Pubblicazioni

pubblicazioni · coautori

Pubblicazioni

Titoli, riferimenti bibliografici e abstract sono in inglese, la lingua in cui i lavori sono stati pubblicati.

I miei ruoli CRediT in ciascuna pubblicazione (i nomi ufficiali sono in inglese):

• C Conceptualization
• DC Data Curation
• FA Formal Analysis
• I Investigation
• M Methodology
• S Software
• SU Supervision
• V Visualization
• W Writing

• (2026) Rossi, M., Canzi, M., & Rathcke, T. Phoneme Monitoring in Developmental Dyslexia: Pupillometric Evidence for Cognitive Rather than Acoustic Origins of Phonological Deficits. Brain Sciences, 16(7), 697. doi:10.3390/brainsci16070697 C DC FA I M

  abstract

  Background. Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent difficulties acquiring fluent reading. A core feature is impaired phonological processing, though its etiology remains debated. Two competing accounts attribute phonological deficits either to reduced acoustic sensitivity to lexical stress cues or to insufficient cognitive support during phoneme processing.

  Methods. To test these accounts, 57 Italian children (28 with DD, 29 typically developing) completed a phoneme monitoring task in which targets appeared in strong or weak syllables, varying in acoustic salience. A composite acoustic salience factor was derived from target cue properties, and an individual cognitive factor was computed from IQ, working memory, and shifting attention. Pupillometry was used to assess auditory sensitivity to acoustic salience and cognitive effort in real time.

  Results. The results showed that, behaviourally, children with DD showed significantly lower target identification accuracy and d’-sensitivity. However, pupil dilation during target processing did not differ between the two groups, while children with DD showed reduced pupillary responses on trials involving distractor rejection and missed targets. These physiological patterns correlated primarily with individual cognitive scores rather than acoustic salience.

  Conclusions. Taken together, these findings point toward an important role of individually varying cognitive resources during phonological processing and highlight the value of pupillometry as a sensitive, real-time index of cognitive engagement during a phonological task.

• (2026) Rathcke, T., & Canzi, M. Individual differences in musical melody perception moderate the speech-to-song illusion in Mandarin Chinese listeners. Scientific Reports, 16, 10523. doi:10.1038/s41598-026-44268-z DC FA V

  abstract

  Repeated exposure to a spoken phrase can give rise to the perception of the speech-to-song illusion (STS), whereby speech gains musical qualities and begins to sound like singing. STS is known to rely on acoustic cues and may depend on an individual’s ability to extract musical qualities (such as melody and rhythm) from speech acoustics.

  So far, most research has examined listeners of non-tonal languages, with preliminary evidence indicating that tonal-language listeners experience STS differently, if at all. This study investigated STS in Mandarin Chinese listeners who rated song-likeness of Mandarin sentences before and after repetition and completed the Musical Ear Test. Test sentences were designed to promote the acoustic transmission of either melody or rhythm. Results demonstrated a modest STS effect in Mandarin listeners at the group level, which was independent of sentence acoustics. Individual abilities in rhythm perception had no impact on STS while, somewhat surprisingly, weaker melody perception abilities were found to facilitate STS.

  This suggests that STS in Mandarin Chinese may be linked to a perceptual distortion of pitch. Overall, the findings indicate that STS mechanisms are shaped by linguistic background of listeners and provide new evidence that language experience can influence music perception and cognition.

• (2025) Tagliani, M., Cruz, L., Redolfi, M., Shirokorad, N., Canzi, M., Melloni, C., & Vender, M. L2 learners take more time to catch the rhyme: An eye-tracking study on predictive processing. International Journal of Bilingualism. doi:10.1177/13670069251365147 DC FA V W

  abstract

  Aims and objectives: This study investigates the role of prediction in language comprehension for both native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers of English, focusing on phonological and semantic cues. In addition, it examines whether higher proficiency in the L2 enhances predictive abilities.

  Methodology: Using the Visual World Paradigm, we explore how Italian learners of English (L2) employ semantic and phonological cues during sentence parsing and compare these findings to native English speakers. Participants viewed images while hearing sentences in English, allowing us to analyze their eye movements and cue responses in real time.

  Data and analysis: Eye-tracking data from 61 Italian participants at B1, B2, and C1 English proficiency levels, as well as 23 native English speakers, were collected. Visual and auditory stimuli prompted participants to focus on specific items, and their eye movements were recorded. We applied generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to assess how phonological and semantic cues and varying English proficiency levels influenced the proportion of looks at the target before and after sentence offset.

  Findings: Results show that across all proficiency levels, participants fixated on the target faster when semantic cues were present in the lexical verb. However, B1 speakers showed a delayed response compared to more advanced groups. Native English speakers also demonstrated a heightened phonological effect in rhyme conditions compared to the L2 learners.

  Originality: This study is the first to examine whether the presence of multiple cues can enhance L2 predictive processing in relation to the learner’s language proficiency.

  Significance: The findings advance research on predictive processing in language comprehension, highlighting the importance of understanding the differences between L1 and L2 processing and the role of cue integration in facilitating prediction. Understanding these differences and the role of cue integration in facilitating prediction is crucial for improving language learning outcomes.

• (2025) Gielge, R., Brehmer, B., & Canzi, M. Grammaticalization of (in)definiteness markers in Polish monolinguals and bilinguals: Language-internal development or contact-induced change? Die Welt der Slaven, 70(1), 174–198. doi:10.13173/ws.70.1.174 DC FA V W

  abstract

  Polish is considered to be in an initial stage of grammaticalization towards an article language. While previous research has claimed this to be true for monolingual and bilingual speakers, it can be expected that in Polish-German bilinguals the grammaticalization process is further advanced due to contact with an article language (German). In their case, however, the use of lexical (in)definiteness markers may merely be the result of contact with German and does not necessarily indicate the development of an article-like system in Polish. In order to determine the actual degree of grammaticalization of (in)definiteness markers in Polish and to distinguish it from mere contact-related interference from German, this study presents a fine-grained quantitative and qualitative analysis of the use of the Polish demonstrative ten ‘this’/‘the’ and the numeral jeden ‘one’/‘a’ in different contexts by German-Polish bilinguals and Polish monolinguals. A mixed logistic regression model revealed no significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in this respect. While ten was used only as a demonstrative, our data show that jeden has reached the stage of an optional indefinite article.

• (2024) Rathcke, T., Wong, H. Y., & Canzi, M. The role of sound-to-symbol literacy in phonological awareness: Evidence from Cantonese. Brain Research, 1845, 149240. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2024.149240 DC FA V

  abstract

  Phonological awareness reflects linguistic knowledge related to the sound system of a language. Individual development of phonological awareness is known to progress from larger to smaller sized units and is promoted by the acquisition of literacy, especially in alphabet-based writing systems that are built around sound-to-symbol correspondences. The present study addressed the nature of phonological awareness in speakers of a logographically scripted language. It investigated phonological awareness in adult speakers of Cantonese hailing from Hong Kong who (compared to speakers of other logographically scripted languages) traditionally received little sound-based assistance from tools like Pinyin or Zhu-yin-Fu-Hao when they acquired orthography. The study adopted an individual difference approach, quantifying individually variable levels of experience with a sound-to-symbol writing system and their relationship to phonological awareness. Fifty-seven Hong-Kong speakers of Cantonese took part online, completing rhyme judgment and phoneme monitoring tasks, alongside an extensive background questionnaire. The main prediction that Cantonese speakers who had a relatively high level of experience with sound-to-symbol writing would show an advantage in phonological awareness at the subsyllabic level was largely borne out by the data. The findings of the present study suggest that phonological awareness is a complex set of dissociable skills, shaped by the linguistic and orthographic experience of individual speakers.

• (2024) Kupisch, T., Canzi, M., Ferin, M., Geiss, M., Reiber, M., & Speck, P. How bilingual experience shapes accents in German-Italian primary school children. Heritage Language Journal, 21(1), 1–30. doi:10.1163/15507076-bja10030 DC FA V W

  abstract

  This study investigates the accents of German-Italian school children (6–10 years old) in their two languages. We ask whether accents in the bilingual children’s two languages are related and how foreign accentedness is associated with proficiency in other areas of language (speech rate, vocabulary size) and extralinguistic factors (formal and informal exposure and AoO in the majority language). Data from 87 early bilingual German-Italian children is judged by adult raters in Italy and Germany. Bilinguals are perceived as being more accented than monolinguals, mostly in Italian, the HL of the bilingual children. Moreover, children with a more monolingual-like accent in Italian tend to sound foreign in German, and vice versa, but some children have no perceivable accent in any language. Accentedness is especially affected by amount of language use, which underlines the importance of exposure to the minority language at this age, regardless of the setting, formal or informal.

• (2024) Rathcke, T., Castellano, C., & Canzi, M. Understanding the role of broadcast media in sound change. In F. Kleber & T. Rathcke (eds.), Speech Dynamics: Synchronic Variation and Diachronic Change, 425–452. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110765328-015 DC FA V W

  abstract · demo interattiva

  The idea that broadcast media can be a factor in sound change has been widely and controversially debated. This chapter outlines the main posits, issues and evidence surrounding the ongoing debates and offers a new empirical perspective on the subject matter. It hypothesizes that mass media may be the primary factor initiating and promoting sound change if there are limited opportunities for face-to-face contact, with media being the only or main source of exposure to sound innovation and dialectal variability. Such situations occur frequently during second language acquisition, which is the focus of the study discussed in the chapter. Eighteen German teenage learners of English were divided into two groups and asked to watch either a British or an American television series daily for the duration of two consecutive weeks. Comparisons of sound productions recorded before and after the two-week exposure period revealed significant changes in the participants’ frequency of /t/-flapping and rhoticity, in the direction predicted by the media accommodation account. In line with previous discussions, the observed influence of the media was partly moderated by the participants’ emotional involvement with the series they watched. A change toward the televised variety was observed primarily in high-engagement (but not in low-engagement) speakers. The chapter concludes with a discussion that aims to inspire innovative directions in future research of this much-debated topic that currently lacks pertinent empirical study.

• (2024) Rathcke, T., Smit, E., Zheng, Y., & Canzi, M. Perception of temporal structure in speech is influenced by body movement and individual beat perception ability. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 86(5), 1746–1762. doi:10.3758/s13414-024-02893-8 DC V

  abstract

  The subjective experience of time flow in speech deviates from the sound acoustics in substantial ways. The present study focuses on the perceptual tendency to regularize time intervals found in speech but not in other types of sounds with a similar temporal structure. We investigate to what extent individual beat perception ability is responsible for perceptual regularization and if the effect can be eliminated through the involvement of body movement during listening. Participants performed a musical beat perception task and compared spoken sentences to their drumbeat-based versions either after passive listening or after listening and moving along with the beat of the sentences. The results show that the interval regularization prevails in listeners with a low beat perception ability performing a passive listening task and is eliminated in an active listening task involving body movement. Body movement also helped to promote a veridical percept of temporal structure in speech at the group level. We suggest that body movement engages an internal timekeeping mechanism, promoting the fidelity of auditory encoding even in sounds of high temporal complexity and irregularity such as natural speech.

• (2023) Canzi, M., & Rathcke, T. Unmasking the truf: Impact of community masks on the perception of voiceless fricatives in English. Proceedings of ICPhS 2023. DC FA I V W

  abstract · demo interattiva

  The current study aims at quantifying the effects of wearing a face mask on speech perception, by investigating performance of native English listeners in a phoneme monitoring task with monosyllabic words containing voiceless fricatives. Previous experimental work on the topic has mainly focussed on the effects of acoustic filtering caused by the use of face coverings with mixed results and weak effects of mask wearing on speech perception. In this experiment, we explore the interplay of acoustic filtering with other potentially relevant factors such as the presence of visual cues, lexical frequency and listener-specific background. We provide evidence that suggests the impact of face coverings (esp. FFP-2 face mask) on speech perception is not directly moderated by the acoustic properties of masked speech. Rather, it is linked to an interplay of audio-visual integration, the absence of visual cues for (some) target fricatives, and the listener-specific sociolinguistic background.

• (2023) Tsaroucha, A., Rathcke, T., & Canzi, M. Effects of a face mask on the perception of English fricatives by native speakers of Greek. Proceedings of ICGL15. DC FA I SU V

• (2023) Brehmer, B., Sopata, A., & Canzi, M. Same or different? Subject realization in the majority and the heritage language of Polish-German bilingual children. Linguistics Vanguard, 9(s2), 179–189. doi:10.1515/lingvan-2022-0061 DC FA V W

  abstract

  The paper examines the extent to which bilingual children select lexical noun phrases and null and overt pronouns as referring expressions in their majority language German and their heritage language Polish. Both languages are similar regarding the availability of lexical noun phrases but differ in terms of the distribution of null and overt pronominal forms. Our focus lies on discourse contexts with a subject antecedent in the preceding clause, which require only light processing for both speaker and hearer due to the high accessibility of the intended subject referent. Drawing on experimental data from a picture story retelling task (MAIN) to investigate the distribution of referring expressions in the two languages compared to age-matched monolingual control groups, our results reveal that bilingual children are sensitive to crosslinguistic differences in the syntactic and discourse-pragmatic constraints that regulate the distribution of null and overt subjects in Polish and German, depending on the mode of speech (narrative or dialogic). Furthermore, there are no significant differences between the bilingual and monolingual children, irrespective of language and age group. Thus, our study cannot confirm findings of previous studies concerning the tendency of bilingual children to be either overspecific or underspecific in subject reference production.

• (2023) Ulbrich, C., & Canzi, M. Intonational alignment in second language acquisition. Speech Communication, 146, 70–81. doi:10.1016/j.specom.2022.11.007 DC FA V W

  abstract

  This study examines whether proficient second language speakers of Belfast English and Northern Standard German accommodate on cross-linguistically different intonational phonological categories and their gradient phonetic implementation in a collaborative map task. Belfast English and Northern Standard German select two different intonation patterns for nuclear pitch accents in declarative utterances. Northern Standard German features a falling pitch accent pattern. In Belfast English, a rising intonation contour is realised. The experiment investigates the production of phonologically different pitch accents in declarative utterances, gradient acoustic characteristics of pitch range in utterance-final position and peak alignment in nuclear pitch accents. Evidence was found for accommodation for all three prosodic phenomena. However, the accommodation patterns were asymmetric in the Belfast English and the Northern Standard German groups of speakers. Furthermore, both phonologically contrastive characteristics and gradient phonetic acoustic detail appeared to be influenced by factors of linguistic function, perceptual salience and familiarity.

• (2021) Mumtaz, B., Canzi, M., & Butt, M. Prosody of Case Markers in Urdu. Proceedings of Interspeech 2021, 2661–2665. doi:10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1776 DC FA V

  abstract

  This paper studies the prosody of case clitics in Urdu, for which various different claims exist in the literature. We conducted a production experiment and controlled for effects potentially arising from the phonetics of the case clitics, the syntactic function they express and clausal position. We find that case clitics are incorporated into the prosodic phrase of the noun and that they become part of the overall LH contour found on accentual phrases in Urdu/Hindi. We also find some differences across case type and position which we tie to information structural effects.

Coautori