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Influence of personal characteristics of the speaker on phonetic quality in perception of vowels.

This study was designed to investigate the effect of speaker's voice quality on perceived phonetic quality in vowels using a perceptual scaling task. 16 subjects scales sets of vowels produced by six different speakers (three women, three men). Analysis indicated no significant influence of speaker's quality on judgments of similarity of vowels. Results suggest that judgments of similarity were made on the basis of linguistically categorized images.

Humans↗

Lexical recognition in sign language: effects of phonetic structure and morphology.

Two experiments are reported which investigate lexical recognition in American Sign Language (ASL). Exp. 1 examined identification of monomorphemic signs and investigated how the manipulation of phonological parameters affected sign identification. Over-all sign identification was much faster than what has been found for spoken language. The phonetic structure of sign (the simultaneous availability of Handshape and Location information) and the phonotactics of the ASL lexicon are argued to account for this difference. Exp. 2 compared the time course of recognition for monomorphemic and morphologically complex signs. ASL morphology is largely nonconcatenative which raises particularly interesting questions for word recognition. We found that morphologically complex signs had longer identification times than matched monomorphemic signs. Also, although roots and affixes are often articulated simultaneously in ASL, they were not identified simultaneously. Base forms of morphologically complex signs were identified initially followed by recognition of the morphological inflection. Finally, subjects with deaf parents (Native signers) were able to isolate signs faster than subjects with hearing parents (Late signers). This result suggests that early language experience can influence the initial stages of lexical access and sign identification.

Adult↗

Learning test on expressive phonetic symbolism.

We asked 249 students to learn three different vocabulary lists, each containing 19 word pairs (Indonesian, Suaheli, and one mixed list composed of items from 13 different languages) in three versions: "normal" (factual classification), "reversed" (opposite classification), and "disarranged" (word meaning imputed in a completely different dimension). That those word-pairs with "normal" classification would lead to best learning was not generally confirmed but was corroborated for favourable learning conditions (items at the top of the list, items at the beginning of the questioning, easy to learn items), whereas the effect of phonetic symbolism combined with "normal" presentation proved rather abstruse. We assume that in the latter cases encoding worked rather automatically, and additional information used energy. The encoding process uses so much energy that further information is not useful under unfavourable learning conditions. We found a relation between performance on each mode of presentation and sex. Independent of presentation mode, learning depends on age, sex, membership in a seminar, and subject matter studied. Therefore, we examined the distribution of these in our nine groups (three languages by three versions). Since no statistically relevant differences in distribution arose, our results do not have to be qualified.

Adult↗

Remembering more nouns than verbs in lists of foreign-language words as an indicator of syntactic phonetic symbolism.

In lists with words from languages not known to the subjects (students of the University of Essen, Germany, and in one experiment Polish teachers in North Poland), nouns were remembered more often than verbs, and the effect was not dependent on the length of the words. The effect was clearer with languages with a strong (Swahili) or medium (Hungarian, Turkish) tendency to marcation and less with languages with a tendency for weak marcation (Japanese). We interpreted this effect as influenced by syntactic phonetic symbolism, assuming there is a phonologic and prosodic difference between nouns and verbs.

Adult↗

Phonetic variation in dysarthric speech as a function of sampling task.

Previous studies have demonstrated a number of ways in which normal speakers' phonetic performance varies across reading and spontaneous speech tasks. This study set out to investigate whether similar differences across speech sampling tasks were found in a mixed group of dysarthric subjects. A selection of segmental and prosodic parameters were investigated acoustically in the performance of five mild dysarthric speakers and five matched control subjects. The results demonstrated that breath-pause position, unstressed vowel duration and voice-onset time were subject to variation across sampling task in the speech produced by different types of dysarthric speaker. The results suggest that read material produced by dysarthric speakers may not be wholly representative of those speakers' spontaneous speech. Preliminary implications for clinical practice are discussed. The findings point to the need for further research to investigate the extent of such differences and their implications for dysarthria assessment, which up to the present has relied predominantly on read material.

Adult↗

Putting phonetic context effects into context: a commentary on Fowler (2006).

On the basis of a review of the literature and three new experiments, Fowler (2006) concludes that a contrast account for phonetic context effects is not tenable and is inferior to a gestural account. We believe that this conclusion is premature and that it is based on a restricted set of assumptions about a general perceptual account. Here, we briefly address the criticisms of Fowler (2006), with the intent of clarifying what a general auditory and learning approach to speech perception entails.

Cognition↗

Locus equations as phonetic descriptors of consonantal place of articulation.

This experiment tested whether locus equation coefficients, slope, and y-intercept could serve as indices of place of articulation for obstruents sharing the same place of articulation across different manner classes. Locus equations for 22 speakers were derived from CV/t/ words with initial voiced stop /d/, voiceless aspirated stop /t/, nasal /n/, voiced fricative /z/, and voiceless fricative /s/ preceding 10 vowel contexts. Post hoc tests revealed /d/ = /z/ = /n/ for slope means. Voiced /d/ and voiceless /t/ were also equivalent when F2 transition onset measurement points were equated. Scatterplots of locus equation coefficients revealed three nonoverlapping and distinct clusters when the diverse coronal group was compared with labials and velars. A discriminant analysis using slope and y-intercept as predictors successfully categorized all five coronals into one alveolar group with 87.1% accuracy. The collective results support the contention that locus equations can serve as effective phonetic descriptors of consonant place of articulation across manner classes.

Adult↗

The encoding of rate and talker information during phonetic perception.

The acoustic structure of the speech signal is extremely variable due to a variety of contextual factors, including talker characteristics and speaking rate. To account for the listener's ability to adjust to this variability, speech researchers have posited the existence of talker and rate normalization processes. The current study examined how the perceptual system encoded information about talker and speaking rate during phonetic perception. Experiments 1-3 examined this question, using a speeded classification paradigm developed by Garner (1974). The results of these experiments indicated that decisions about phonemic identity were affected by both talker and rate information: irrelevant variation in either dimension interfered with phonemic classification. While rate classification was also affected by phoneme variation, talker classification was not. Experiment 4 examined the impact of talker and rate variation on the voicing boundary under different blocking conditions. The results indicated that talker characteristics influenced the voicing boundary when talker variation occurred within a block of trials only under certain conditions. Rate variation, however, influenced the voicing boundary regardless of whether or not there was rate variation within a block of trials. The findings from these experiments indicate that phoneme and the rate information are encoded in an integral manner during speech perception, while talker characteristics are encoded separately.

Female↗

Chinese characters: semantic and phonetic regularity norms for China, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Cognitive models of language processing in English are founded on norms for word properties, but their universality is now being explored across different writing scripts and subject groups. Although Chinese characters are popular for this comparative work, their salient properties remain ill defined or poorly controlled. We describe how norms for semantic and phonetic regularity in Mandarin can be calibrated on a regional basis. The rating data that we present from China, Singapore, and Taiwan also illustrate why the diversity of both oral and written forms of Chinese should be considered in future empirical work.

China↗

Signal detection comparisons of phonemic and phonetic priming: the flexible-bias problem.

The phonemic priming effect may reflect the hidden dynamics of spoken word perception and has thus been a key topic of recent research. This investigation compared phonemic and phonetic priming (cf. Goldinger, Luce, Pisoni, & Marcario, 1992), using signal detection methods. Although these methods were intended to provide separate indices of sensitivity and bias changes, the results were more complex. Instead, phonemic priming engendered a flexible, trial-specific strategy that affected hits and false alarms (and thereby altered sensitivity) but also created behavioral changes indicative of a bias. Together with previous research, the results suggest that phonemic priming data must be interpreted with caution, and they underscore the limitations of signal detection analyses in priming research (Norris, 1995). However, if a researcher can anticipate the likely form a bias will assume, signal detection methods can reveal priming effects.

Humans↗

[Dissolutive and non-dissolutive elements in the phonetic disorders of aphasia patients].

The authors, by proceeding on the view that only part of the pathological phenomena may be satisfactorily explained by Jackson's theory of dissolution, have made an analysis of phonetic disorders (sound exchanges) for ten patients with sensory aphasia and mixed aphasia which is a mixture of motor and sensory aphasia. The results of preliminary studies of the ontogenetic occurrence of Bulgarian sounds in the development of the child's language were taken as a base for distinguishing dissolutive from non-dissolutive sound exchanges. It has been found that 36% and 64% of the sound exchanges were dissolutive and nondissolutive, respectively.

Aphasia↗

[Phonetically balanced lists for children from six to 10 years].

Two French-Canadian phonetically balanced lists, for children from six to 10 years, have been tried experimentally on a population of 100 children. The results indicate that they are equivalent to the French lists and can be used for speech discrimination testing.

Child↗

Temporally jittered speech produces performance intensity, phonetically balanced rollover in young normal-hearing listeners.

This study investigates whether temporally jittered stimuli will produce performance-intensity, phonetically balanced (PI-PB) rollover in young adults with normal hearing. Although not yet explicitly stated in the literature, there is clinical and theoretical evidence to suggest that PI-PB rollover, such as that found in cases of acoustic neuroma, is caused by neural dyssynchrony in the auditory system. Sixteen participants were tested with intact and temporally jittered word lists in quiet at 40, 55, 65, and uncomfortable listening level -5 dB HL. The results show significant rollover in the jittered but not the intact conditions. The results are consistent with the existing evidence that suggests that neural PI-PB rollover is caused by decreased neural synchrony and support the claim that temporal jitter simulates neural dyssynchrony. Furthermore, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that synchrony coding plays an important role in the perception of high-level speech.

Adolescent↗

Adaptation of neuromagnetic N1 responses to phonetic stimuli by visual speech in humans.

The technique of 306-channel magnetoencephalogaphy (MEG) was used in eight healthy volunteers to test whether silent lip-reading modulates auditory-cortex processing of phonetic sounds. Auditory test stimuli (either Finnish vowel /ae/ or /ø/) were preceded by a 500 ms lag by either another auditory stimulus (/ae/, /ø/ or the second-formant midpoint between /ae/ and /ø/), or silent movie of a person articulating /ae/ or /ø/. Compared with N1 responses to auditory /ae/ and /ø/ when presented without a preceding stimulus, the amplitudes of left-hemisphere N1 responses to the test stimuli were significantly suppressed both when preceded by auditory and visual stimuli, this effect being significantly stronger with preceding auditory stimuli. This suggests that seeing articulatory gestures of a speaker influences auditory speech perception by modulating the responsiveness of auditory-cortex neurons.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

[Dependence of correct solution of phonetic information on the number and kind of picture information].

It was to be shown that kindergarten children do not synthesize phonologically, auditorily presented sound sequences but solve the task primarily in a picture-related manner by using visual information and selecting singular sound units or elements. The first study demonstrated that the picture material rather than the concrete sound sequence determines the extent of correct solution. In addition, the solutions are influenced by the kind of phonetic relationship among the picture information rather than by the introduction of picture distractors. These results were basically replicated in the second study. The results are discussed against the background of decision making that is mainly oriented to the situative cues of the task and only secondarily to the sound aspects.

Child↗

An acoustically investigated case of phonetic change in higher vertical dimension.

This report presents the phonetic changes of a patient whose occlusal vertical dimension is extended. His chief complaint is esthetic restoration of his anterior teeth, but his occlusal vertical dimension is abnormally shortened by long-time attrition. Therefore we extended his occlusal vertical dimension, and reconstructed his occlusion, and carried out acoustic observations.

Aged↗

The emergence of phonetic segments: evidence from the spectral structure of fricative-vowel syllables spoken by children and adults.

A variety of evidence, including the speech errors of normal and aphasic speakers, and the metalinguistic skills of literate individuals, demonstrates that speech has an underlying phonemic organization. However, we know little about how this organization develops in the child. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that phoneme-sized phonetic segments emerge as functional units of perceptuomotor control from the child's gradual reorganization of the gestures forming its early words or syllables. We investigated the acoustic structure of syllables produced by young children and adults. Fricative-vowel syllables spoken by 40 subjects (eight adults and eight children at each of the ages 3, 4, 5, and 7 years) were analyzed acoustically to determine how well different syllables-initial fricatives were contrasted and how strongly they were affected by vocalic context. Results indicated two independent developmental trends: The extent to which speakers differentiated between /integral of/ and /s/ increased with age, while the extent to which they coarticulated each fricative with its following vowel decreased. The results support the hypothesis that children initially organize their speech gestures over a domain at least the size of the syllable and only gradually differentiate the syllable into patterns of gestures more closely aligned with its perceived segmental components.

Adult↗