Immediate and long-term improvement in lexical stress perception: the role of teacher and peer feedback

This study investigated to what extent teacher and peer feedback promote L2 lexical stress perception skills and how gains are maintained over time. Eighty-two participants from 11 sections of first-year German courses at three universities were assigned to a teacher feedback group, a peer feedback provider group, a peer feedback receiver group, or a control group. After completing a pronunciation training on word stress in German–English cognates, the teacher group received feedback on their pronunciation from a teacher, the provider group gave feedback to peers, and the receiver group received feedback from peers. The control group did not complete the pronunciation training or receive feedback. Results comparing learners’ pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest perception accuracy revealed that the teacher group and the provider group made significant gains in terms of their ability to perceive word stress in cognates, whereas the receiver group and the control group showed no improvement.

An Automated Lexical Stress Classification Tool for Assessing Dysprosody in Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) commonly affects the production of lexical stress contrast in polysyllabic words. Automated classification tools have the potential to increase reliability and efficiency in measuring lexical stress. Here, factors affecting the accuracy of a custom-built deep neural network (DNN)-based classification tool are evaluated. Sixteen children with typical development (TD) and 26 with CAS produced 50 polysyllabic words. Words with strong–weak (SW, e.g., dinosaur) or WS (e.g., banana) stress were fed to the classification tool, and the accuracy measured (a) against expert judgment, (b) for speaker group, and (c) with/without prior knowledge of phonemic errors in the sample. The influence of segmental features and participant factors on tool accuracy was analysed. Linear mixed modelling showed significant interaction between group and stress type, surviving adjustment for age and CAS severity. For TD, agreement for SW and WS words was >80%, but CAS speech was higher for SW (>80%) than WS (~60%). Prior knowledge of segmental errors conferred no clear advantage. Automatic lexical stress classification shows promise for identifying errors in children’s speech at diagnosis or with treatment-related change, but accuracy for WS words in apraxic speech needs improvement. Further training of algorithms using larger sets of labelled data containing impaired speech and WS words may increase accuracy.

EXPRESS: Does omitting the accent mark in a word affect sentence reading? Evidence from Spanish

Lexical stress in multisyllabic words is consistent in some languages (e.g., first syllable in Finnish), but it is variable in others (e.g., Spanish, English). To help lexical processing in a transparent language like Spanish, scholars have proposed a set of rules specifying which words require an accent mark indicating lexical stress in writing. However, recent word recognition using that lexical decision showed that word identification times were not affected by the omission of a word's accent mark in Spanish. To examine this question in a paradigm with greater ecological validity, we tested whether omitting the accent mark in a Spanish word had a deleterious effect during silent sentence reading. A target word was embedded in a sentence with its accent mark or not. Results showed no reading cost of omitting the word's accent mark in first-pass eye fixation durations, but we found a cost in the total reading time spent on the target word (i.e., including re-reading). Thus, the omission of an accent mark delays late, but not early, lexical processing in Spanish. These findings help constrain the locus of accent mark information in models of visual word recognition and reading. Furthermore, these findings offer some clues on how to simplify the Spanish rules of accentuation.

Gesture-speech coupling in L2 lexical stress production: A pre-registration of a speech acoustic and gesture kinematic study

The prosody of a second language (L2) is notoriously difficult to acquire. It requires the mastery of a range of nested multimodal systems, including articulatory but also gestural signals, as hand gestures are produced in close synchrony with spoken prosody. It remains unclear how easily the articulatory and gestural systems acquire new prosodic patterns in the L2 and how the two systems interact, especially when L1 patterns interfere. This interdisciplinary pre-registered study investigates how Dutch learners of Spanish produce multimodal lexical stress in Spanish-Dutch cognates (e.g., Spanish profeSOR vs. Dutch proFESsor). Acoustic analyses assess whether gesturing helps L2 speakers to place stress on the correct syllable; and whether gesturing boosts the acoustic correlates of stress through biomechanic coupling. Moreover, motion-tracking and time-series analyses test whether gesture-prosody synchrony is enhanced for stress-matching vs. stress-mismatching cognate pairs, perhaps revealing that gestural timing is biased in the L1 (or L2) direction (e.g., Spanish profeSOR with the gesture biased towards Dutch stressed syllable -fes). Thus, we will uncover how speakers deal with manual, articulatory, and cognitive constraints that need to be brought in harmony for efficient speech production, bearing implications for theories on gesture-speech interaction and multimodal L2 acquisition.

Interpreting experience enhances the use of lexical stress and syllabic structure to predict L2 word endings

Prediction underlies many life’s situations including language. Monolinguals and advanced L2 learners use prosodic cues such as stress and tone in a word’s first syllable to predict the word’s suffix. To determine whether the same findings extend to words with non-morphological endings, we investigate whether Spanish monolinguals and advanced learners of Spanish with and without interpreting experience use stress (stressed, unstressed) and syllabic structure (CV, CVC) in a word’s initial syllable to predict its ending. This is crucial to understand whether associations underlying prediction are morphophonolexical associations or purely phonolexical. Interpreters were included due to their extensive experience predicting incoming speech. Participants completed an eye-tracking study where they listened to a sentence while seeing two words and selected the word they heard. Results revealed that monolinguals and interpreters predicted word endings under all conditions, but non-interpreters only predicted in the CVC oxytone condition. These findings are relevant for (1) prediction accounts, showing that phonolexical associations trigger prediction; (2) phonological models, revealing that stress and syllable information in the initial syllable are key for accessing and predicting meaning; and (3) L2 processing models, indicating that L2 learners with interpreting experience use suprasegmental information to access and predict lexical items similar to monolinguals.

REGULATORY FIT EFFECTS ON THE ACQUISITION OF LEXICAL STRESS

Higgins’s (2000) regulatory fit theory proposes that a fit between one’s regulatory state and strategic means for reaching a goal increases motivational strength and engagement. This study investigates how regulatory fit affects the L2 acquisition of lexical stress in an authentic learning context. Ninety EFL students were assigned to either gain frame or loss frame conditions. They engaged in speech practice in which they mimicked a model speech in English to win a chance to enter a prize raffle. The reward system was framed differently in the two framing conditions, with the intention of eliciting the participants’ use of eager or vigilant strategies, thus creating fit and nonfit conditions. Acquisition of lexical stress was assessed using pre- and posttest scores. Multiple regression analysis showed no regulatory fit effects and no loss frame effects but did show a significant beneficial effect of the gain frame on the acquisition of lexical stress.

Evidence For Selective Adaptation and Recalibration in the Perception of Lexical Stress

Individuals vary in how they produce speech. This variability affects both the segments (vowels and consonants) and the suprasegmental properties of their speech (prosody). Previous literature has demonstrated that listeners can adapt to variability in how different talkers pronounce the segments of speech. This study shows that listeners can also adapt to variability in how talkers produce lexical stress. Experiment 1 demonstrates a selective adaptation effect in lexical stress perception: repeatedly hearing Dutch trochaic words biased perception of a subsequent lexical stress continuum towards more iamb responses. Experiment 2 demonstrates a recalibration effect in lexical stress perception: when ambiguous suprasegmental cues to lexical stress were disambiguated by lexical orthographic context as signaling a trochaic word in an exposure phase, Dutch participants categorized a subsequent test continuum as more trochee-like. Moreover, the selective adaptation and recalibration effects generalized to novel words, not encountered during exposure. Together, the experiments demonstrate that listeners also flexibly adapt to variability in the suprasegmental properties of speech, thus expanding our understanding of the utility of listener adaptation in speech perception. Moreover, the combined outcomes speak for an architecture of spoken word recognition involving abstract prosodic representations at a prelexical level of analysis.