Elsevier

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 18, Issue 1, January 1986, Pages 1-86
Cognitive Psychology

The TRACE model of speech perception

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(86)90015-0Get rights and content

Abstract

We describe a model called the TRACE model of speech perception. The model is based on the principles of interactive activation. Information processing takes place through the excitatory and inhibitory interactions of a large number of simple processing units, each working continuously to update its own activation on the basis of the activations of other units to which it is connected. The model is called the TRACE model because the network of units forms a dynamic processing structure called “the Trace,” which serves at once as the perceptual processing mechanism and as the system's working memory. The model is instantiated in two simulation programs. TRACE I, described in detail elsewhere, deals with short segments of real speech, and suggests a mechanism for coping with the fact that the cues to the identity of phonemes vary as a function of context. TRACE II, the focus of this article, simulates a large number of empirical findings on the perception of phonemes and words and on the interactions of phoneme and word perception. At the phoneme level, TRACE II simulates the influence of lexical information on the identification of phonemes and accounts for the fact that lexical effects are found under certain conditions but not others. The model also shows how knowledge of phonological constraints can be embodied in particular lexical items but can still be used to influence processing of novel, nonword utterances. The model also exhibits categorical perception and the ability to trade cues off against each other in phoneme identification. At the word level, the model captures the major positive feature of Marslen-Wilson's COHORT model of speech perception, in that it shows immediate sensitivity to information favoring one word or set of words over others. At the same time, it overcomes a difficulty with the COHORT model: it can recover from underspecification or mispronunciation of a word's beginning. TRACE II also uses lexical information to segment a stream of speech into a sequence of words and to find word beginnings and endings, and it simulates a number of recent findings related to these points. The TRACE model has some limitations, but we believe it is a step toward a psychologically and computationally adequate model of the process of speech perception.

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    The work reported here was supported in part by a contract from the Office of Naval Research (N-00014-82-C-0374), in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS-79-24062), and in part by a Research Scientists Career Development Award to the first author from the National Institute of Mental Health (5-K01-MH00385).

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