Speech Perception - Research Methods

Research Methods

The methods used in speech perception research can be roughly divided into three groups: behavioral, computational, and, more recently, neurophysiological methods. Behavioral experiments are based on an active role of a participant, i.e. subjects are presented with stimuli and asked to make conscious decisions about them. This can take the form of an identification test, a discrimination test, similarity rating, etc. These types of experiments help to provide a basic description of how listeners perceive and categorize speech sounds.

Computational modeling has also been used to simulate how speech may be processed by the brain to produce behaviors that are observed. Computer models have been used to address several questions in speech perception, including how the sound signal itself is processed to extract the acoustic cues used in speech, and how speech information is used for higher-level processes, such as word recognition.

Neurophysiological methods rely on utilizing information stemming from more direct and not necessarily conscious (pre-attentative) processes. Subjects are presented with speech stimuli in different types of tasks and the responses of the brain are measured. The brain itself can be more sensitive than it appears to be through behavioral responses. For example, the subject may not show sensitivity to the difference between two speech sounds in a discrimination test, but brain responses may reveal sensitivity to these differences. Methods used to measure neural responses to speech include event-related potentials, magnetoencephalography, and near infrared spectroscopy. One important response used with event-related potentials is the mismatch negativity, which occurs when speech stimuli are acoustically different from a stimulus that the subject heard previously.

Neurophysiological methods were introduced into speech perception research for several reasons:

Behavioral responses may reflect late, conscious processes and be affected by other systems such as orthography, and thus they may mask speaker’s ability to recognize sounds based on lower-level acoustic distributions.

Without the necessity of taking an active part in the test, even infants can be tested; this feature is crucial in research into acquisition processes. The possibility to observe low-level auditory processes independently from the higher-level ones makes it possible to address long-standing theoretical issues such as whether or not humans possess a specialized module for perceiving speech or whether or not some complex acoustic invariance (see lack of invariance above) underlies the recognition of a speech sound.