Speaking Big and Small: Integrating Prosodic Size and Meaning in Spoken Language Público
Weiss, Daphne (Spring 2021)
Abstract
Spoken language is a rich and multidimensional signal, combining linguistic units with prosodic features like pitch, tone, and speech rate. Although these two information streams are sometimes thought to be separate, a growing body of evidence suggests that prosodic cues may instead interact with lexical processing and carry referential meaning. Such a phenomenon could be grounded in cross‐modal sound‐to‐meaning correspondences, which link acoustic features to specific perceptual characteristics of a word’s referent. One relevant feature may be an object’s size, which is known to be a key element of visual representations, and which is associated with consistent prosodic characteristics. Size has also been implicated in lexical processing of written language: S. C. Sereno et al. (2009) found a processing advantage for written words with big meaning, though the role of semantic size in spoken language processing has not been investigated. This study investigates the broader role of prosody in spoken language processing by asking whether semantic size, size‐specific prosody, or an interaction of the two factors influence lexical access. We performed a lexical decision task in which 45 participants judged whether an utterance was a word. Stimuli were concrete nouns associated with big and small meanings, as well as matched pseudowords, spoken in large, small, or neutral prosody. Acoustic analysis confirmed that the stimuli differed in pitch and duration by condition. We predicted that words with big meanings would be processed faster, consistent with S. C. Sereno et al. (2009). We further predicted that, if prosody interacts with lexical processing, size‐congruent prosody would speed word recognition. We found that participants responded significantly faster to words with big meaning, with no decrease to accuracy. We also found a main effect of prosody in which participants responded more quickly to words produced with small prosody. However, we did not observe the expected interaction between prosody and semantic size. These results suggest that semantic size is automatically accessed during spoken word recognition, a relationship that could support a grounded cognition account of spoken word processing. More research is necessary to disambiguate the role of prosody.
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Non-Arbitrariness in Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Sources and Benefits of Iconicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Role of Prosody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Size as a Semantic Variable of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Prosodic Cues to Size .................................................................................................. 10
The Present Study ................................................................................................................. 11
Aim 1: Does Semantic Size Influence Spoken Word Recognition? ....................... 13
Aim 2: How Does Prosody Interact With Word Recognition? .............................. 13
Stimulus Generation & Acoustic Analysis 14
Materials & Methods ............................................................................................................. 15
Stimuli ........................................................................................................................... 15
Participants ................................................................................................................... 15
Procedure ...................................................................................................................... 15
Results & Discussion ............................................................................................................. 16
Lexical Decision 17
Materials & Methods ............................................................................................................ 18
Participants .................................................................................................................. 18
Stimuli .......................................................................................................................... 18
Task ............................................................................................................................... 18
Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 19
Results..................................................................................................................................... 21
Reaction Time Results ................................................................................................. 21
Lexical Decision Accuracy .......................................................................................... 22
SPEAKING BIG AND SMALL 2
Discussion 22
Processing Advantage For Big Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The Influence of Prosody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Prosody’s Interaction With Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Aim 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Aim 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Conclusion 30
Appendices 35
References 45
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