Browsing by Author "Nespor, Marina"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    How Modality Specific Is the Iambic-Trochaic Law? Evidence From Vision
    (2011) Pena, Marcela; Bion, Ricardo A. H.; Nespor, Marina
    The iambic-trochaic law has been proposed to account for the grouping of auditory stimuli: Sequences of sounds that differ only in duration are grouped as iambs (i.e., the most prominent element marks the end of a sequence of sounds), and sequences that differ only in pitch or intensity are grouped as trochees (i.e., the most prominent element marks the beginning of a sequence). In 3 experiments, comprising a familiarization and a test phase, we investigated whether a similar grouping principle is also present in the visual modality. During familiarization, sequences of visual stimuli were repeatedly presented to participants, who were asked to memorize their order of presentation. In the test phase, participants were better at remembering fragments of the familiarization sequences that were consistent with the iambic trochaic law. Thus, they were better at remembering fragments that had the element with longer duration in final position (iambs) and fragments that had the element with either higher temporal frequency or higher intensity in initial position (trochees), as compared with fragments that were inconsistent with the iambic-trochaic law or that never occurred during familiarization.
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    Prosody facilitates learning the word order in a new language
    (2021) Saksida, Amanda; Flo, Ana; Guedes, Bruno; Nespor, Marina; Garay, Marcela Pena
    One of the prominent ideas developed by Jacques Mehler and his colleagues was that perceptual tuning, present from birth on, enables infants, and language learners in general, to extract regularities from speech input. Here we discuss language learners'' ability to extract basic word order (VO or OV) structure from prosodic regularities in a language. The two are closely related: in phonological phrases of VO languages, the most prominent word is the rightmost one, and in OV languages, it is the leftmost one. In speech, this prominence is realized as extended duration, or as elevated pitch, sometimes combined with changes in intensity. When learning the first (L1) or the second language (L2), exposure to relevant rhythmic structure elicits implicit learning about syntactic structure, including the basic word order. However, it remains unclear whether triggering the learning process requires a certain level of familiarity with the relevant rhythm. It is moreover unknown whether prosodic information can help L2 learners to extract and learn the vocabulary of a new language. We tested Spanish- and Italian-speaking adults' ability to learn words from an artificial language with either non-native OV or native VO word order. The results show that learners used prosodic information to identify the most prominent words in short utterances when the artificial language was similar to the native language, with duration-based prominence in prosody and a VO word order. In contrast, when the artificial language had a non-native prominence marked by pitch alternations and an OV word order, prominent words were learned only after a three-day exposure to the relevant rhythmic structure. Thus, for adult L2 learners, only repeated exposure to the relevant prosody elicited learning new words from an unknown language with non-native prosodic marking, indicating that, with familiarity, prosodic cues can facilitate learning in L2.
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    Rhythm on Your Lips
    (2016) Peña, Marcela; Langus, Alan; Gutiérrez, César; Huepe Artigas, Daniela; Nespor, Marina
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    The "soul" of language does not use statistics: Reflections on vowels and consonants
    (ELSEVIER MASSON, CORP OFF, 2006) Mehler, Jacques; Pena, Marcela; Nespor, Marina; Bonatti, Luca
    This paper reviews studies of language processing with the aim of establishing whether any type of statistical information embedded in linguistic signals can be exploited by the language learner. The constraints as to the information that can be so used, we will argue, should be used to inform theories of language acquisition.
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    The Role of Audiovisual Processing in Early Conceptual Development
    (2011) Pena, Marcela; Mehler, Jacques; Nespor, Marina