Diversität in Sprache und Kognition - Holger Mitterer (University of Malta)

Stereotypes may help you when listening to speech

Research over the last decades has shown how powerful statistical learning is and how the brain makes use of every co-variation that exists in language (Hagoort & Van Berkum, 2007, Hanulíková et al., 2012). We investigated how probabilistic aspects related to speakers’ group identity (in particular, age and gender) influence language processing using eye-tracking in the Semitic language Maltese, exploiting the fact that many verb roots carry multiple meanings which differentially associated with different types of speakers, with distinctions by age and gender. Results show that speaker-identity influenced speech processing when the speaker identity was established before hearing the critical verb. It remains an open problem whether such results reflect potentially harmful sexist or ageist stereotypes or simply statistical learning.

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https://uni-freiburg.zoom.us/j/68852945350?pwd=MkVlaDVqa1BaUTc5UDdqeVJoZHl2dz09

Code: Div+LC/21