How pitch change and final lengthening cue boundary perception in German: Converging evidence from ERPs and prosodic judgments.

Julia Holzgrefe-Lang (1) , Caroline Wellmann (1) , Caterina Petrone (2) , Romy Räling (1) , Hubert Truckenbrodt (3) , Barbara Höhle (1) , Isabell Wartenburger (1)

1 University of Potsdam = Universität Potsdam
2 LPL - Laboratoire Parole et Langage
3 HU Berlin - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin = Humboldt University of Berlin = Université Humboldt de Berlin

This study examines the role of pitch and final lengthening in German intonation phrase boundary (IPB) perception. Since a prosody-related ERP component termed Closure Positive Shift (CPS) reflects the processing of major prosodic boundaries, we combined ERP and behavioural measures (prosodic judgement task) to systematically test the impact of sole and combined cue occurrences on IPB perception. In two experiments we investigated whether adult listeners perceived an IPB in acoustically manipulated speech material that contained none, one, or two of the prosodic boundary cues. Both ERP and behavioural results suggest that pitch and final lengthening cues have to occur in combination to trigger IPB perception. Hence, the combination of behavioural and electrophysiological measures provides a comprehensive insight into prosodic boundary cue perception in German and leads to an argument in favour of interrelated cues from the frequency (i.e., pitch change) and the time (i.e., final lengthening) domain.

Mots clés: speech perception; prosody; event-related potential (ERP) technique; Closure Positive Shift (CPS); prosodic boundary cues

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Julia Holzgrefe-Lang, Caroline Wellmann, Caterina Petrone, Romy Räling, Hubert Truckenbrodt, et al.. How pitch change and final lengthening cue boundary perception in German: Converging evidence from ERPs and prosodic judgments.. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 2016, 31 (7), pp.904-920. ⟨10.1080/23273798.2016.1157195⟩. ⟨halshs-01459523⟩