Mikhail OrdinCoimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research
Mikhail Ordin
PhD
About
54
Publications
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Introduction
www.ordin.org
I lead three independent research lines: 1) “Speech rhythm in language acquisition and speech evolution”; 2) “Bilingual Metacognition: The effect of linguistic experience on the neuro-cognitive mechanisms of metacognitive processing in the linguistic domain” (in collaboration with Dr. Leona Polyanskaya); and 3) “Cognitive and neural mechanisms for tokenizing a continuous sensory input"
Additional affiliations
November 2015 - November 2021
September 2012 - July 2015
September 2011 - September 2012
Publications
Publications (54)
The development of speech rhythm in second language (L2) acquisition was investigated. Speech rhythm was defined as durational variability that can be captured by the interval-based rhythm metrics. These metrics were used to examine the differences in durational variability between proficiency levels in L2 English spoken by French and German learne...
It is widely accepted that duration can be exploited as phonological phrase final lengthening in the segmentation of a novel language, i.e., in extracting discrete constituents from continuous speech. The use of final lengthening for segmentation and its facilitatory effect has been claimed to be universal. However, lengthening in the world languag...
Purpose
We investigated whether rhythm discrimination is mainly driven by the native language of the listener or by the fundamental design of the human auditory system and universal cognitive mechanisms shared by all people irrespective of rhythmic patterns in their native language.
Method
In multiple experiments, we asked participants to listen t...
Rhythm is fundamental to every motor activity. Neural and physiological mechanisms that underlie rhythmic cognition, in general, and rhythmic pattern generation, in particular, are evolutionarily ancient. As speech production is a kind of motor activity, investigating speech rhythm can provide insight into how general motor patterns have been adapt...
Statistical learning is a set of cognitive mechanisms allowing for extracting regularities from the environment and segmenting continuous sensory input into discrete units. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (N = 25) in conjunction with an artificial language learning paradigm to provide new insight into the neural...
Previous studies showed a bilingual advantage in metacognitive processing (tracking one's own cognitive performance) in linguistic tasks. However, bilinguals do not constitute a homogeneous population, and it was unclear which aspects of bilingualism affect metacognition. In this project, we tested the hypothesis that simultaneous acquisition and u...
In Basque-Spanish bilinguals, statistical learning (SL) in the visual modality was more efficient on nonlinguistic than linguistic input; in the auditory modality, we found the reverse pattern of results. We hypothesize that SL was shaped for processing nonlinguistic environmental stimuli and only later, as the language faculty emerged, recycled fo...
We tested the effect of co-presence on entrainment to speech rhythm, examining differences in speech rhythm convergence during a reading task, in conditions where the reading partner was present or absent. Speech rhythm was operationalized as a two-level phenomenon. At a lower level, rhythm was operationalized as regularity in the distribution of s...
Despite theoretical debate on the extent to which statistical learning is incidental or modulated by explicit instructions and conscious awareness of the content of statistical learning, no study has ever looked into the metacognition of statistical learning. We used an artificial language learning paradigm and a segmentation task that required spl...
These are the sentences elicited from children of three different age groups and adult British English speakers, and annotations done in Praat as TextGrid files.
This material was used to prepare the publication: Polyanskaya, L., & Ordin, M. (2015) Acquisition of speech rhythm in first language. Journal of Acoustical Society of America 138(3), 199...
This is the dataset reported in DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15029
Regular distribution of auditory stimuli over time can facilitate perception and attention. However, such effects have to date only been observed in separate studies using either linguistic or non‐linguistic materials. This has made it difficult to compare the effects of rhythmic regularity on attention across domains. The current study was designe...
The cognitive mechanisms underlying statistical learning are engaged for the purposes of speech processing and language acquisition. However, these mechanisms are shared by a wide variety of species that do not possess the language faculty. Moreover, statistical learning operates across domains, including nonlinguistic material. Ancient mechanisms...
A continuous stream of syllables is segmented into discrete constituents based on the transitional probabilities (TPs) between adjacent syllables by means of statistical learning. However, we still do not know whether people attend to high TPs between frequently co‐occurring syllables and cluster them together as parts of the discrete constituents...
The raw and pre‐processed data and analysis scripts for the publication "Electrophysiology of statistical learning Exploring the online learning process and offline learning product" by Mikhail Ordin, Leona Polyanskaya, David Soto and Nicola Molinaro (https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.14657).
EEG data recorded during the familiarization phase: https://...
Patterns of nonverbal and verbal behavior of interlocutors become more similar as communication progresses. Rhythm entrainment promotes pro-social behavior and signals social bonding and cooperation. Yet it is unknown if the convergence of rhythm in human speech is perceived and is used to make pragmatic inferences regarding the cooperative urge of...
Regular rhythm facilitates audiomotor entrainment and synchronization in motor behavior and vocalizations between individuals. As rhythm entrainment between interacting agents is correlated with higher levels of cooperation and prosocial affiliative behavior, humans can potentially map regular speech rhythm onto higher cooperation and friendliness...
We assessed the effect of bilingualism on metacognitive processing in the artificial language learning task, in 2 experiments varying in the difficulty to segment the language. Following a study phase in which participants were exposed to the artificial language, segmentation performance was assessed by means of a dual forced-choice recognition tes...
The study explores the effect of deviations from native speech rhythm and rate norms on the assessement of pronunciation mastery of a second language (L2) when the native language of the learner is either rhythmically similar to or different from the target language. Using the concatenative speech synthesis technique, different versions of the same...
We tested the hypothesis that languages can be classified by their degree of tonal rhythm (Jun, 2014). The tonal rhythms of English and Italian were quantified using the following parameters: (a) regularity of tonal alternations in time, measured as durational variability in peak-to-peak and valley-to-valley intervals; (b) magnitude of F0 excursion...
Purpose We investigated cross-linguistic differences in fundamental frequency range (FFR) in Welsh-English bilingual speech. This is the first study that reports gender-specific behavior in switching FFRs across languages in bilingual speech.
Method FFR was conceptualized as a behavioral pattern using measures of span (range of fundamental frequen...
Research has demonstrated distinct roles for consonants and vowels in speech processing. For example, consonants have been shown to support lexical processes, such as the segmentation of speech based on transitional probabilities (TPs), more effectively than vowels. Theory and data so far, however, have considered only non-tone languages, that is t...
We investigated the independent contribution of speech rate and speech rhythm to perceived foreign accent. To address this issue we used a resynthesis technique that allows neutralizing segmental and tonal idiosyncrasies between identical sentences produced by French learners of English at different proficiency levels and maintaining the idiosyncra...
A major problem in second language acquisition (SLA) is the segmentation of fluent speech in the target language, i.e. detecting the boundaries of phonological constituents like words and phrases in the speech stream. To this end, among a variety of cues, people extensively use prosody and statistical regularities. We examined the role of pitch, du...
Analysis of English rhythm in speech produced by children and adults revealed that speech rhythm becomes increasingly more stress-timed as language acquisition progresses. Children reach the adult-like target by 11 to 12 years. The employed speech elicitation paradigm ensured that the sentences produced by adults and children at different ages were...
We investigated how English rhythmic patterns develop in the course of first language acquisition by children between four and twelve years. We have empirically confirmed that rhythm becomes increasingly more stress-timed as acquisition progresses, which is revealed by higher durational variability of syllables, vocalic sequences and consonantal cl...
The study presents the results of cross-linguistic differences in speaking fundamental frequency in Welsh and English in bilinguals’ speech. The findings established significant cross-linguistic differences between pitch profiles of Welsh and English. Welsh is produced with wider pitch span. The increase in F0 span is achieved by higher F0 maxima i...
High degree of between-rater variability in pronunciation assessment is often reported in literature. However, human assessments of pronunciation skills of second language (L2) learners are used in standardized language-proficiency tests. Besides, these scores are used as a reference point in evaluating computer-based systems for pronunciation teac...
High degree of between-rater variability in pronunciation assessment is often reported in literature. However, human assessments of pronunciation skills of second language (L2) learners are used in standardized language-proficiency tests. Besides, these scores are used as a reference point in evaluating computer-based systems for pronunciation teac...
We investigated the perception of developmental changes in timing patterns that happen in the course of second language (L2) acquisition, provided that the native and the target languages of the learner are rhythmically similar (German and English). It was found that speech rhythm in L2 English produced by German learners becomes increasingly stres...
The study examines the development of timing control in second language (L2) acquisition in two populations of language learners from rhythmically different first language (L1) backgrounds. Timing control was investigated using interval-based rhythm metrics. We analysed speech produced by French and German learners of English who varied in their pr...
![Fig. 1. Example of an /r/-less realisation in bar [ba ː ].](profile/Mikhail-Ordin/publication/261564526/figure/fig1/AS:296673768165383@1447743946921/Example-of-an-r-less-realisation-in-bar-ba_Q320.jpg)
![Fig. 2. Example of an /r/ realisation in bar [ba ɹ ].](profile/Mikhail-Ordin/publication/261564526/figure/fig2/AS:296673768165386@1447743947005/Example-of-an-r-realisation-in-bar-ba_Q320.jpg)
This paper reports findings of an experiment investigating the vocalisation and the realisation of post-vocalic /r/ in varieties of English and German. The study aims to explore whether there are differences in the realisation of post-vocalic /r/ produced by native speakers of a German non-rhotic variety spoken in Berlin as a result of long-term ex...
The study compares the development of rhythmic patterns in first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition. Using a longitudinal design, we compared rhythmic patterns at different ages in L1 acquisition and at different proficiency levels in L2 acquisition. Speech samples of four children and four adult learners of English were selected fr...
We investigated the independent contribution of speech rate and speech rhythm to perceived foreign accent. To address this issue we used a resynthesis technique that allows neutralizing segmental and tonal idiosyncrasies between identical sentences produced by French learners of English at different proficiency levels and maintaining the idiosyncra...
A large body of empirical research demonstrates that people exploit a wide variety of cues for the segmentation of continuous speech in artificial languages, including rhythmic properties, phrase boundary cues, and statistical regularities. However, less is known regarding how the different cues interact. In this study we addressed the question of...
![Figure 1. Means and standard deviations for f0 mean in [+CLOSURE] and...](profile/Mikhail-Ordin/publication/233913111/figure/fig1/AS:393441482690560@1470815167364/Means-and-standard-deviations-for-f0-mean-in-CLOSURE-and-CLOSURE-instances-of-very_Q320.jpg)
![Figure 2. Means and standard deviations for f0 span in [+CLOSURE] and...](profile/Mikhail-Ordin/publication/233913111/figure/fig2/AS:393441482690561@1470815167385/Means-and-standard-deviations-for-f0-span-in-CLOSURE-and-CLOSURE-instances-of-very_Q320.jpg)
This paper investigates recurrent use of the phrase very good by a speaker with non-fluent agrammatic aphasia. Informal observation of the speaker's interaction reveals that she appears to be an effective conversational partner despite very severe word retrieval difficulties that result in extensive reliance on variants of the phrase very good. The...
We investigated the independent contribution of speech rate and speech rhythm to perceived foreign accent. To address this issue we used a resynthesis technique that allows neutralizing segmental and tonal idiosyncrasies between identical sentences produced by French learners of English at different proficiency levels and maintaining the idiosyncra...
The presented study is aimed at investigating the interaction of palatalization and intrinsic prosodic features of the vowel in CVC (consonant+vowel+consonant) syllables in Russian. The universal nature of intrinsic prosodic vowel features was confirmed with the data from the Russian language. It was found that palatalization of the consonants affe...
The paper presents an analysis of speech rhythm development in second language. 51 German learners of English with varying degrees of proficiency were recorded producing 33 identical sentences of quasi-spontaneous speech. Durational characteristics of syllables, consonantal and vocalic intervals were calculated to allow for analysis of timing patte...
The paper investigates the influence of palatalization on the temporal organization of CVC clusters. It was observed that the palatalization of prevocalic consonants increases the duration of vocalic intervals in CVC clusters if the vowel is [−front]. The palatalization of both consonants in CVC clusters decreases the duration of vocalic intervals...
The paper investigates the influence of palatalization on the temporal organization of CVC clusters. It was observed that the palatalization of prevocalic consonants increases the duration of vocalic intervals in CVC clusters if the vowel is [— front]. The palatalization of both consonants in CVC clusters decreases the duration of vocalic intervals...
The paper investigates the influence of palatalization on the temporal organization of CVC clusters. It was observed that
the palatalization of prevocalic consonants increases the duration of vocalic intervals in CVC clusters if the vowel is [−front].
The palatalization of both consonants in CVC clusters decreases the duration of vocalic intervals...
Projects
Projects (4)
We explore the role of vocal rhythm in speech evolution, acquisition of speech faculty, and in diachronic linguistic changes. Although every human individual possesses the same neural, anatomical, and physiological mechanisms for controlling speech rhythm, rhythmic patterns differ across languages. These language-specific patterns of motor activity are based on general physiological mechanisms, yet shaped by the peculiarities of the ambient language and by cultural transmission between populations sharing a given language. As speech rhythm patterns are simultaneously naturally-occurring and culturally transmitted, studying speech rhythm opens a window onto nature–nurture interactions in language use and acquisition.
