Learning from Speaking: Helping Adaptive Learning Systems learn from Speech Prosody.

Daskalova, Yordanka (2025) Learning from Speaking: Helping Adaptive Learning Systems learn from Speech Prosody. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

Speech prosody can convey meaningful information about cognitive and metacognitive states, and can be a useful tool for improving Adaptive learning systems. Previous research has shown that prosodic cues in speech can serve as predictors of confidence and memory strength. In the current study, we mainly examine 1) how speaking speed, intensity and pitch as prosodic speech features relate to accuracy and reaction time, as markers of memory strength , and subjective confidence during a language learning task, and 2) whether prosodic information differs between native and foreign language speech. Participants completed a computer task where they learnt a total of 40 simple sentences in Italian, and had to speak out loud the correct translation either in Dutch (their Native language) or Italian. The design was bidirectional, with the response language switched halfway through the experiment, requiring participants to respond in both Italian and Dutch across the separate blocks. Subsequently they reported their subjective confidence after each response. The results showed that speaking speed and intensity were correlated to accuracy and confidence more strongly than pitch/intonation were. Yet, all the three prosodic features we tested showed to be significantly correlated with both accuracy and subjective confidence. Additionally, the correlations between the prosodic features, accuracy and confidence were higher on average in the Dutch response condition, which may suggest that native language is richer in prosodic information. Our findings not only contribute to a deeper understanding of how prosodic features may serve as a predictor of memory strength and subjective confidence, but also indicate that the prosodic markers differ between utterances in native and newly acquired foreign languages, revealing potential applications for improving adaptive learning systems in the context of language learning. Keywords: speech, prosody, Adaptive learning systems, memory trace, language learning task.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisor name:	Sarampalis, A.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	None [Bachelor Psychology]
Date Deposited:	23 Jul 2025 10:00
Last Modified:	23 Jul 2025 10:00
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5690

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