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PubMed1985

Phonetic identification by elderly normal and hearing-impaired listeners.

Young normal-hearing listeners, elderly normal-hearing listeners, and elderly hearing-impaired listeners were tested on a variety of phonetic identification tasks. Where identity was cued by stimulus duration, the elderly hearing-impaired listeners evidenced normal identification functions. On a task in which there were multiple cues to vowel identity, performance was also normal. On a/b d g/identification task in which the starting frequency of the second formant was varied, performance was abnormal for both the elderly hearing-impaired listeners and the elderly normal-hearing listeners. We conclude that errors in phonetic identification among elderly hearing-impaired listeners with mild to moderate, sloping hearing impairment do not stem from abnormalities in processing stimulus duration. The results with the /b d g/continuum suggest that one factor underlying errors may be an inability to base identification on dynamic spectral information when relatively static information, which is normally characteristic of a phonetic segment, is unavailable.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/. II: The role of phonetic environment and talker variability in learning new perceptual categories.

Two experiments were carried out to extend Logan et al.'s recent study [J. S. Logan, S. E. Lively, and D. B. Pisoni, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 874-886 (1991)] on training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/. Subjects in experiment 1 were trained in an identification task with multiple talkers who produced English words containing the /r/-/l/ contrast in initial singleton, initial consonant clusters, and intervocalic positions. Moderate, but significant, increases in accuracy and decreases in response latency were observed between pretest and posttest and during training sessions. Subjects also generalized to new words produced by a familiar talker and novel words produced by an unfamiliar talker. In experiment 2, a new group of subjects was trained with tokens from a single talker who produced words containing the /r/-/l/ contrast in five phonetic environments. Although subjects improved during training and showed increases in pretest-posttest performance, they failed to generalize to tokens produced by a new talker. The results of the present experiments suggest that variability plays an important role in perceptual learning and robust category formation. During training, listeners develop talker-specific, context-dependent representations for new phonetic categories by selectively shifting attention toward the contrastive dimensions of the non-native phonetic categories. Phonotactic constraints in the native language, similarity of the new contrast to distinctions in the native language, and the distinctiveness of contrastive cues all appear to mediate category acquisition.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1994

Training Japanese listeners to identify English /r/ and /l/. III. Long-term retention of new phonetic categories.

Monolingual speakers of Japanese were trained to identify English /r/ and /l/ using Logan et al.'s [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 874-886 (1991)] high-variability training procedure. Subjects' performance improved from the pretest to the post-test and during the 3 weeks of training. Performance during training varied as a function of talker and phonetic environment. Generalization accuracy to new words depended on the voice of the talker producing the /r/-/l/ contrast: Subjects were significantly more accurate when new words were produced by a familiar talker than when new words were produced by an unfamiliar talker. This difference could not be attributed to differences in intelligibility of the stimuli. Three and six months after the conclusion of training, subjects returned to the laboratory and were given the post-test and tests of generalization again. Performance was surprisingly good on each test after 3 months without any further training: Accuracy decreased only 2% from the post-test given at the end of training to the post-test given 3 months later. Similarly, no significant decrease in accuracy was observed for the tests of generalization. After 6 months without training, subjects' accuracy was still 4.5% above pretest levels. Performance on the tests of generalization did not decrease and significant differences were still observed between talkers. The present results suggest that the high-variability training paradigm encourages a long-term modification of listeners' phonetic perception. Changes in perception are brought about by shifts in selective attention to the acoustic cues that signal phonetic contrasts. These modifications in attention appear to be retrained over time, despite the fact that listeners are not exposed to the /r/-/l/ contrast in their native language environment.

Female↗

PubMed2005

Methodological imperatives for investigating the phonetic organization and phonological structures of spontaneous speech.

We describe and exemplify a methodology for providing an integrated account of the communicative function of parametric phonetic detail and its relationship with interactional organization. We exemplify our analytic approach by documenting two different phonetic designs of stand-alone 'so' in a corpus of recorded American English telephone conversations. These two designs - which encompass particular loudness, pitch and laryngeal characteristics - correlate with different communicative functions and have different consequences for the interactional- sequential organization of the talk. We argue that if phonology is to be truly concerned with function and linguistic contrast, we need to induce those functions and domains of contrast from a thorough going phonetic and sequential analysis of talk-in-interaction.

Communication↗

PubMed1977

[Segmentation and phonetic classification by the DAWID system (author's transl)].

The DAWID speech recognition system, which is briefly described in this paper, performs an acoustical analysis which in some respect can be compared with a phonetic transcription. The limitations of this comparison are discussed. The segmentation and phonetic classification performance of the system is investigated on the basis of 5,520 spoken words (46 different one- and two-syllable words, 12 male speakers). The system performance is examined with the aid of varying classes of speech sounds embedded in different phonetic context. The results indicate that the DAWID system reliably transforms some classes of speech sounds into sequences of symbols, the elements of which represent 'quasi-allophonic' sound classes.

Classification↗

PubMed1993

Phonetic and phonological features of approximants in Athabaskan and Eskimo.

The Athabaskan and Eskimo approximants, particularly [j], [w], and [symbol: see text], behave phonologically like obstruents. In both language families, [j], which alternates with a sibilant, is phonologically [+coronal], although its coronality has been questioned on phonetic grounds. These approximants best illustrate Sapir's [1925] notion of 'a true point in pattern' which must be defined 'over and above its natural [phonetic] classification on organic and acoustic grounds'. The fact that approximants are classified phonologically as sonorants or obstruents in different languages is incompatible with the universality of distinctive features and their phonetic properties. This problem is resolved by placing a phonological boundary for [+/-sonorant] somewhat differently in the continuum of the sonority hierarchy, depending on how approximants behave in individual languages.

Female↗

PubMed2005

Phonetic effects of paralytic dysphonia.

OBJECTIVES: This study was performed to determine whether and how unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) affects the production and perception of voiced stop consonants as compared with unvoiced stops, and to analyze the phonetic effects of UVFP on the voicing feature. METHODS: Phonetic constructs pronounced by 7 male patients with UVFP and 5 normal male subjects were recorded. The 432 speech tokens consisted of intervocalic, prevocalic, and postvocalic stop consonants (/p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/) in the vowel contexts /a/ and /i/. Perceptual consonant identification testing was performed with 5 voice and speech professionals as listeners. The type and frequency of errors made in consonant identification were analyzed. Spectrographic analysis was used to analyze acoustic cues. RESULTS: The rate of correct consonant identification was significantly lower for tokens pronounced by patients with UVFP (77.3% versus 97.6%, p = .0001) because of incorrect identification of the voiced consonants, frequently perceived as their unvoiced homologues. Confusion between dental and alveolar place of articulation for unvoiced stops was also noted. CONCLUSIONS: Unilateral vocal fold paralysis alters the voiced-unvoiced stop consonant distinction and the dental-palatal stop consonant distinction in an experimental nonspeech context. This finding implies the existence of a phonetic handicap for patients with UVFP. Further studies should determine the effects of UVFP on global speech intelligibility.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Early word learners' ability to access phonetic detail in well-known words.

Several recent studies from our laboratory have shown that 14-month-old infants have difficulty learning to associate two phonetically similar new words to two different objects when tested in the Switch task. Because the infants can discriminate the same phonetic detail that they fail to use in the associative word-learning situation, we have argued that this word-learning failure results from a processing overload. Here we explore how infants perform in the Switch task with already known minimally different words. The experiment involved the same phonetic difference as used in our earlier word-learning studies. Following habituation to two familiar minimal pair object-label combinations (ball and doll), infants of 14 months looked longer to a violation in the object-label pairing (e.g., label 'ball' paired with object doll) than to an appropriate pairing. These results using well known words are consistent with the pattern of data recently obtained by Swingley and Aslin (2002) in which it was found that infants of 14 months look longer to the correct object when the accompanying well known word is spoken correctly rather than mispronounced. We discuss how these results are compatible with the limited resource explanation originally offered by Stager and Werker (1997).

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Alphabetization and rehabilitation of reading/writing disorders through a phonetic-visual-articulatory method].

BACKGROUND: Alphabetization and rehabilitation of reading/writing disorders through a phonetic-visual-articulatory method (Método das Boquinhas - Jardini, 1997). This methodology combines neuropsychological inputs, such as sounds/phonemes, letters/graphemes to the visual representation of mouth position/articulemes. AIM: To alphabetize and/or rehabilitate children who presented reading/writing disorders, of varied etiologies, with consistent short-term results, in a combined intervention with a speech-language pathologists and a psycho-pedagogue. METHOD: Participants of this study were 30 children, with the diagnoses of dyslexia, ADHA, mild cognitive retardation, infant psychoses and borderline behavior, some of which presented comorbidities. Children ranged between 7 and 10 years of age, all presenting at least a six-month delay in regular schooling. The children along with their parents and teachers took part in the research. Parents and teachers assessed the children through a multiple choice questionnaire at the beginning of treatment (T0), three (T1) and six months after intervention (T2), according to parameters of reading, reading comprehension, spelling, blackboard copying, attention, concentration and confidence for learning. The questionnaire qualified children as incapable, intermediate and capable for learning in each of the assessed parameter. The adopted therapeutic approach was the application of a phonetic-visual-articulatory method, with two weekly sessions with a speech-language pathologist and a psycho-pedagogue. Besides the therapeutic interventions, children continued to attend regular school. RESULTS: An expressive development was observed for all of the assessed parameters, according to parents and teachers. After the first 3 months of intervention, the performance of the children was classified at an intermediate level of learning and after 6 months they were considered as being capable for learning in each of the assessed parameters. These results not only favored a better performance at school, but also raised the children's self-esteem in terms of learning. CONCLUSION: After 6 months of intervention with the phonetic-visual-articulatory methodology children were able to continue with their learning process in a regular school, following the performance of the other members of class.

Child↗

PubMed2003

Effect of phonetics training on lingual awareness.

This investigation assessed the effect of phonetics training on lingual awareness in normal adult speakers of English. The study also compared Trained subjects' scores from a study in 2000 by Lohman and Fucci to subjects' posttraining scores in this investigation. Subjects were 36 students (M age=19.7, SD=.7) enrolled in an undergraduate phonetics class. All passed a speech and hearing screening. A pretest-posttest design was used. Subjects received approximately 40 hours of phonetics training over a 10-wk. period. The lingual awareness test required subjects imitate seven syllables and respond to four multiple-choice questions about each syllable. Subjects were aided by a line drawing of the oral cavity. A significant improvement in lingual awareness was found following training. However, scores for only two phonemes (sh and k) improved significantly. No significant difference was found between posttest scores and scores from Lohman and Fucci's Trained group.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

[A study of effects of head-down bed-rest simulated weightlessness on phonetic features of Chinese].

OBJECTIVE: To study the changes of phonetic features of Chinese speech during head-down bed-rest (HDBR) simulated weightlessness. METHOD: During -6 degrees HDBR in 6 healthy subjects (20-30 years), acoustic-phonetic features were analyzed. RESULT: The duration of utterance was slightly increase in the first two days, and recovered after the fourth day of HDBR; mean energy decreased along with time of bed rest, t-tests showed that the decrease in energy of utterances was very significant; a decrease in fundamental frequencies under HDBR was also significant. CONCLUSION: There were certain changes in the acoustic phonetic features under HDBR, some of them were significant.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Intelligibility in acquired dysarthria--a neuro-phonetic approach: three case studies.

A descriptive framework of phonetic parameters for the assessment of dysarthric speech is presented. The phonetic parameters examined are based on a linguistic analysis of aspects of continuous speech. The assessment thus evaluates the functional efficiency of the speech producing mechanisms in encoding the spoken medium of language. The interaction of the deviant parameters is related to the breakdown of intelligibility. Possible underlying neurological correlates are discussed. The implications for therapy using the combined phonetic and neurological information are considered. This assessment procedure is illustrated with case studies of three types of acquired dysarthria.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Imitation of a VOT continuum by native speakers of English and Spanish: evidence for phonetic category formation.

This study examined imitation of a voice onset time (VOT) continuum ranging from/da/to/ta/by by subjects differing in age and/or linguistic experience. The subjects did not reproduce the incremental increases in VOT linearly, but instead showed abrupt shifts in VOT between two or three VOT response "modes." The location of the response shifts occurred at the same location as phoneme boundaries obtained in a previous identification experiment. This supports the view that the stimuli were categorized before being imitated. Children and adults who spoke just Spanish generally produced only lead and short-lag VOT responses. English monolinguals tended to produce stops with only short-lag and long-lag VOT values. The native Spanish adults and children who spoke English, on the other hand, produced stops with VOT values falling into all three model VOT ranges. This was interpreted to mean that they had established a phonetic category [th] with which to implement the voiceless aspirated realizations of /t/ in English. Their inability to produce English /p,t,k/ with the same values as native speakers of English must therefore be attributed to the information specified in their new English phonetic categories (which might be incorrect as the result of exposure to Spanish-accented English), to partially formed phonetic realization rules, or both.

Child↗

PubMed1988

[The cochlear implant and phonetics: an analysis of a case with the French implant Chorimac 12].

This paper reports on the rehabilitation following implantation of the French cochlear implant, Chorimac 12, in a 66-year-old woman. The electrical stimulation of the device should normally stimulate on a 400-6000 Hz bandwidth. However, tests that had been run after the four-month rehabilitation period indicate that there is no stimulation under 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz seems to be the best bandwidth for stimulation, and over 4000 Hz, almost nothing is audible. An "analytico-global" rehabilitation process has yielded results on vowel, consonant and sentence discrimination: pairs of vowels which offer major contrasts are best discriminated; fricatives are easier to recognize than stops; the longer a sentence is, the easier the patients can identify key words that facilitate identification; also, the more sentences carry phonetic differences, the easier it is to identify them. The results from the analysis of the phonetic material used during the rehabilitation, the new hearing impressions described by the patient and the acoustical measures from acoustic researchers allow us to quantify the restored hearing, define the acquired phonetic code and describe the level of performance reached by the patient.

Aged↗

PubMed1995

On the notion of a "subtle phonetic deficit" in fluent/posterior aphasia.

Phonetic investigations in the past decade or so have reported instances of a "subtle phonetic deficit" in the fluent aphasias, thereby challenging the traditional dichotomy of a motoric deficit characterizing the nonfluent aphasias and a selection deficit characterizing the fluent aphasias. This paper critically reviews the acoustic, physiological, and perceptual studies which have attempted to examine this phenomenon. These investigations have been evaluated in terms of differences in subject populations, task demands, subjects' performance, and problematic interpretations. Suggestions are offered for an experimental design which can help us operationalize this term and help us to better understand the speech production deficit in fluent aphasic patients.

Aphasia, Wernicke↗

PubMed1996

An examination of impaired acoustic-phonetic processing in aphasia.

This research examines the nature of acoustic-phonetic impairments found in aphasia, and the reliability of patient performance on phoneme discrimination and identification tasks. Aphasic patients were tested on three phoneme discrimination tasks examining their ability to discriminate items on the basis of contrasts in sonorance, manner, place, or voicing using both spoken and synthetic stimuli. One of these tests involving the discrimination of spoken, one-syllable items was given to patients on three occasions over the course of 1 year to examine short- and long-term test reliability. In addition to these measures, patients were tested on three phoneme identification tasks using stimulus items drawn from the discrimination tests. The results of these tests show that aphasic patients may display stable patterns of performance on these measures over time and between tests. Furthermore, these findings suggest that discriminations of synthetic speech do not necessarily reflect patients' ability to discriminate spoken speech tokens. These results are interpreted as evidence that aphasics display stable, discrete impairments in acoustic-phonetic processing, and that these deficits may be measured reliably using phoneme discrimination and identification tasks using natural speech.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Contextual influences on phonetic identification in aphasia: the effects of speaking rate and semantic bias.

Two experiments examined the influence of context on stop-consonant voicing identification in fluent and nonfluent aphasic patients and normal controls. Listeners were required to label the initial stop in a target word varying along a voice onset time (VOT) continuum as either voiced or voiceless ([b]/[p] or [d]/[t]). Target stimuli were presented in sentence contexts in which the rate of speech of the sentence context (Experiment 1) or the semantic bias of the context (Experiment 2) was manipulated. The results revealed that all subject groups were sensitive to the contextual influences, although the extent of the context effects varied somewhat across groups and across experiments. In addition, a number of patients in both the fluent and nonfluent aphasic groups could not consistently identify even endpoint stimuli, confirming phonetic categorization impairments previously shown in such individuals. Results are discussed with respect to the potential reliance by aphasic patients on higher level context to compensate for phonetic perception deficits.

Aged↗

PubMed1994

The effects of phonetic similarity and list length on children's sound categorization performance.

Three experiments investigating children's performance on tests of sound categorization are reported. In two experiments, the children had to decide which was the "odd one out" in a sequence of three, four, and five words. In each case the "oddity" judgement required selecting the word which differed in its final consonant, producing a different rime segment. The odd word differed either by one phonetic feature (voice or place) or by both voice and place, from the others in the sequence. Oddity judgements were easier when the odd word was phonetically dissimilar to the background items but, contrary to expectation, performance did not decline as list length increased. Experiment 3 extended these findings by showing that place-only changes were more difficult than voice-only changes. Sound categorization performance correlated with memory span for words, but memory span did not make an independent contribution to sound categorization once age and reading skills had been controlled. The experiments show that the sound categorization task taps individual differences in speech perception mechanisms but that memory load is less crucial to this task than has often been supposed.

Age Factors↗