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Medicine and Health Sciences Commons

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Communication Sciences and Disorders

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Selected Works

2010

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Aging, Spacial Cues, And Single-Versus Dual-Task Performance In Competing Speech Perception, Karen S. Helfer, Jamie Chevalier, Richard L. Freyman Sep 2010

Aging, Spacial Cues, And Single-Versus Dual-Task Performance In Competing Speech Perception, Karen S. Helfer, Jamie Chevalier, Richard L. Freyman

Karen S Helfer

Older individuals often report difficulty coping in situations with multiple conversations in which they at times need to "tune out" the background speech and at other times seek to monitor competing messages. The present study was designed to simulate this type of interaction by examining the cost of requiring listeners to perform a secondary task in conjunction with understanding a target talker in the presence of competing speech. The ability of younger and older adults to understand a target utterance was measured with and without requiring the listener to also determine how many masking voices were presented time-reversed. Also of …


A Cross-Sectional Comparison Of The Effects Of Phonotactic Probability And Neighborhood Density On Word Learning By Preschool Children, Jill R. Hoover, Holly L. Storkel, Tiffany Hogan Jul 2010

A Cross-Sectional Comparison Of The Effects Of Phonotactic Probability And Neighborhood Density On Word Learning By Preschool Children, Jill R. Hoover, Holly L. Storkel, Tiffany Hogan

Jill R. Hoover

Two experiments examined the effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on word learning by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Nonwords orthogonally varying in probability and density were taught with learning and retention measured via picture naming. Experiment 1 used a within-story probability/across-story density exposure context. Experiment 2 used an across-story probability/within-story density exposure context. Results showed that probability and density interacted to create optimal learning conditions. Specifically, rare/sparse sound sequences appeared to facilitate triggering of word learning. In contrast, the optimal convergence for lexical configuration and engagement was dependent on exposure context. In particular, common sound sequences and dense …


An Online Calculator To Compute Phonotactic Probability And Neighborhood Density Based On Child Corpora Of Spoken American English, Holly L. Storkel, Jill R. Hoover Jan 2010

An Online Calculator To Compute Phonotactic Probability And Neighborhood Density Based On Child Corpora Of Spoken American English, Holly L. Storkel, Jill R. Hoover

Jill R. Hoover

An online calculator was developed (www.bncdnet.ku.edu/cml/info_ccc.vi) to compute phonotactic probability--the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence--and neighborhood density--the number of phonologically similar words--on the basis of child corpora of American English (Kolson, 1960; Moe, Hopkins, & Rush, 1982) and to compare its results to those of an adult calculator. Phonotactic probability and neighborhood density were computed for a set of 380 nouns (Fenson et al., 1993) using both the child and adult corpora. The child and adult raw values were significantly correlated. However, significant differences were detected. Specifically, child phonotactic probability was higher than adult phonotactic probability, especially for …


Differentiating The Effects Of Phonotactic Probability And Neighborhood Density On Vocabulary Comprehension And Production: A Comparison Of Preschool Children With Versus Without Phonological Delays, Holly L. Storkel, Junko Maekawa, Jill R. Hoover Jan 2010

Differentiating The Effects Of Phonotactic Probability And Neighborhood Density On Vocabulary Comprehension And Production: A Comparison Of Preschool Children With Versus Without Phonological Delays, Holly L. Storkel, Junko Maekawa, Jill R. Hoover

Jill R. Hoover

The purpose of this study was to differentiate the effect of phonotactic probability from that of neighborhood density on a vocabulary probe administered to preschool children with or without a phonological delay.