Showing papers on "Voice published in 1983"
TL;DR: The magnitudes of volume increments during the voiced stops, and the means by which those increments were achieved, differed considerably across place of articulation and phonetic environment.
Abstract: Measurements were made of saggital plane movements of the larynx, soft palate, and portions of the tongue, from a high-speed cinefluorographic film of utterances produced by one adult male speaker of American English. These measures were then used to approximate the temporal variations in supraglottal cavity volume during the closures of voiced and voiceless stop consonants. All data were subsequently related to a synchronous acoustic recording of the utterances. Instances of /p,t,k/ were always accompanied by silent closures, and sometimes accompanied by decreases in supraglottal volume. In contrast, instances of /b,d,g/ were always accompanied both by significant intervals of vocal fold vibration during closure, and relatively large increases in supraglottal volume. However, the magnitudes of volume increments during the voiced stops, and the means by which those increments were achieved, differed considerably across place of articulation and phonetic environment. These results are discussed in the context of a well-known model of the breath-stream control mechanism, and their relevance for a general theory of speech motor control is considered.
190 citations
TL;DR: It is argued in the present paper that more recent results taken as evidence against categorical perception are not unequivocally negative, and further tests between continuous and categorical views of speech perception are necessary.
113 citations
TL;DR: Examination of laboratory training procedures designed to modify the perception of the voicing dimension in synthetic speech stimuli implies a greater degree of plasticity in the adult speech processing system than has been acknowledged in past studies.
Abstract: The present study examined the plasticity of the human perceptual system by means of laboratory training procedures designed to modify the perception of the voicing dimension in synthetic speech stimuli. Although the results of earlier laboratory training studies have been ambiguous, recently Pisoni, Aslin, Perey, and Hennessy (1982) have succeeded in altering the perception of labial stop consonants from a two-way contrast in voicing to a three-way contrast. The present study extended these initial results by demonstrating that experience gained from discrimination training on one place of articulation (e.g., labial) can be transferred to another place of articulation (e.g., alveolar) without any additional training on the specific test stimuli. Quantitative analyses of the identification functions showed that the new perceptual categories were stable and displayed well-defined labeling boundaries between categories. Taken together with the earlier findings, these results imply a greater degree of plasticity in the adult speech processing system than has generally been acknowledged in past studies.
95 citations
TL;DR: The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptual effects of three types of mispronunciations, affecting the voicing of obstruents, the front-back dimension of stressed vowels, and the stress pattern of words.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptual effects of three types of mispronunciations, affecting the voicing of obstruents, the front-back dimension of stressed vowels, and the stress pattern of words. Subjects were instructed to shadow prose passages containing mispronunciations. Words containing voicing mispronunciations typically were repeated in their original form; words with vowel and stress pattern mispronunciation led instead to other response types.
84 citations
TL;DR: Results indicated that some phonologically disordered subjects failed to differentiate VOT in word-initial voiced and voiceless stops, whereas others produced much longer VOTs for voiceless stopping than did control subjects, which is interpreted to mean that some speech timing control-challenged children may have less maturespeech timing control.
Abstract: Speech timing of nine phonologically disordered and nine normally developing children was investigated for the voicing contrasts of word-initial and word-final stop consonants. Measurements of voic...
61 citations
TL;DR: Results indicated that the static aspects of speech production were preserved, as Broca's aphasics seemed to be able to reach the articulatory configuration for the appropriate place of articulation.
61 citations
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: This chapter discusses speech perception using senses in addition to hearing-primarily vision, with some thoughts about touch.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses speech perception using senses in addition to hearing-primarily vision, with some thoughts about touch. Lip-reading can play an important role in helping to alleviate the majority of moderate to severe impairments acquired post-lingually. Its success in this role depends upon the ability of perceivers to relate what they see to what they hear. This is where the analysis must start. When perceiving speech audio-visually observers select place information only from vision, and manner and voicing information only from audition. This hypothesis that “vision provides place, audition provides manner and voicing” makes two claims: that there is a particular partitioning of the information extracted from the two modalities; and that the information extracted from each modality is categorized phonetically before the auditory and visual streams are integrated.
60 citations
TL;DR: The authors provided additional data on stop closure durations as a function of voicing, stress, position, and place-of-articulation, finding that the effects of stress and position in disyllables vary with stop voicing.
46 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that independently controlled variables are the timing of articulator gestures and glottal width, so that the terms "fortis/lenis" are not a phoneticaly accurate characterization of this contrast.
44 citations
31 Jan 1983
42 citations
TL;DR: The results suggest that apraxic subjects have production as well as perceptual errors in the voicing feature but no significant relationship was found between the two measures.
TL;DR: Five-year-old articulation-disordered children, some classified as substituters and some as syllable reducers, were compared with normal child and adult controls in their production of voicing contrasts and appeared to recognize underlying voicing contrasts in at least a few final obstruents and in some of the initial stop singles.
Abstract: Five-year-old articulation-disordered children, some classified as substituters and some as syllable reducers, were compared with normal child and adult controls in their production of voicing cont...
TL;DR: The C/V ratio model is evaluated against the data of Derr and Massaro (1980) and Port and Dalby (1982) and the predictions of the fuzzylogical model, assuming independent vowel and consonant duration cues.
Abstract: The idea of the consonant duration relative to the vowel duration as a cue to voicing of postvocalic consonants is almost three decades old. Port and Dalby (1982) offer what they believeto be convincing support for such a view. We argue that the acceptance of this idea is premature and probably incorrect. In every instance that the concept of consonant! vowel (C/V) ratio is contrasted with an alternative view, the latter provides a significantly better description of the results. This alternative view considers consonant and vowel duration as independent cues to voicing, following the evaluation and integration of cues within the fuzzy-logical model of speech perception (Massaro & Cohen, 1976, 1977;' Massaro & Oden, 1980a, 1980b;Oden & Massaro, 1978). The first relevant study was carried out by Denes (1955), who varied vowel duration and the final consonant duration in the perception of the voicing difference between the pronunciations of the word use. Without any formal analysis, Denes interpreted the results in terms of the ratio of consonant duration to vowel duration, serving as a cue to voicing of the final consonant. The perceived voicing should decrease systematically with increases in the C/V ratio. However, in an earlier paper (Massaro & Cohen, 1977), we provided a quantitative test of the C/V ratio hypothesis against the observed results of Denes (1955). We also tested the idea that vowel duration and consonant duration provide independent cues to voicing of the consonant. The fit of the latter model was twice as good as that of the former, even though the better model required only three-fifths as many free parameters. In the present note, we evaluate the C/V ratio model against the data of Derr and Massaro (1980) and Port and Dalby (1982). The present tests offer as much flexibility as possible for the quantification of the C/V ratio idea. In addition, we contrast the C/V ratio model against the predictions of the fuzzylogical model, assuming independent vowel and consonant duration cues. The fuzzy-logicalmodel does a
TL;DR: This paper used duplex oscillogram and intensity curves on visicorder tracings to detect the intended voicing of the final consonant of a word in a given word and played it to native German speakers who identified the word they heard.
Abstract: Traditionally, German is described as having complete neutralization of voiced versus voiceless consonants word finally. In this study native German speakers were recorded reading real words differing in the voicing of the final consonant. The recorded tokens were then randomized and played to native Germans who identified the word they heard. The listeners performed very poorly, but significantly better than chance. In addition, temporal acoustic measurements of the recorded tokens were made using duplex oscillogram and intensity curves on visicorder tracings. Statistical analysis of the acoustic measurements—nucleus duration, consonant duration, duration of voicing during closure, and final aspiration—showed significant, though small differences between intended voiced and voiceless pairs. Discriminant analysis applied to the four variables produced an acoustic criterion by which the intended voicing of tokens could be predicted with 63% accuracy, about the same as the best listener was able to do. In addition, data will be presented showing asymmetry between production and perception, in relative importance of acoustic cues and in individual subjects' discrimination performance. [Work supported by NIH.]
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: For example, this paper found that children from 20 to 30 months of age commonly produce speech that sounds much like that of adults. Before this time, their approximations include a number of well-documented systematic errors.
Abstract: By five years of age normal children produce speech that sounds much like that of adults. Before this time, their approximations include a number of well-documented systematic errors. Children from 20 to 30 months of age commonly:
1.
reduce1 consonant clusters;
2.
delete1 final consonants;
3.
assimilate1 the phonetic features of one syllable to other syllables in the attempted string; and
4.
collapse1 certain phonemic categories systematically—for example,
(a)
initial fricatives, affricates, and stops collapse to stops,
(b)
initial and final stops of all voicing types collapse to voiceless un-aspirated stops,
(c)
liquids and glides become glides, and
(d)
dorsal and apical consonants collapse to apical ones.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed that temporal structures are language-specific variables which must be taken into consideration in the analysis of a language, and showed that vowel height effects are universal and constant across languages, but it becomes more difficult to account for some other claimed physiological effects, such as the effect of voicing on preceding vowels and the long short contrast.
Abstract: A familiar linguistic theory tends to provide articulatory explanation or add extra segmental features to capture durational contrast between segments. This model, for example, explains height effect and tensity effect on vowel duration on articulatory basis. Thus it is widely accepted that tense vowels are relatively longer than low vowels since the approximative configuration for tense vowels is said to require a longer period than that for lax vowels. Also, the fact that low vowels tend to be longer than high ones is attributed to the degree of jaw lowering needed in the configuration for low vowels. A question, however, arises in connection with the linguistic analysis of length is how do long and short features get converted into actual time intervals? Spectrographic tests of English and Arabic minimal pairs revealed that height effect on vowel duration was the same in both languages. However, English and Arabic differed considerably with respect to durational contrast between short (lax) and long (tense) vowels. These results indicate that since temporal effects, like vowel height, seem to be universal and constant across languages, it becomes more difficult to account for some other claimed physiological effects (such as the effect of voicing on preceding vowels and the long‐short contrast) in physiological terms. Hence the latter effects show considerable variation among languages. We propose, instead, that temporal structures are language—specific variables which must be taken into consideration in the analysis of a language [Research supported by Yarmouk University.]
TL;DR: In this article, an electrical analog of vocal tract aerodynamics was used to study the probable effects of place of articulation and syllable stress on closure voicing offset, allowing variation of subglottal pressure, glottal area, supralaryngeal cavity volume, wall mechanics, and oral constriction geometry.
Abstract: Voiced and voiceless stops in initial position are known to differ in Voice Onset Time; they may also differ in closure duration and the duration of closure voicing. Besides the voicing distinction, such factors as the position of the stop in a word or utterance, the stop's place of articulation, and the stress of adjacent syllables will also affect these measures. Data from the literature have been extended with new acoustic measurements for English, Swedish, and other languages. While there is some variation across languages, general patterns, which might be attributable to vocal tract physiology, can be identified. In an attempt to account for these patterns, an electrical analog of vocal tract aerodynamics can be used to study the probable effects of place of articulation and syllable stress on closure voicing offset. The model allows variation of subglottal pressure, glottal area, supralaryngeal cavity volume, wall mechanics, and oral constriction geometry. The extent to which these variables determi...
TL;DR: This article found that for children even at age six years, F0 is not a factor in judging the voicing of the prevocalic stops /g/ and /k/ in English.
TL;DR: Findings seem to suggest that some aspects of deaf speakers' atypical laryngeal behavior associated with inaccurately voiced consonants may be due to an aberrant linguistic system while other aspects may beDue to inadequate larygeal motor control.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to compare deaf speakers' (n = 4) laryngeal behavior during voiced and voiceless consonant productions to that of normal hearing subjects (n = 4). Laryngeal behavior d...
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: In this article, the role of different parameters in the fortis versus lenis distinction found in production (e.g. duration of the pre-consonantal vowel, the consonantal closure, voicing during the closure and intensity of the sound) was investigated.
Abstract: This investigation takes as its point of departure observations on the production of French fortis versus lenis plosive consonants. In a series of perception tests the role of different parameters in the fortis versus lenis distinction found in production (e.g. duration of the pre-consonantal vowel, the consonantal closure, voicing during the closure and intensity of the consonantal release noise) was investigated. Apart from durational and intensity parameters, vowel quality differences (depending on the fortis versus lenis character of the following consonant) are also shown to play a part in phoneme identification. Furthermore it is shown that in obstruent clusters like /tp, dp/ versus /tg, dg/ not only do phonetic parameters like those mentioned above influence perception, but that also the phonemic identity of /p/ versus /g/ as fortis versus lenis contributes to the hearers’ decision about the identity of the first consonant in the cluster. Phonetic as well as contextual factors are shown to interact in a complex manner. Implications of the results for speech perception theory are discussed.
01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: This chapter summarizes a number of problems and tasks in the neighborhood of the task of pitch determination that need to be addressed in order to develop a coherent model for pitch determination.
Abstract: This chapter summarizes a number of problems and tasks in the neighborhood of the task of pitch determination.
TL;DR: While the voicing distinction may not be acquired spontaneously, it is a skill within reach of profoundly deaf children when they are trained adequately, and although this remained higher for hearing children it probably contributed to higher intelligibility scores.
Abstract: The ability of profoundly deaf schoolchildren to learn the voicing distinction was studied over a period of 6 months. The children were given daily speech therapy and half of them received, in addition, visual feedback from a microprocessor-based speech training aid – the Fricative and Timing Aid. Their performance was analysed in terms of the acquisition of voiced v. voiceless stop consonants and of their position in a word. Results yielded by perceptual tests showed a substantial increase in the intelligibility of stop consonants at the end of the training programme. Retention scores, i.e. intelligibility scores obtained by re-testing the children after a 2-month period of non-practice, showed that practically no articulatory skills were forgotten during this interval. Measurements of vowel duration in word-final stop consonants indicated a considerable decrease in vowel length with training, and although this remained higher than for hearing children it probably contributed to higher intelligibility sc...
TL;DR: The results reject the hypothesis that voicing is perceived to start when periodic excitation is present in the first formant, and show that buzz excitation confined to the fundamental frequency for 30 ms before the onset of full voicing (formant excitation) has little effect on the voicing boundary.
Abstract: Previous experiments on the perception of initial stops differing in voice‐onset time have used sounds where the boundary between aspiration and voicing is clearly marked by a variety of acoustic events. In natural speech these events do not always occur at the same moment and there is disagreement among phoneticians as to which mark the onset of voicing. The three experiments described here examine how the phoneme boundary between syllable‐initial, prestress /b/ and /p/ is influenced by the way in which voicing starts. In the first experiment the first 30 ms of buzz excitation is played at four different levels relative to the steady state of the vowel and with two different frequency distributions: In the F1‐only conditions buzz is confined to the first formant, whereas in the F123 conditions all three formants are excited by buzz. The results reject the hypothesis that voicing is perceived to start when periodic excitation is present in the first formant. The results of the third experiment show also t...
TL;DR: This article investigated the effect of voicing of stops on the fundamental frequency (F0) of the following vowels in Japanese, particularly how this effect interacts with phonemic accentual patterns, and found that a dip in F0 around 40 ms after the release of voiced stops, while F0 generally stayed higher after voiceless stops.
Abstract: The study investigates the effect of voicing of stops on the fundamental frequency (F0) of the following vowels in Japanese, particularly, how this effect interacts with phonemic accentual patterns. A speaker of Standard Japanese recorded/Can/syllables where C was/p,t,k,b,d,g,m,n/. F0 was measured for each glottal period after the consonantal release, or after the vowel onset in the case of aspirated stops. The results showed a dip in F0 around 40 ms after the release of voiced stops, while F0 generally stayed higher after voiceless stops. To examine the interaction between consonantally‐induced F0 variations and accentual patterns, the F0 contours in C1VC2V words with /t,d,n/ as C1 with either high‐low or low‐high accent were analyzed. In the high‐low accent, the low initial F0 after a voiced stop caused F0 to peak later in time than after a voiceless stop. This pattern was not observed in the low‐high accent, where the initial dip was followed by a fast increase in F0 after a voiced stop, while the pitc...
TL;DR: The results showed that the right ear advantage did not depend on phonetic similarity, whereas it depended on the order of report, being stronger when the perceptual channel was considered.
TL;DR: Confusions between pairs of intervocalic consonants excised from connected speech were investigated under several conditions of speech degradation: digital voice processing, noise, and bandpass limiting.
Abstract: Confusions between pairs of intervocalic consonants excised from connected speech were investigated under several conditions of speech degradation: digital voice processing, noise, and bandpass limiting. The distribution of the types of errors that were made, e.g., voicing, nasality, place of articulation, differed from those made on citation form syllable‐initial consonants. Intervocalic consonants that were taken from word‐initial position scored higher with no degradations than those taken from word‐medial or word‐final position, but the medial and final segments suffered less under mild degradations than did the initial ones.
TL;DR: This article found that most languages employ three categories of Voice Onset Time (VOT) to distinguish homorganic stop consonants: voicing lead/short lag/long lag, which are temporally discrete and may coincide with psychoacoustically predetermined regions of auditory sensitivity.
Abstract: Available data indicate that most languages employ three categories of Voice Onset Time (VOT) to distinguish homorganic stop consonants. The three categories, voicing lead/short lag/long lag, are temporally discrete and, in the opinion of some researchers, may coincide with psychoacoustically predetermined regions of auditory sensitivity. Moreover, speakers of languages which display a two‐way opposition (i.e., /ptk/ vs /bdg/) seem to employ adjacent VOT categories (e.g., short lag and long lag) and not the extreme categories (i.e., voicing lead and long lag) to differentiate stops having the same place of articulation. Data gathered from native (but bilingual) speakers of Hebrew and Puerto Rican Spanish reveal that they commonly use either the extreme categories of VOT or voicing lead and a category intermediate to short and long lag. These data, together with those previously reported for Canadian French, Danish, and Korean, raise questions about the specific relationship between auditory sensitivity and the determination of VOT categories in natural languages. [Research supported by NINCDS.]