The theta-syllable: a unit of speech information defined by cortical function

Frontiers in Psychology

Oded Ghitza¹ 

关键词: everyday speech;    syllabic parsing;    cascaded neuronal oscillations;    hierarchical window structure;    synchronization;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00138

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

A recent commentary (Oscillators and syllables: a cautionary note. Cummins, 2012) questions the validity of a class of speech perception models inspired by the possible role of neuronal oscillations in decoding speech (e.g., Ghitza, 2011; Giraud and Poeppel, 2012). In arguing against the approach, Cummins raises a cautionary flag “from a phonetician's point of view.” Here we respond to his arguments from an auditory processing viewpoint, referring to a phenomenological model of Ghitza (2011) taken as a representative of the criticized approach. We shall conclude by proposing the theta-syllable as an information unit defined by cortical function—an alternative to the conventional, ambiguously defined syllable. In the large context, the resulting discussion debate should be viewed as a subtext of acoustic and auditory phonetics vs. articulatory and motor theories of speech reception.

【 授权许可】

CC BY