Monotone versus Low-Pass Filtering as a Test of Which Cue Carries
The methodological jewel of the sub-domain: a two-armed manipulation that isolates the carrier of the information. Flattening speech to a monotone removes pitch movement and leaves listener accuracy roughly intact; low-pass filtering removes the vowel detail and drops accuracy to chance (Thomas and Reaser 2004, Journal of Sociolinguistics 8, 54-86). Together the arms show the cue is segmental and learned, not pitch — which is precisely the conclusion the rest of this path's pitch focus might otherwise invite a student to get wrong. Teach it as the general move: remove one thing at a time and see what breaks.
Questions this Concept answers
- Why is removing one property at a time an effective way to find which cue carries the information?
This Concept is waiting for its first lesson!
The methodological jewel of the sub-domain: a two-armed manipulation that isolates the carrier of the information. Flattening speech to a monotone removes pitch movement and leaves listener accuracy roughly intact; low-pass filtering removes the vowel detail and drops accuracy to chance (Thomas and Reaser 2004, Journal of Sociolinguistics 8, 54-86). Together the arms show the cue is segmental and learned, not pitch — which is precisely the conclusion the rest of this path's pitch focus might otherwise invite a student to get wrong. Teach it as the general move: remove one thing at a time and see what breaks.
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