https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-025-00882-w
Regular Article- Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Speech perception: a model of word recognition
1
Institut de Physique Théorique, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS & CEA, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
2
Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, Clarendon Institute, Walton Street, OX1 2HG, Oxford, UK
Received:
24
October
2024
Accepted:
9
February
2025
Published online:
27
February
2025
We present a model of speech perception which takes into account effects o correlations between sounds. Words in this model correspond to the attractors of a suitably chosen descent dynamics. The resulting lexicon is rich in short words, and much less so in longer ones, as befits a reasonable word length distribution. We separately examine the decryption of short and long words in the presence of mishearings. In the regime of short words, the algorithm either quickly retrieves a word, or proposes another valid word. In the regime of longer words, the behaviour is markedly different. While the successful decryption of words continues to be relatively fast, there is a finite probability of getting lost permanently, as the algorithm wanders round the landscape of suitable words without ever settling on one.
© The Author(s) 2025
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