Speech shadowing

Speech shadowing is an experimental technique in which subjects repeat speech immediately after hearing it (usually through earphones). The reaction time between hearing a word and pronouncing it can be as short as 254 ms[1] or even 150 ms.[2] This is only the delay duration of a speech syllable. While a person is only asked to repeat words, they also automatically process their syntax and semantics.[1] Words repeated during the practice of shadowing imitate the parlance of the overheard words more than the same words read aloud by that subject.[3] The technique is frequently used in language learning in Japan.

Functional imaging finds that the shadowing of nonwords[4] occurs through the dorsal stream that links auditory and motor representations of speech through a pathway that starts in the superior temporal cortex, goes to the inferior parietal cortex and then the posterior inferior frontal cortex (Broca's area).[5]

Speech shadowing was first used as a research technique by the Leningrad Group led by Ludmilla Andreevna Chistovich in the late '50s.[2][6] It has been used in research upon speech perception[1] and stuttering.[7]

Experimental applications

The speech shadowing technique is used in dichotic listening tests. During these tests, subjects are presented with two different messages, one in their right ear and one in their left. The participants are often asked to focus on only one of the different messages and this is where the speech shadowing technique is used. Participants are instructed to shadow the attended message by repeating it out loud with a delay of a few seconds between hearing a word and repeating the word. The speech shadowing techniques is significant for these experiments because it ensures that the subjects are attending to the desired message. [8]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Marslen-Wilson, W. (1973). "Linguistic structure and speech shadowing at very short latencies". Nature 244 (5417): 522–523. doi:10.1038/244522a0. PMID 4621131.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (1985). "Speech shadowing and speech comprehension". Speech Communication 4: 55–51. doi:10.1016/0167-6393(85)90036-6.
  3. ↑ Shockley, K.; Sabadini, L.; Fowler, C. A. (2004). "Imitation in shadowing words". Perception & psychophysics 66 (3): 422–429. doi:10.3758/BF03194890. PMID 15283067. PDF
  4. ↑ Peschke, C.; Ziegler, W.; Kappes, J.; Baumgaertner, A. (2009). "Auditory–motor integration during fast repetition: The neuronal correlates of shadowing". NeuroImage 47 (1): 392–402. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.03.061. PMID 19345269.
  5. ↑ Hickok, G.; Poeppel, D. (2004). "Dorsal and ventral streams: A framework for understanding aspects of the functional anatomy of language". Cognition 92 (1–2): 67–99. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2003.10.011. PMID 15037127.
  6. ↑ Chistovich, L. A.; Pickett, J. M.; Porter, R. J. (1998). "Speech research at the I. P. Pavlov Institute in Leningrad/St. Petersburg". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 103 (5): 3024–3022. doi:10.1121/1.422540.
  7. ↑ Harbison Jr, D. C.; Porter Jr, R. J.; Tobey, E. A. (1989). "Shadowed and simple reaction times in stutterers and nonstutterers". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 86 (4): 1277–1284. doi:10.1121/1.398742. PMID 2808903.
  8. ↑ Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience--with coglab manual. (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.