Mini Experiment Report #1: Word Comprehension Task
Brock University

LING 1P92
Dr. L Dempsey
Heather Walker
Seminar 5

Mini Experiment Report #1: Word Comprehension Task The chosen experiment was based on one created by Marslen-Wilson and Welsh in 1978. The experiment was given in order to determine whether or not people change words to make them correct and meaningful to the sentence when given sentences with incorrect words. This helps to determine a person’s speech perception, which focuses on listening to someone speaking and focusing on understanding the meaning of words. This experiment helped to prove if speech perception is used in context of speech all the time and whether or not people pay attention to it.
Method
Sentences were given to the instructor of the experiment. Each sentence was practiced aloud then recorded by the instructor. Sentences were to be said as clearly and naturally as possible, not to give away any mistakes that were placed in the sentences. The recorded sentences were to be played to two separate people on separate occasions. The participants were told to repeat the sentences as soon as possible after hearing them without any hesitation. They were to shadow the sentences word after word as they were being heard. Participants were not to be aware of any of the mistakes in the sentences and notes were to be taken as the experiment was being done. It was then recorded whether or not the participants made corrections of the mistaken words.
Results
As the first participant was repeating the sentences, he was able to repeat back the correct sentences, and change the mistakes in the wrong sentences. When the participant was asked if they had noticed any mistakes among the sentences they replied “no”. When shown each sentence, the participant realized that he had changed the words in each wrong sentence, to fit the meaning that sounded right in their head, without any hesitation. The second participant was a little different. After all the instructions were given, the experiment began and the participant repeated the first sentences with no mistakes perfectly. When the first mistake was given, the participant proceeded on with repeating the mistake that was given in the sentence, not changing it to make it correct. The participant then began correcting the errors in the sentences with mild hesitation. When reminded that they must repeat the sentences as quickly as possible, they proceeded on correcting the mistaken words throughout the rest of the sentences.
Discussion
A famous way of expressing Speech Perception is that “we speak in order to be heard, in order to understand” (Jakobson, Fant & Halle, 1952) When trying to understand Speech Perception, listeners put all of their attention on the sounds of the speech rather then the meaning and notice phonetic details of pronunciation which are not always noticed. (Coviello, 1977) The demonstrated study was a word-recognition task from Marslen-Wilson & Welsh. The task helped to demonstrate bottom-up or top-down processing. Using a shadowing task the instructor was able to determine the participant’s dependence on bottom-up analyses. The results of this experiment were found to vary as a function of the position of the syllable “of the mispronunciation within the word and of the contextual constraints on the word as a whole” (Coviello, 1977) The two participants in this study interpreted the sentences correctly, the second with slight hesitation. As each statement was repeated the corrections were made to suit the sentences meaning. Both individuals demonstrated coarticulation when repeating the sentences. They were able to come up with which sounds they thought would come next before actually hearing it. This helped them to come up with the correct words versus the incorrect words. The participants anticipated the next sound while still producing the one before, creating the words to