The role of learning mechanisms in understanding spoken language

Rodd, Jennifer (2018). The role of learning mechanisms in understanding spoken language. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852733

To understand speech listeners must accurately and rapidly select the correct meaning for each word they encounter. For example they might need to determine, on the basis of sentence context, whether the word “spade” refers to a digging tool or a card suit. Despite the apparent ease with which listeners usually accomplish this task, meaning selection is known to be cognitive demanding, and is a source of particular difficultly for individuals/groups with comprehension deficits.

Data description (abstract)

This collection consists of data from psycholinguisic experiments. This research explores the contribution of learning mechanisms to meaning selection in healthy adults. For example, someone who had recently taken up gardening or card-playing could potentially make meaning selection easier for “spade” by using their recent experience to make better predictions about which meaning is likely to be encountered in the future. Additional experiments will explore whether listeners take into account the speaker’s identity or accent to aid their interpretation of ambiguous words. This research will form the basis for future attempts to characterise the precise difficulties of individuals/groups with comprehension deficits.

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