speech stimuli. As such, little is known about how these DMs influence online word recognition. The present study specifically investigated the online processing of DM like and how it influences the activation of words in the mental lexicon. We specifically targeted the cohort competitor (CC) effect in the Visual World Paradigm: Upon hearing spoken instructions to “pick up the beaker,” human listeners also typically fixate—next to the target object—referents that overlap phonologically with the target word (cohort competitors such as beetle; CCs). However, several studies have argued that CC effects are constrained by syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and discourse constraints. Therefore, the present study investigated whether DM like influences online word recognition by activating its cohort competitors (e.g., lightbulb). In an eye-tracking experiment using the Visual World Paradigm, we demonstrate that when participants heard spoken instructions such as “Now press the button for the, like … unicycle,” they showed anticipatory looks to the CC referent (lightbulb)well before hearing the target. This CC effect was sustained for a relatively long period of time, even despite hearing disambiguating information (i.e., the /k/ in like). Analysis of the reaction times also showed that participants were significantly faster to select CC targets (lightbulb) when preceded by DM like. These findings suggest that seemingly trivial DMs, such as like, activate their CCs, impacting online word recognition. Thus, we advocate a more holistic perspective on spoken language comprehension in naturalistic communication, including the processing of DMs.

摘要

演讲日常谈话中充满了话语标记（DMS），如嗯，你知道，和喜欢。然而，在许多基于实验室的语音理解研究中，这些 DM 通常不存在于精心表达和高度控制的语音刺激中。因此，人们对这些 DM 如何影响在线单词识别知之甚少。本研究专门研究了 DM 的在线处理，例如以及它如何影响心理词典中单词的激活。我们专门针对视觉世界范式中的队列竞争者 (CC) 效应：在听到“拿起烧杯”的口头指令后，人类听众通常也会注视目标对象旁边的指称，这些对象在语音上与目标词（队列竞争对手，例如甲虫；CC）。然而，一些研究认为 CC 效果受到句法、语义、语用和话语约束的约束。因此，本研究调查了 DM like是否通过激活其同类竞争者（例如，灯泡）。在使用 Visual World Paradigm 的眼动追踪实验中，我们证明当参与者听到诸如“现在按下按钮，就像……独轮车”这样的口头指令时，他们在听到CC 指示物（灯泡）之前就表现出期待的眼神目标。即使听到了消除歧义的信息（即 /k/ in like），这种 CC 效果也能持续相当长的一段时间。反应时间的分析还表明，与会者显著更快地选择CC目标（灯泡由DM前面时）一样。这些结果表明，看似琐碎的DM，比如像, 激活他们的 CC，影响在线单词识别。因此，我们提倡对自然主义交流中的口语理解采取更全面的观点，包括 DM 的处理。