Evaluating the intelligibility of reverse speech

  Contact person

Melissa BARKAT-DEFRADAS , Fanny MEUNIER

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Scientific framework and objectives

The perception of spoken language is a task we daily fulfil and it implies maximal involvement of the cognitive functions. Its intelligibility will vary according to the clarity of the signal and to the brain's ability to process that signal. Reverse speech is regarded as «degraded speech signal in its most drastic form» and it is generally used as a control condition in experiments intended to demonstrate that the human brain has a capacity to process language, for instance. However, previous experiments on the English language have revealed that human's perceptual system is actually able to process reverse speech to a certain extent.

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The primary goal of this research is to gauge the ability of the cognitive system to retrieve the phonological and lexical information from sentences with temporally reversed segments.

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  Financial support

• ACI Réseau des MSH
  
  MENRT
  2001-2004
• APN / ATIP
  
  CNRS-SHS
  2001-2003

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  Publications

• Barkat, M., Meunier, F., Magrin-Chagnolleau, I., 2002, "Intelligibility of Time-Reversed Speech in French", proc. of Workshop on Temporal Integration in the Perception of Speech, Aix-en-Provence, France, 8-10 avril 2002
• Grataloup, C., Hoen, M., Collet, L., Veuillet, E., Meunier, F., 2004, "Etudes comportementale et électrophysiologique des processus de restauration cognitive d’un signal de parole dégradé", Colloque ‘Perturbations et réajustements, Langue et Langage, Réseau Grand-Est des Sciences Cognitives : COGNIEST, Strasbourg, decembre
• Grataloup, C., Hoen, M., Pellegrino, F., Meunier, F., 2006, "Influence des paramètres psycholinguistiques du cocktail party sur la compréhension d'un signal de parole cible", actes de XXVIème Journées d’études sur la Parole, Dinard, 12-16 juin 2006, pp. 517-520
• Grataloup, C., Hoen, M., Pellegrino, F., Meunier, F., 2006, "Lexical properties of background speech can affect word comprehension at the cocktail party", proc. of 5th Mental Lexicon International Conference, Montreal, Canada, October 11-13, 2006, pp. 1
• Hoen, M., Grataloup, C., Meunier, F., 2005, "On understanding cheeps. Identification of the electrophysiological correlates of on-line reversed speech restoration", proc. of International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON9) , Cuba, 4-10 septembre
• Hoen, M., Maurin, A., Dodane, C., Meunier, F., 2004, "Mesure d’intelligibilité de segments de parole à l’envers en français : une étude électrophysiologique", actes de XXVèmes Journées d’Etudes sur la Parole, Maroc, Février, pp. 273-277
• Hoen, M., Grataloup, C., Grimault, N., Perrin, F., Perrot, X., Pellegrino, F., Meunier, F., Collet, L., 2006, "Tomber le masque de l’information: effet cocktail party, masque informationnel et interférences psycholinguistiques en situation de compréhension de la parole dans la parole", actes de XXVIème Journées d’études sur la Parole, Dinard, 12-16 juin 2006, pp. 575-578
• Meunier, F., Cénier, T., Barkat, M., Magrin-Chagnolleau, I., 2002, "Mesure d'intelligibilité de segments de parole à l'envers en français", actes de JEP 2002, Nancy, France, Juin 2002