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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1979

Phonetically mediated recall in the phonetically disordered child.

Children with phonology disorders frequently show reduced performance in short-term recall, inviting the assumption that impairment of memory may cause or help to cause the speech disorder. Ten children with marked phonology disorders were compared to 10 correctly speaking children on a test of short-term memory for sets of pictures whose names rhymed or did not rhyme. The phonologically disordered children performed significantly worse than those with correct speech and provided less evidence of phonetic mediation, a process commonly associated with enhanced levels of recall. Attention is drawn to the possibility that the disorder of phonology operated indirectly to reduce the efficiency of memory, though the question is complicated.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1991

The relation between phonetics and phonology.

It is the goal of this paper to consider how phonetics may interface with phonology. The role phonetics plays in phonological analysis is considered with respect to features, segments, phonological processes, and the abstractness of phonological solutions. Phonetic evidence is reviewed concerning the feature [strident] that questions the defining properties of this feature, its place in the distinctive feature framework, and its role in the analysis of natural classes for fricatives. The extent to which a sound segment is analyzed as a single unit or a cluster is considered with reference to prenasalized stops in Moru. The phonetic data are neutral with respect to the unitary or complex status of such segments, suggesting that the decision is more properly a phonological one. Phonetic evidence for the phonological process of neutralization is reviewed. Acoustic analysis of word-final devoicing in German, Polish and Catalan provides support for the reality of the process of neutralization in phonological solutions. Finally, phonetics helps provide a set of constraints or limiting conditions on the abstractness of phonological solutions. While phonetics cannot inform phonology about the appropriateness of a particular underlying form, there should be some phonetic transparency between the underlying form and its ultimate phonetic instantiation.

Attention↗
PubMed1983

Comparison of alphabetic and phonetic retrieval of online drug information.

Alphabetic, phonetic, and combined alphabetic and phonetic methods of retrieving online drug information were compared. Twenty-four volunteers participated in the study representing four user groups: physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and nonhealth-care hospital staff. Each subject performed 150 searches, 50 by each retrieval method. Using the alphabetic method, drug information was retrievable only if the drug name was spelled correctly. Using the phonetic method, searches were conducted based on the phonetic spelling of requests (e.g., "symetadine" for cimetidine). The combined method used a phonetic search only after an initial alphabetic search was unsuccessful. The elapsed time between the first entry and an indication that the information had been found or could not be found was determined, and the number of drug names not found and the number of excess tries were counted. There were no significant differences in elapsed time among the three methods. Pharmacists had the shortest mean elapsed time and physicians the longest. The average number of excess tries using the phonetic system was a third of the number required using the alphabetic method. The number of drugs not found showed only slight differences among the three methods. The subjects found the desired information on the first try 67% of the time with the alphabetic method, 66% with the combined method, and 90% with the phonetic method. The phonetic method had an average of 75 matches versus 20 for the alphabetic and combined methods. These results support use of a combined alphabetic and phonetic system for retrieving drug information.

Drug Information Services↗
PubMed1993

Attentional modulation of the phonetic significance of acoustic cues.

Four experiments addressing the role of attention in phonetic perception are reported. The first experiment shows that the relative importance of two cues to the voicing distinction changes when subjects must perform an arithmetic distractor task at the same time as identifying a speech stimulus. The contribution of voice onset time to phonetic labeling decreases when subjects are distracted, while that of FO onset frequency increases. The second experiment shows a similar pattern for two cues to the distinction between the vowels /i/ (as in "beat") and /I/ (as in "bit"). Under low attention conditions, formant pattern has a smaller effect on phonetic labeling while vowel duration has a larger effect. Together these experiments indicate that careful attention to speech perception is necessary for strong acoustic cues (voice-onset time and formant patterns) to achieve their full impact on phonetic labeling, while weaker acoustic cues (FO onset frequency and vowel duration) achieve their full impact on phonetic labeling without close attention. Experiment 3 shows that this pattern is obtained when the distractor task places little demand on verbal short-term memory. Experiment 4 provides a data set for testing formal models of the role of attention in speech perception. Attention is shown to influence the signal-to-noise ratio in the phonetic encoding of acoustic cues; the sustained phonetic contribution of weak cues without close attention stems from reduced competition from strong cues. This principle is instantiated in a network model in which the role of attention is to reduce noise in the phonetic encoding of acoustic cues. Implications of this work for understanding speech perception and general theories of the role of attention in perception are discussed.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1991

Speech and language production at age 2: evidence for tradeoffs between linguistic and phonetic processing.

The purpose of this study was to explore how 2-year-old children manage the relationship between phonetic production and production of word combinations in their spontaneous speech. The subjects were 5 normally developing 2-year-olds who were participants in an ongoing longitudinal study of speech and language acquisition. Three measures were used to estimate phonetic production skills in the children's spontaneous speech samples. These included a measure of the accuracy of consonant production (Percentage of Consonants Correct), and two estimators of phonetic complexity (phonetic products for utterance and word length units). Regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between complexity of word combinations, as measured by length of utterance in morphemes and a propositional complexity analysis, and utilization of phonetic production skills. The results revealed modest tradeoffs between complexity of word combinations and accuracy of consonant production for 2 of the 5 children. The results also showed tradeoffs between complexity of word combinations and phonetic complexity of individual lexical items (phonetic product for words) for 4 of the 5 children. As the complexity of these 4 children's multiword combinations increased, the phonetic complexity of individual lexical items decreased. These results are consistent with synergistic theories of language acquisition and language processing that emphasize dynamic tradeoffs in interactions among language processing levels in a limited capacity production system.

Child Language↗
PubMed1990

Phonetic variation in multisyllable babbling.

This investigation examined phonetic variation in multisyllable babbling of infants from 0.7 to 0.11. The basis of this investigation was to examine assumptions present in major models of infant vocal development which suggest systematic developmental increases in phonetic variation of these babbles, and posit separate stages of repetitive (multisyllables with non-varied phonetic elements) and non-repetitive (phonetically varied multisyllables) babbling. Eight infants were audiotaperecorded in their homes at ages 0.7, 0.9 and 0.11. The multisyllable vocalizations were categorized based on the presence or absence of phonetic variation, and the source of that variation (place change, manner change or both). Multisyllables were produced with phonetic variation at or near the beginning of multisyllable babbling, which failed to support the existence of distinct stages of repetitive and nonrepetitive babbling.

Humans↗
PubMed1997

Infants listen for more phonetic detail in speech perception than in word-learning tasks.

Infants aged 4-6 months discriminate the fine phonetic differences that distinguish syllables in both their native and unfamiliar languages, but by 10-12 months their perceptual sensitivities are reorganized so that they discriminate only the phonetic variations that are used to distinguish meaning in their native language. It would seem, then, that infants apply their well honed phonetic sensitivities as they advance and begin to associate words with objects, but the question of how speech perception sensitivities are used in early word learning has not yet been answered. Here we use a recently developed technique to show that when they are required to pair words with objects, infants of 14 months fail to use the fine phonetic detail they detect in syllable discrimination tasks. In contrast, infants of 8 months--who are not yet readily learning words--successfully discriminate phonetic detail in the same task in which infants aged 14 months fail. Taken together, these results suggest a second reorganization in infants's use of phonetic detail as they move from listening to syllables to learning words.

Aging↗
PubMed1991

The role of phonetics within the study of language.

Phonologists have often held that phonetic 'substance' is more or less unrelated to phonological 'form'. This view rests on assumptions about the phonetic domain that are highly questionable on empirical grounds. Evidence is reviewed suggesting that very few phonetic properties of vowels fail to serve the linguistic function of preserving and enhancing distinctiveness. Accordingly, much of what has been considered to be purely phonetic is also phonological in character: that is to say, the domains of phonetics and phonology overlap significantly. Finally, several well-known criticisms of the program of phonetic explanation in phonology are discussed and rejected.

Humans↗
PubMed2003

Short-term reorganization of auditory analysis induced by phonetic experience.

Sine wave replicas of spoken words can be perceived both as nonphonetic auditory forms and as words, depending on a listener's experience. In this study, brain areas activated by sine wave words were studied with fMRI in two conditions: when subjects perceived the sounds spontaneously as nonphonetic auditory forms ("nïve condition") and after instruction and brief practice attending to their phonetic attributes ("informed condition"). The test items were composed such that half replicated natural words ("phonetic items") and the other half did not, because the tone analogs of the first and third formants had been temporally reversed ("nonphonetic items"). Subjects were asked to decide whether an isolated tone analog of the second formant (T2) presented before the sine wave word (T1234) was included in it. Experience in attending to the phonetic properties of the sinusoids interfered with this auditory matching task and was accompanied by a decrease in auditory cortex activation with word replicas but not with the acoustically matched nonphonetic items. Because the activation patterns elicited by equivalent acoustic test items depended on a listener's awareness of their phonetic potential, this indicates that the analysis of speech sounds in the auditory cortex is distinct from the simple resolution of auditory form, and is not a mere consequence of acoustic complexity. Because arbitrary acoustic patterns did not evoke the response observed for phonetic patterns, these findings suggest that the perception of speech is contingent on the presence of familiar patterns of spectral variation. The results are consistent with a short-term functional reorganization of auditory analysis induced by phonetic experience with sine wave replicas and contingent on the dynamic acoustic structure of speech.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

Visual and phonetic memory in preschool children: evidence for coding flexibility.

This study examined visual and verbal (phonetic) memory coding in 22 preschool children 4 to 5 yr. of age. A major goal was to determine whether these children would code visual items phonetically during input in a short-term memory task as older children and adults often appear to do. Items to be remembered were visually presented letters that varied in visual as well as phonetic similarity. Subjects labeled each letter during presentation, and serial recall was probed either visually or verbally. Recall scores were analyzed according to planned individual comparisons and a 4-factor analysis of variance: probe modality (visual, verbal) X visual similarity (low, high) X phonetic similarity (low, high) x serial position (1, 2, 3, 4). Data indicated (1) a significant detrimental effect of high phonetic similarity for subjects whose recall was probed verbally, (2) a significant facilitating effect of high visual similarity, and (3) significant interactions indicating differential effects of phonetic similarity and probe modality on the serial position curve. These findings suggest flexibility of coding in children of the age range tested.

Adult↗