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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tan, Frank Lihui, Do, Youngah
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18501
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author Tan, Frank Lihui
Do, Youngah
author_facet Tan, Frank Lihui
Do, Youngah
contents This study investigates how learners organize perceptual space in early phonetic acquisition by advancing previous studies in two key aspects. Firstly, it examines the shape of the learned hidden representation as well as its ability to categorize phonetic categories. Secondly, it explores the impact of training models on context-free acoustic information, without involving contextual cues, on phonetic acquisition, closely mimicking the early language learning stage. Using a cross-linguistic modeling approach, autoencoder models are trained on English and Mandarin and evaluated in both native and non-native conditions, following experimental conditions used in infant language perception studies. The results demonstrate that unsupervised bottom-up training on context-free acoustic information leads to comparable learned representations of perceptual space between native and non-native conditions for both English and Mandarin, resembling the early stage of universal listening in infants. These findings provide insights into the organization of perceptual space during early phonetic acquisition and contribute to our understanding of the formation and representation of phonetic categories.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_18501
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The formation of perceptual space in early phonetic acquisition: a cross-linguistic modeling approach
Tan, Frank Lihui
Do, Youngah
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
Sound
Audio and Speech Processing
I.2.7
This study investigates how learners organize perceptual space in early phonetic acquisition by advancing previous studies in two key aspects. Firstly, it examines the shape of the learned hidden representation as well as its ability to categorize phonetic categories. Secondly, it explores the impact of training models on context-free acoustic information, without involving contextual cues, on phonetic acquisition, closely mimicking the early language learning stage. Using a cross-linguistic modeling approach, autoencoder models are trained on English and Mandarin and evaluated in both native and non-native conditions, following experimental conditions used in infant language perception studies. The results demonstrate that unsupervised bottom-up training on context-free acoustic information leads to comparable learned representations of perceptual space between native and non-native conditions for both English and Mandarin, resembling the early stage of universal listening in infants. These findings provide insights into the organization of perceptual space during early phonetic acquisition and contribute to our understanding of the formation and representation of phonetic categories.
title The formation of perceptual space in early phonetic acquisition: a cross-linguistic modeling approach
topic Computation and Language
Machine Learning
Sound
Audio and Speech Processing
I.2.7
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18501