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I Berent

Publications and source records attributed to I Berent.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Do phonological representations specify variables? Evidence from the obligatory contour principle.

Mental variables are central to symbolic accounts of cognition. Conversely, according to the pattern associator hypothesis, variables are obsolete. We examine the representation of variables by investigating the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP, McCarthy, 1986) in Hebrew. The OCP constrains gemination in Hebrew roots. Gemination is well formed at the root's end (e.g., SMM), but not in its beginning (e.g., SSM). Roots and geminates, however, are variables; hence, according to the pattern associator view, the OCP is unrepresentable. Three experiments demonstrate that speakers are sensitive to the presence of root gemination and constrain its location. In forming words from novel biconsonantal roots, speakers prefer to reduplicate the root's final over its initial radical, and they rate such outputs as more acceptable. The avoidance or rejection of root-initial gemination is independent of its position in the word and is inexplicable by the statistical frequency of root tokens. Our results suggest that linguistic representations specify variables. Speakers' competence, however, is governed by violable constraints.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2001

The effect of shared structure and content on reading nonwords: evidence for a CV skeleton.

Four experiments examined the effect of shared skeletal structure versus content overlap on naming printed nonwords. Experiments 1-2 compared priming among nonwords sharing either skeletal structure and content (e.g., dus-DUS) or structure alone (e.g., pid-BAF) with controls that differed from the target in the number of skeleton slots (e.g., pid-BAF vs. plid-BAF). Conversely, in Experiments 3-4, same-versus different-structure primes contrasted only in the ordering of CV skeletal slots (e.g., fap-DUS vs. ift-DUS). Priming effects were modulated by shared content and skeletal similarity. The sensitivity of skeletal priming to the abstract arrangement of consonants and vowels suggests that skeletal representations assign distinct slots for consonants and vowels. Readers' sensitivity to skeletal structure in nonword identification indicates that assembled phonological representations are constrained by linguistic knowledge.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Can connectionist models of phonology assembly account for phonology?

Connectionist models have gained considerable success as accounts of how printed words are named. Their success challenges the view of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) as rules. By extension, however, this challenge is sometimes interpreted also as evidence against linguistic rules and variables. This inference tacitly assumes that the generalizations inherent in reading (specifically, GPCs) are similar in their scope to linguistic generalizations and that they are each reducible to token associations. I examine this assumption by comparing the scope of generalizations required for mapping graphemes to phonemes and several linguistic phonological generalizations. Marcus (1998b) distinguishes between two types of generalizations: those that fall within a model's training space and those that exceed it. The scope of generalizations is determined by the model's representational choices--specifically, the implementation of operations over mental variables. An analysis of GPCs suggests that such generalizations do not appeal to variables; hence, they may not exceed the training space. Likewise, certain phonological regularities, such as syllable phonotactic constraints and place assimilation, may be captured by an associative process. In contrast, other phonological processes appeal to variables; hence, such generalizations potentially exceed the training space. I discuss one such case, the obligatory contour principle. I demonstrate that speakers conform to this constraint and that their behavior is inexplicable by the statistical structure of the language. This analysis suggests that, unlike GPCs, phonological generalizations may exceed the training space. Thus, despite their success in modeling GPCs, eliminative connectionist models of phonology assembly may be unable to provide a complete account for phonology. To the extent that reading is subject to phonological constraints, its modeling may require implementing operations over variables.

Humans↗
PubMed1999

Default nominal inflection in Hebrew: evidence for mental variables.

According to the 'word/rule' account, regular inflection is computed by a default, symbolic process, whereas irregular inflection is achieved by associative memory. Conversely, pattern-associator accounts attribute both regular and irregular inflection to an associative process. The acquisition of the default is ascribed to the asymmetry in the distribution of regular and irregular tokens. Irregular tokens tend to form tight, well-defined phonological clusters (e.g. sing-sang, ring-rang), whereas regular forms are diffusely distributed throughout the phonological space. This distributional asymmetry is necessary and sufficient for the acquisition of a regular default. Hebrew nominal inflection challenges this account. We demonstrate that Hebrew speakers use the regular masculine inflection as a default despite the overlap in the distribution of regular and irregular Hebrew masculine nouns. Specifically, Experiment 1 demonstrates that regular inflection is productively applied to novel nouns regardless of their similarity to existing regular nouns. In contrast, the inflection of irregular sounding nouns is strongly sensitive to their similarity to stored irregular tokens. Experiment 2 establishes the generality of the regular default for novel words that are phonologically idiosyncratic. Experiment 3 demonstrates that Hebrew speakers assign the default regular inflection to borrowings and names that are identical to existing irregular nouns. The existence of default inflection in Hebrew is incompatible with the distributional asymmetry hypothesis. Our findings also lend no support for a type-frequency account. The convergence of the circumstances triggering default inflection in Hebrew, German and English suggests that the capacity for default inflection may be general.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

The representation of Hebrew words: evidence from the obligatory contour principle.

The Hebrew root morpheme typically consists of three consonants. Hebrew allows a gemination of a root consonant, but constrains its location [McCarthy, J. (1979). Formal problems in semitic phonology and morphology. Cambridge, MA; MIT Ph.D. dissertation. Distributed by Indiana University Linguistics Club. Garland Press, New York, 1985]. A gemination of a root-consonant is permitted at the end of the root (e.g., [mss]), but not at its beginning (e.g., [ssm]). Two experiments examined readers' sensitivity to the structure of the root morpheme by obtaining ratings for nonwords derived from nonroots. Root-initial gemination (e.g., [ssm]) was judged unacceptable compared to root-final gemination (e.g., [mss]) or no gemination controls (e.g., [psm]). The sensitivity to root structure emerged regardless of the position of the root in the word. These results have several implications. (1) Our findings demonstrate morphological decomposition. Hebrew speakers' ratings reflect a phonological constraint on the location of geminates. Being the domain of this constraint, the root morpheme must form a separate constituent in the representation of Hebrew words. (2) The rejection of root-initial gemination supports the psychological reality of the Obligatory Contour Principle, a pivotal constraint in autosegmental phonology. (3) A sensitivity to the location of geminates presupposes a distinction between the representation of geminate and nongeminate bigrams. Such a distinction, however, requires the implementation of a symbol. Our findings converge with numerous linguistic evidence in suggesting that the representation of constituency structure is necessary to account for linguistic generalizations.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Phonological priming in the lexical decision task: regularity effects are not necessary evidence for assembly.

The contribution of assembled phonology in reading English was examined in the lexical decision task by comparing two markers: regularity effects and phonological priming. Strategic control was assessed by manipulating the phonological lexicality of the foils: Experiment 1 used legal nonwords, whereas Experiment 2 used pseudohomophones. Replicating existing findings, null regularity effects were obtained in the presence of legal nonwords. Modest regularity effects, in accuracy only, were observed with pseudohomophone foils. In contrast, phonological priming effects emerged in each of the experiments, regardless of the presence of regularity effects. Assembled phonology thus constrains reading under conditions that strongly discourage its use. However, regularity effects are not necessary evidence for its presence. The dissociation of regularity and phonological priming effects is discussed in terms of the two-cycles model.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1993

An on-line method in studying music parsing.

Listening to music entails the construction of a mental representation based on partial and ambiguous information. This study examines an experimental method that reflects such parsing decisions on-line by detecting the cognitive load resulting from temporary parsing failures. The method investigated was a divided attention paradigm in which listening to music was the primary task and click detection was a concurrent secondary task. It was hypothesized that increasing the complexity of the primary task by introducing an unprepared chromatic modulation results in an increase in response latencies to a click presented immediately after the modulatory shift. The support of this prediction by musicians' data provides evidence for the sensitivity of the paradigm. The failure of non-musicians to reflect the expected load is attributed to their attention-allocation strategy. These results are discussed in terms of their implications on the view of the musical parser as deterministic.

Adult↗