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Developmental origins of adult phonology: the interplay between phonetic emergents and the evolutionary adaptations of sound patterns.

In this paper fragments of a theory of emergent phonology are presented. Phonological patterns are seen as products of cultural evolution adapted to universal biological constraints on listening, speaking and learning. It is proposed that children develop adult phonology thanks to the interaction of the emergent patterning of phonetic content and the adaptive organization of sound structure. Emergence - here used in the technical sense of qualitatively new development - is illustrated with examples from the study of perception, motor mechanisms and memory encoding. In this framework, there is no split between 'behavioral phonetics' and 'abstract phonology'. Phonology differs qualitatively from phonetics in that it represents a new, more complex and higher level of organization of speech behavior. Accordingly, the phonology that the child ends up with as an adult is neither abstract nor independent of use. It represents an emergent patterning of phonetic content.

Adult↗

Auditory event-related potentials during phonetic and semantic processing in children.

This study was designed to follow the time course of different levels of linguistic processing using auditory event-related potentials (AERPs). A hierarchical set of acoustically controlled stimuli was used to elicit AERPs in 20 normal children who performed discrimination tasks involving pure tones, phonetic 'easy' and 'difficult' stimuli and semantic stimuli. Results show that (1) AERP latencies were similar for phonetic 'easy' and 'difficult' stimuli, (2) prolonged P(2), N(2) and P(3) latencies characterized semantic processing compared to phonetic processing, (3) a late negativity was elicited during semantic processing only, (4) P(3) amplitudes were larger over the left compared to right scalp during linguistic processing (phonetic and semantic) but were similar during nonlinguistic processing (pure tones) and (5) reaction time was found to be longest for semantic processing whereas performance accuracy was found to be an insensitive measure. These results provide insight into brain processes underlying the perception of speech. Furthermore, they support a dual model of speech perception that includes parallel and serial processing.

Adolescent↗

From words to actions: the phonetics of eigenlijkin two communicative contexts.

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the distribution of phonetic variants of the Dutch discourse marker eigenlijk, combining phonetic and conversation analytic methods. The paper shows that the phonetic form of eigenlijk depends to some extent on the sequential environment in which the item is used; moreover, it shows that in the case of two such environments, the forms of eigenlijk are representative of tempo and reduction patterns spanning entire turns or turn-constructional units. These patterns can be related to the interactive function of the turns; thus, the findings presented here contribute to our as yet limited knowledge of the phonetic correlates of communicative actions.

Communication↗

Relative effects of whole-word and phonetic-prompt error correction on the acquisition and maintenance of sight words by students with developmental disabilities.

We used an alternating treatments design to compare the effects of two procedures for correcting student errors during sight word drills. Each of the 5 participating students with developmental disabilities was provided daily one-to-one instruction on individualized sets of 14 unknown words. Each week's new set of unknown words was divided randomly into two groups of equal size. Student errors during instruction were immediately followed by whole-word error correction (the teacher stated the complete word and the student repeated it) for one group of words and by phonetic-prompt error correction (the teacher provided phonetic prompts) for the other group of words. During instruction, all 5 students read correctly a higher percentage of whole-word corrected words than phonetic-prompt corrected words. Data from same-day tests (immediately following instruction) and next-day tests showed the students learned more words taught with whole-word error correction than they learned with phonetic-prompt error correction.

Child↗

An integrated multi-media package for learning clinical phonetics and linguistics.

Competence in the phonetic and linguistic analysis of normal and disordered spoken language is a basic requirement for all students and practitioners of speech and language therapy. This paper presents a learning package specifically designed for individuals who need to acquire or update practical skills and theoretical knowledge in clinical linguistic analysis. VISUAL-CLIP (VIdeo SUpported Active Learning in Clinical LInguistics and Phonetics) is a student-centred, interactive, multi-media tutorial in clinical linguistics and phonetics, based on digitised video- and audio-taped speech data from a child with a complex communication disorder. Data can be analysed from different perspectives and at different levels of difficulty using separate but inter-linked modules on phonetics, phonology, grammar, semantics and pragmatics. Case history information, formal assessment results, theoretical background and an annotated bibliography are also integrated into the CD-ROM based package.

Communication Disorders↗

Recall of order information by deaf signers: phonetic coding in temporal order recall.

To examine the claim that phonetic coding plays a special role in temporal order recall, deaf and hearing college students were tested on their recall of temporal and spatial order information at two delay intervals. The deaf subjects were all native signers of American Sign Language. The results indicated that both the deaf and hearing subjects used phonetic coding in short-term temporal recall, and visual coding in spatial recall. There was no evidence of manual or visual coding among either the hearing or the deaf subjects in the temporal order recall task. The use of phonetic coding for temporal recall is consistent with the hypothesis that recall of temporal order information is facilitated by a phonetic code.

Adult↗

Discovering phonetic coherence in acoustic patterns.

Despite spectral and temporal discontinuities in the speech signal, listeners normally report coherent phonetic patterns corresponding to the phonemes of a language that they know. What is the basis for the internal coherence of phonetic segments? According to one account, listeners achieve coherence by extracting and integrating discrete cues; according to another, coherence arises automatically from general principles of auditory form perception; according to a third, listeners perceive speech patterns as coherent because they are the acoustic consequences of coordinated articulatory gestures in a familiar language. We tested these accounts in three experiments by training listeners to hear a continuum of three-tone, modulated sine wave patterns, modeled after a minimal pair contrast between three-formant synthetic speech syllables, either as distorted speech signals carrying a phonetic contrast (speech listeners) or as distorted musical chords carrying a nonspeech auditory contrast (music listeners). The music listeners could neither integrate the sine wave patterns nor perceive their auditory coherence to arrive at consistent, categorical percepts, whereas the speech listeners judged the patterns as speech almost as reliably as the synthetic syllables on which they were modeled. The outcome is consistent with the hypothesis that listeners perceive the phonetic coherence of a speech signal by recognizing acoustic patterns that reflect the coordinated articulatory gestures from which they arose.

Adult↗

Phonetic priming, neighborhood activation, and PARSYN.

Perceptual identification of spoken words in noise is less accurate when the target words are preceded by spoken phonetically related primes (Goldinger, Luce, & Pisoni, 1989). The present investigation replicated and extended this finding. Subjects shadowed target words presented in the clear that were preceded by phonetically related or unrelated primes. In addition, primes were either higher or lower in frequency than the target words. Shadowing latencies were significantly longer for target words preceded by phonetically related primes, but only when the prime-target interstimulus interval was short (50 vs. 500 msec). These results demonstrate that phonetic priming does not depend on target degradation and that it affects processing time. We further demonstrated that PARSYN--a connectionist instantiation of the neighborhood activation model--accurately simulates the observed pattern of priming.

Adult↗

Acoustic-phonetic approach toward understanding neural processes and speech perception.

This review paper describes an "acoustic-phonetic" experimental approach aimed at understanding normal and abnormal speech perception processes from both a behavioral and an electrophysiologic perspective. First, we consider the relevant acoustic characteristics of speech and identify a set of acoustic-phonetic classes that represent the parameters most important for making an acoustic signal sound like speech. Second, we review what is known about the neurophysiologic representation of acoustic-phonetic speech parameters in animal and human subjects. Third, we describe how an acoustic-phonetic approach has been useful in understanding the biologic basis of some auditory learning problems in children and in characterizing the behavioral and neurophysiologic changes resulting from speech-sound training. Finally, we discuss these findings and how they may expand the diagnostic and rehabilitative repertoire of practicing audiologists.

Auditory Cortex↗

Lateralized automatic auditory processing of phonetic versus musical information: a PET study.

Previous positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies show that during attentive listening, processing of phonetic information is associated with higher activity in the left auditory cortex than in the right auditory cortex while the opposite is true for musical information. The present PET study determined whether automatically activated neural mechanisms for phonetic and musical information are lateralized. To this end, subjects engaged in a visual word classification task were presented with phonetic sound sequences consisting of frequent (P = 0.8) and infrequent (P = 0.2) phonemes and with musical sound sequences consisting of frequent (P = 0.8) and infrequent (P = 0.2) chords. The phonemes and chords were matched in spectral complexity as well as in the magnitude of frequency difference between the frequent and infrequent sounds (/e/ vs. /o/; A major vs. A minor). In addition, control sequences, consisting of either frequent (/e/; A major) or infrequent sounds (/o/; A minor) were employed in separate blocks. When sound sequences consisted of intermixed frequent and infrequent sounds, automatic phonetic processing was lateralized to the left hemisphere and musical to the right hemisphere. This lateralization, however, did not occur in control blocks with one type of sound (frequent or infrequent). The data thus indicate that automatic activation of lateralized neuronal circuits requires sound comparison based on short-term sound representations.

Adult↗

[Basis of art phonetics in biomedical engineering].

Art phonetics' medicine, a new branch of traditional medicine, has not been developed perfectly, especially in the aspects of objective and scientific study. In this paper, the acoustical and anatiomical basis of art phonetics in viewpoint of biomedical engineering is explored, and then our work of quantitative measurement and analysis of art phonetic is introduced. The experiment data show further that quantitative measurement and analysis plays an important role in art phonetic medicine.

Acoustics↗

Electrophysiological evidence for automatic phonetic processing in neonates.

At least two fundamental properties should be present in a network computing a phonetic representation: categorical perception and normalization across different utterances. Normalization processes were studied at birth by recording high density evoked potentials to strings of syllables in sleeping neonates. We compared the response to a change of phoneme when irrelevant speaker variation was present or absent. A mismatch response was recorded at the same latency in both cases, suggesting that relevant phonetic information was extracted from the irrelevant variation. Combined with our previous work showing that the mismatch response is sensitive to categorical perception in infants, this result suggests that a phonetic network like that of adults, is already present in the infant brain. Furthermore, efficient phonetic processing does not require attention.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Semantic judgments of compressed monosyllables: evidence for phonetic symbolism.

Both frequency and speed of utterance have been implicated in studies of phonetic symbolism. Therefore, these two variables were manipulated independently. Three monosyllables were recorded and distorted by either increasing or decreasing frequency, holding speed constant, and by increasing or decreasing speed, holding frequency constant. The subjects were 15 college students who rated the resulting 15 stimuli (3 monosyllables X fast speed-normal frequency, slow speed-normal frequency, normal speed-high frequency, normal speed-low frequency, and normal speed-normal frequency) using 15 bipolar adjective scales, chosen on the basis of previous semantic differential and phonetic symbolism research. Five separate factor analyses were applied to the data. It was found that the normal speed-low frequency, slow speed-normal frequency, and normal speed-normal frequency stimuli generated approximately the same factors, while the fast speed-normal frequency and normal speed-high frequency stimuli generated factors similar to each other but with some notable differences. Separate analyses of variance were applied to the bipolar adjectives using speed, frequency, and vowels as main effects. The 15 analyses showed that subjects did judge the monosyllables as different on the basis of both speed and frequency. The implications of this study for phonetic symbolism research are discussed.

Female↗

Analysis of a Chinese phonetic compound database: implications for orthographic processing.

The complexity of Chinese orthography has hindered the progress of research in Chinese to the same level of sophistication of that in alphabetic languages such as English. Also, there has been no publicly available resource concerning the decomposition of Chinese characters, which is essential in any attempt to model the cognitive processes of Chinese character recognition. Here we report our construction and analysis of a Chinese lexical database containing the most frequent phonetic compounds decomposed into semantic and phonetic radicals according to Chinese etymology. Each radical was further decomposed into basic stroke patterns according to a Chinese transcription system, Cangjie (Chu, 1979 Laboratory of chu Bong-Foo Retrieved August 25, 2004, from http://www.cbflabs.com/). Other information such as pronunciation and character frequency were also incorporated. We examine the distribution of different types of character, the information skew in phonetic compounds, the relations between subcharacter orthographic units and the pronunciation of the entire character, and the processing implications of these phenomena in terms of universal psycholinguistic principles.

Databases as Topic↗

The role of the frontal and temporal lobes in the phonetic organization of speech stimuli: a multidimensional scaling analysis.

Auditory perception of 10 two-letter consonant-vowel syllables and visual short-term memory for sequences of the same syllables were examined in 28 patients with lesions in the frontal or temporal lobe of either hemisphere and in 12 normal control subjects. Multidimensional scaling analyses showed that manner of articulation and voicing were salient organizational categories for all groups on the auditory task whereas manner of articulation and place of articulation were the salient organizational clusters for all groups on the visual task. The pattern of confusion errors made by all groups on both tasks were consistent with some, but not all, of the phonetic distinctive features expected based on formal linguistic description of human phonology. No group showed a consistent lack of sensitivity across all phonetic features, arguing against the idea that use of a phonetic code is dependent upon any specific focal structure in the cerebral hemispheres.

Adolescent↗

Nasopharyngeal pressure gradients during non-phonetic activities of the velopharyngeal valve. Part I.

The phonetic activity of the velopharyngeal valve has been the subject of electromyographic, radiological, ultrasonic, endoscopic, and of various acoustic and aeromechanical investigations. The subject of the present study was the non-phonetic activities of the velopharyngeal valve. Ten patients were assessed by nasendoscopic examinations of the velopharyngeal valve. The pressure gradients in the nasopharynx during these activities were recorded. Typical individual nasopharyngeal pressure patterns were revealed inducing a development of a special technique and tests for a further study of the non-phonetic activities of the velopharyngeal valve in correlation with its abnormality and pathological speech activities.

Adult↗

Mismatch negativity in a phonetic discrimination task.

The hypothesis was tested that in a discrimination task the number of phonetic features available determines the latencies and amplitudes of the components of the evoked potentials. Six conditions varying in the number and type of discriminatory cues were compared. The condition containing a three phonetic feature discrimination produced shorter latency evoked potentials as compared with the conditions containing one or two such features or an acoustic difference only. The N2 component, the so-called mismatch negativity, was particularly sensitive to the number of phonetic features.

Discrimination Learning↗

Use of phonetic specificity during the acquisition of new words: differences between consonants and vowels.

The present study explores the issue of the use of phonetic specificity in the process of learning new words at 20 months of age. The procedure used follows Nazzi and Gopnik [Nazzi, T., & Gopnik, A. (2001). Linguistic and cognitive abilities in infancy: When does language become a tool for categorization? Cognition, 80, B11-B20]. Infants were first presented with triads of perceptually dissimilar objects, which were given made-up names, two of the objects receiving the same name. Then, word learning was evaluated through object selection/categorization. Tests involved phonetically different words (e.g. [pize] vs. [mora], Experiment 1), words differing minimally on their onset consonant (e.g. [pize] vs. [tize], Experiment 2a), and conditions which had never been tested before: non-initial consonantal contrasts (e.g. [pide] vs. [pige], Experiment 2b), and vocalic contrasts (e.g. [pize] vs. [pyze]; [pize] vs. [paze]; [pize] vs. [pizu], Experiments 3a-c). Results differed across conditions: words could be easily learnt in the phonetically different condition, and were learnt, though to a lesser degree, in both the initial and non-initial minimal consonant contrast; however, infants' global performance on all three vocalic contrasts was at chance level. The present results shed new light regarding the specificity of early words, and raise the possibility of different contributions for vowels and consonants in early word learning.

Humans↗