{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101291"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101291","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Towards a hybrid model of speech prosody","abstract":"Speech is conveyed through a richly detailed acoustic signal, and each spoken instance of a word varies. Yet humans recognize words quickly, with few errors and typically with no conscious effort. Linguists hypothesize that abstract categories aid the process of speech comprehension because complex details can be mapped to a category, after which the detail of an instance can be forgotten. At the same time, research shows acoustic detail guides comprehension in real time and is retained in implicit memory. This dissertation addresses language processing for speech prosody. This study consists of five perception experiments that test the representation of pitch accents in memory, and directly compares memory for pitch accents to memory for phonemes. Results show that (1) explicit memory for prosody is more accurate for categorical differences, rather than equivalently large within-category differences, and (2) that, unlike phoneme categories, listeners are able to explicitly remember within-category detail for pitch accents, but that this memory decays quickly. Based on these results, I propose a hybrid model of comprehension of prosody that involves activating both previously proposed abstract categories and gradient detail.","abstract_html":"Speech is conveyed through a richly detailed acoustic signal, and each spoken instance of a word varies. Yet humans recognize words quickly, with few errors and typically with no conscious effort. Linguists hypothesize that abstract categories aid the process of speech comprehension because complex details can be mapped to a category, after which the detail of an instance can be forgotten. At the same time, research shows acoustic detail guides comprehension in real time and is retained in implicit memory. This dissertation addresses language processing for speech prosody. This study consists of five perception experiments that test the representation of pitch accents in memory, and directly compares memory for pitch accents to memory for phonemes. Results show that (1) explicit memory for prosody is more accurate for categorical differences, rather than equivalently large within-category differences, and (2) that, unlike phoneme categories, listeners are able to explicitly remember within-category detail for pitch accents, but that this memory decays quickly. Based on these results, I propose a hybrid model of comprehension of prosody that involves activating both previously proposed abstract categories and gradient detail.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Kimball, Amelia E."],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Linguistics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Cole, Jennifer S.","Dell, Gary","Hualde, José Ignacio","Watson, Duane"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-09-04T20:47:00Z","date_published":"2018-09-04T20:47:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:38Z","subjects":["prosody","linguistics","exemplar memory","episodic memory","Autosegmental Metrical Model","hybrid memory model","memory","language","intonation"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2018 Amelia Kimball"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101291","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Cole, Jennifer S.","Dell, Gary","Hualde, José Ignacio","Watson, Duane"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Kimball, Amelia E."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2018-09-04T20:47:00Z","2020-09-05T09:15:13Z","2018-04-12","2018-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Linguistics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["prosody","linguistics","exemplar memory","episodic memory","Autosegmental Metrical Model","hybrid memory model","memory","language","intonation"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2018 Amelia Kimball"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101291"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Speech is conveyed through a richly detailed acoustic signal, and each spoken instance of a word varies. 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Based on these results, I propose a hybrid model of comprehension of prosody that involves activating both previously proposed abstract categories and gradient detail.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2020-05-01","The student, Amelia Kimball, accepted the attached license on 2018-04-10 at 15:02.","The student, Amelia Kimball, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2018-04-10 at 15:08.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2018-04-12 at 08:41.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12171 on 2018-08-31 at 17:26:53","Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T20:47:00Z (GMT). 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Yet humans recognize words quickly, with few errors and typically with no conscious effort. Linguists hypothesize that abstract categories aid the process of speech comprehension because complex details can be mapped to a category, after which the detail of an instance can be forgotten. At the same time, research shows acoustic detail guides comprehension in real time and is retained in implicit memory. This dissertation addresses language processing for speech prosody. This study consists of five perception experiments that test the representation of pitch accents in memory, and directly compares memory for pitch accents to memory for phonemes. Results show that (1) explicit memory for prosody is more accurate for categorical differences, rather than equivalently large within-category differences, and (2) that, unlike phoneme categories, listeners are able to explicitly remember within-category detail for pitch accents, but that this memory decays quickly. Based on these results, I propose a hybrid model of comprehension of prosody that involves activating both previously proposed abstract categories and gradient detail.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2020-05-01","The student, Amelia Kimball, accepted the attached license on 2018-04-10 at 15:02.","The student, Amelia Kimball, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2018-04-10 at 15:08.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2018-04-12 at 08:41.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12171 on 2018-08-31 at 17:26:53","Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T20:47:00Z (GMT). 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