Speech and action sequences are both continuous information streams that must be successfully segmented into constituent sub-units in order to be understood.
 Unsuccessful speech segmentation. |
 Successful action segmentation. |
In both the speech and action domain, we know this segmentation task is achieved via a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing.
Top-down processing involves the application of pre-existing knowledge to determine where boundaries between phrases occur.
Bottom-up processing involves processing of properties of the stimulus to determine boundary location.
Work with adults has highlighted top-down and bottom-up cues that support segmentation of speech and action. For example:
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Listeners apply their knoweldge of word meanings and grammar to determine the locations of boundaries in speech (e.g. Mattys et al., 2007). |
Prosodic cues (e.g. pasue and pre-boundary lengthening) are produced at phrase boundaries (e.g. Wagner & Watson, 2010), and listeners detect these cues to determine the location of phrase boundaries in speech (e.g. Schafer et al., 2000). |
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