Abstract
The modification of subjects' attention by two prosodic features was investigated using their reaction times to a nonspeech stimulus which coincided with these features. By using a foreign language unfamiliar to the subjects (Czechoslovakian), the influence of semantic and syntactic knowledge was controlled. The results indicate that for native speakers of English intonation fall is a relatively more important cue to the perceptual segmentation of speech than is pause.
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Henderson, A.I., Nelms, S. Relative salience of intonation fall and pause as cues to the perceptual segmentation of speech in an unfamiliar language. J Psycholinguist Res 9, 147–159 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067468
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067468