Abstract:

F0, amplitude, and durational cues are considered the primary acoustic correlates of focus or sentence-level stress. However, questions remain regarding: (a) the degree to which each of these cues are necessary or sufficient for signaling focus; (b) the relative importance of each of these cues; and (c) how they interact in the perception of focus. Natural productions of the sentence ``Bob bought Bogg's box,'' in which focus was varied over each of the four words of the sentence were altered to produce prosodic cue neutralized versions. The alterations were applied singly and in all possible combinations to form eight experimental versions of each original sentence (the original and seven cue-neutralized versions). The sentences were presented to listeners with the task of identifying the focused item in the sentence. Results indicated that: (a) neutralizing any acoustic cue produced some degradation in performance, but even with all cues nullified, performance remained above chance for at least some words; (b) overall, F0 was more important than either amplitude or duration in signaling focus; and (c) F0 was more important early in the sentence while amplitude and duration played relatively more prominent roles late in the sentence. [Work supported by NIDRR and Nemours.]