Phonetics and Speech Sciences (말소리와 음성과학)

Korean Society of Speech Sciences (한국음성학회)
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Relationship between executive function and cue weighting in Korean stop perception across different dialects and ages

  • Kong, Eun Jong (Department of English, Korea Aerospace University) ;
  • Lee, Hyunjung (Department of English Education, Incheon National University)
  • Received : 2021.07.27
  • Accepted : 2021.08.26
  • Published : 2021.09.30
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Abstract

The present study investigated how one's cognitive resources are related to speech perception by examining Korean speakers' executive function (EF) capacity and its association with voice onset time (VOT) and f0 sensitivity in identifying Korean stop laryngeal categories (/t'/ vs. /t/ vs. /th/). Previously, Kong et al. (under revision) reported that Korean listeners (N = 154) in Seoul and Changwon (Gyeongsang) showed differential group patterns in dialect-specific cue weightings across educational institutions (college, high school, and elementary school). We follow up this study by further relating their EF control (working memory, mental flexibility, and inhibition) to their speech perception patterns to examine whether better cognitive ability would control attention to multiple acoustic dimensions. Partial correlation analyses revealed that better EFs in Korean listeners were associated with greater sensitivity to available acoustic details and with greater suppression of irrelevant acoustic information across subgroups, although only a small set of EF components turned out to be relevant. Unlike Seoul participants, Gyeongsang listeners' f0 use was not correlated with any EF task scores, reflecting dialect-specific cue primacy using f0 as a secondary cue. The findings confirm the link between speech perception and general cognitive ability, providing experimental evidence from Korean listeners.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The speech perception data from the Korean stop 3AFC tasks has been previously presented in authors' prior study (Kong et al., under revision). The present study uses it to pursue a different research goal, i.e., the role of cognitive capacity in speech perception. The main data of the research is the EF scores of the same Korean participants, which have never been reported before. We are deeply grateful for institutions and teachers at Changwon and Seoul, who allowed us to recruit participants and use test spaces. We also thank graduate students (Jieun Kang, Hyangwon Lee and Bokyung Park), who helped with the data collection in both cities.

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