Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-xrnlw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T23:03:06.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

MEASURING RELATIVE CUE WEIGHTING: A Reply to Morrison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2005

Paul Boersma
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
Paola Escudero
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam

Extract

Morrison (this issue) criticized the analytical and statistical methods that Escudero and Boersma (2004) used for assessing the participants' cue weightings in their listening experiments. He proposed that logistic regression constitutes a better method for measuring perceptual cue weighting than Escudero and Boersma's “edge difference ratio.” The present paper starts by summarizing and illustrating Escudero and Boersma's experiment and analysis method and then addresses five of Morrison's objections—namely the alleged ceiling effect, the alleged superiority of logistic regression, the problem of discarding data, the (dis)confirmation of two-category assimilation, and Escudero and Boersma's grouping of the data. We will argue that although logistic regression is a very good method for measuring cue weighting, there was nothing wrong with Escudero and Boersma's methodology in these five respects.

Type
RESPONSES
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2005). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 4.3.10) [Computer program]. Available: http://www.praat.org. Retrieved 25 April 2005.
Bohn, O.-S. (1995). Cross language speech perception in adults: First language transfer doesn't tell it all. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Theoretical and methodological issues (pp. 279304). Timonium, MD: York Press.
Escudero, P. (2001). The role of the input in the development of L1 and L2 sound contrasts: Language-specific cue weighting for vowels. In A. H.-J. Do, L. Dominguez, & A. Johansen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 250261). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Escudero, P., & Boersma, P. (2003). Modelling the perceptual development of phonological contrasts with Optimality Theory and the Gradual Learning Algorithm. In S. Arunachalam, E. Kaiser, & A. Williams (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25th annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 8.1 (pp. 7185). Philadelphia: Penn Linguistics Club.
Escudero, P., & Boersma, P. (2004). Bridging the gap between L2 speech perception research and phonological theory. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 551585.Google Scholar
Flege, J. E., Bohn, O.-S., & Jang, S. (1997). Effects of experience on nonnative speakers' production and perception of English vowels. Journal of Phonetics, 25, 437470.Google Scholar
Keating, P., Mikoś, M. J., & Ganong, W. F., III (1981). A cross-language study of range of voice onset time in the perception of initial stop voicing. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 70, 12611271.Google Scholar
Maye, J., & Gerken, L. A. (2000). Learning phoneme categories without minimal pairs. In S. C. Howell, S.A. Fish, & T. Keith-Lucas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 522533). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Maye, J., Werker, J. F., & Gerken, L. A. (2002). Infant sensitivity to distributional information can affect phonetic discrimination. Cognition, 82, B101B111.Google Scholar