Multi-modal cross-linguistic perception of Mandarin tones in clear speech.

Clearly enunciated speech (relative to conversational, plain speech) involves articulatory and acoustic modifications that enhance auditory-visual (AV) segmental intelligibility. However, little research has explored clear-speech effects on the perception of suprasegmental properties such as lexical tone, particularly involving visual (facial) perception. Since tone production does not primarily rely on vocal tract configurations, tones may be less visually distinctive.

Plain-to-clear speech video conversion for enhanced intelligibility.

Clearly articulated speech, relative to plain-style speech, has been shown to improve intelligibility. We examine if visible speech cues in video only can be systematically modified to enhance clear-speech visual features and improve intelligibility. We extract clear-speech visual features of English words varying in vowels produced by multiple male and female talkers.

Production and Perception Evidence of a Merger: [l] and [n] in Fuzhou Min.

The current study investigated the merger-in-progress between word-initial nasal and lateral consonants in Fuzhou Min, examining the linguistic and social factors that modulate the merger. First, the acoustic cues to the l-n distinction were examined in Fuzhou Min. Acoustic analyses suggested a collapse of phonemic contrast between prescriptive L and N (phonemes in the unmerged system), with none of the six acoustic cues showing any difference across L and N.

The contrast between clear and plain speaking style for Mandarin tones.

We examine the acoustic characteristics of clear and plain conversational productions of Mandarin tones. Twenty-one native Mandarin speakers were asked to produce a selection of Mandarin words in both plain and clear speaking styles. Several tokens were gathered for each of the four tones giving a total of 2045 productions.

The influence of inter-dialect contact on the Korean three-way laryngeal distinction: An acoustic comparison among Seoul Korean speakers and Gyeongsang speakers with limited and extended residence in Seoul.

This exploratory study investigates the acoustic correlates of the Korean three-way laryngeal stop distinction in Gyeongsang long-term (LT) transplants who were born in the Gyeongsang region but moved to Seoul to pursue higher education. Acoustic data were collected from eight LT transplants, five short-term (ST) transplants, and 11 Seoul speakers to examine whether exposure to Seoul Korean (SK) affects Gyeongsang speakers' cue-weighting in distinguishing stops in production. LT transplants produced stimuli in both Gyeongsang and Seoul dialects.

ADFAC: Automatic detection of facial articulatory features.

Using computer-vision and image processing techniques, we aim to identify specific visual cues as induced by facial movements made during monosyllabic speech production. The method is named ADFAC: Automatic Detection of Facial Articulatory Cues. Four facial points of interest were detected automatically to represent head, eyebrow and lip movements: nose tip (proxy for head movement), medial point of left eyebrow, and midpoints of the upper and lower lips.

Characterizing the distinctive acoustic cues of Mandarin tones.

This study aims to characterize distinctive acoustic features of Mandarin tones based on a corpus of 1025 monosyllabic words produced by 21 native Mandarin speakers. For each tone, 22 acoustic cues were extracted. Besides standard F0, duration, and intensity measures, further cues were determined by fitting two mathematical functions to the pitch contours.

Multi-modal cross-linguistic perception of fricatives in clear speech.

Research shows that acoustic modifications in clearly enunciated fricative consonants (relative to the plain, conversational productions) facilitate auditory fricative perception, particularly for auditorily salient sibilant fricatives and for native perception. However, clear-speech effects on visual fricative perception have received less attention. A comparison of auditory and visual (facial) clear-fricative perception is particularly interesting since sibilant fricatives in English are more auditorily salient while non-sibilants are more visually salient.

Training Children to Perceive Non-native Lexical Tones: Tone Language Background, Bilingualism, and Auditory-Visual Information.

This study investigates the role of language background and bilingual status in the perception of foreign lexical tones. Eight groups of participants, consisting of children of 6 and 8 years from one of four language background (tone or non-tone) × bilingual status (monolingual or bilingual)-Thai monolingual, English monolingual, English-Thai bilingual, and English-Arabic bilingual were trained to perceive the four Mandarin lexical tones. Half the children in each of these eight groups were given auditory-only (AO) training and half auditory-visual (AV) training.

Source characteristics of voiceless dorsal fricatives.

Aerodynamic and acoustic data on voiceless dorsal fricatives [x/χ] in Arabic, Persian, and Spanish were recorded to measure the extent to which such productions involve trilling of the uvula, thus exhibiting a sound source which, contrary to assumptions for voiceless fricatives, is mixed rather than aperiodic. Oscillation in airflow indicative of uvular vibration was present more often than not in Arabic (63%) and Persian (75%), while Spanish dorsal fricatives were more commonly produced with unimodal flow indicative of an aperiodic source. When present, uvular vibration frequencies averaged 68 Hz in Arabic and 67 Hz in Persian.

Effects of Sound Change on the Weighting of Acoustic Cues to the Three-Way Laryngeal Stop Contrast in Korean: Diachronic and Dialectal Comparisons.

Both segmental and suprasegmental properties of the South Kyungsang dialect of Korean have changed under the influence of standard Seoul Korean. This study examines how such sound change affects acoustic cues to the three-way laryngeal contrast among Korean stops across Kyungsang generations through a comparison with Seoul Korean. Thirty-nine female Korean speakers differing in dialect (Kyungsang, Seoul) and age (older, younger) produced words varying in initial stops and lexical accent patterns, for which voice onset time and fundamental frequency (F0) at vowel onset were measured.

Tonal Neutralization of Taiwanese Checked and Smooth Syllables: An Acoustic Study.

Taiwanese tonal alternation is realized in a circular chain shift fashion for both smooth and checked syllables. Debate regarding the processes of less productive Taiwanese tonal alternation has centered on whether a surface tone is derived from an underlying tone, or whether a surface tone is selected without undergoing any derivation. The current study investigates this controversial issue by examining Taiwanese checked tone and smooth tone sandhi neutralization in production.

Cross-modal Association between Auditory and Visuospatial Information in Mandarin Tone Perception in Noise by Native and Non-native Perceivers.

Speech perception involves multiple input modalities. Research has indicated that perceivers establish cross-modal associations between auditory and visuospatial events to aid perception. Such intermodal relations can be particularly beneficial for speech development and learning, where infants and non-native perceivers need additional resources to acquire and process new sounds.

Just noticeable differences for pitch direction, height, and slope for Mandarin and English listeners.

Previous studies on tones suggest that Mandarin listeners are more sensitive to pitch direction and slope while English listeners primarily attend to pitch height. In this study, just noticeable differences were established for pitch discrimination using a three-interval, forced-choice procedure with a two-down, one-up staircase design. A high rising and a high falling Mandarin tone were manipulated in terms of pitch direction, height, and slope.

Fetal rhythm-based language discrimination: a biomagnetometry study.

Using fetal biomagnetometry, this study measured changes in fetal heart rate to assess discrimination of two rhythmically different languages (English and Japanese). Two-minute passages in English and Japanese were read by the same female bilingual speaker. Twenty-four mother-fetus pairs (mean gestational age=35.

Does Second Language Experience Modulate Perception of Tones in a Third Language?

It is unclear what roles native language (L1) and second language (L2) play in the perception of lexical tones in a third language (L3). In tone perception, listeners with different language backgrounds use different fundamental frequency (F0). While English listeners use F0 height, Mandarin listeners rely more on F0 direction.

Acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken English tense and lax vowels.

Clearly produced vowels exhibit longer duration and more extreme spectral properties than plain, conversational vowels. These features also characterize tense relative to lax vowels. This study explored the interaction of clear-speech and tensity effects by comparing clear and plain productions of three English tense-lax vowel pairs (/i-ɪ/, /ɑ-ʌ/, /u-ʊ/ in /kVd/ words).

What Comes After /f/? Prediction in Speech Derives From Data-Explanatory Processes.

Acoustic cues are short-lived and highly variable, which makes speech perception a difficult problem. However, most listeners solve this problem effortlessly. In the present experiment, we demonstrated that part of the solution lies in predicting upcoming speech sounds and that predictions are modulated by high-level expectations about the current sound.

Contingent categorization in speech perception.

The speech signal is notoriously variable, with the same phoneme realized differently depending on factors like talker and phonetic context. Variance in the speech signal has led to a proliferation of theories of how listeners recognize speech. A promising approach, supported by computational modeling studies, is contingent categorization, wherein incoming acoustic cues are computed relative to expectations.

Speaker sex influences processing of grammatical gender.

Spoken words carry linguistic and indexical information to listeners. Abstractionist models of spoken word recognition suggest that indexical information is stripped away in a process called normalization to allow processing of the linguistic message to proceed. In contrast, exemplar models of the lexicon suggest that indexical information is retained in memory, and influences the process of spoken word recognition.

Perceptual and production training of intervocalic /d, r, r/ in American English learners of Spanish.

This study investigates the effectiveness of three high variability training paradigms in training 42 speakers of American English to correctly perceive and produce Spanish intervocalic /d, r, r/. Since Spanish spirantization and English flapping both affect /d/ intervocalically, the acquisition of the /d/-/r/ contrast proves difficult for English learners of Spanish. The acquisition of the trill /r/ is also problematic because it is a new phoneme for English learners and is articulatorily difficult to produce.

Speakers of tonal and non-tonal Korean dialects use different cue weightings in the perception of the three-way laryngeal stop contrast.

The current study investigated the perception of the three-way distinction among Korean voiceless stops in non-tonal Seoul and tonal Kyungsang Korean. The question addressed is whether listeners from these two dialects differ in the way they perceive the three stops. Forty-two Korean listeners (21 each from Seoul and South Kyungsang) were tested in a perception experiment with stimuli in which VOT and F0 were systematically manipulated.

Modified locus equations categorize stop place in a perceptually realistic time frame.

Slope and y-intercepts of locus equations have previously been shown to successfully classify place of articulation for English voiced stop consonants when derived from measurements at vowel onset and vowel midpoint. However, listeners are capable of identifying English voiced stops when less than 30 ms of vowel is presented. The present results show that modified locus equation measurements made within the first several pitch periods of a vowel following an English voiced stop were also successful at classifying place of articulation, consistent with the amount of vocalic information necessary for perceptual identification of English voiced stops /b d g/.

What information is necessary for speech categorization? Harnessing variability in the speech signal by integrating cues computed relative to expectations.

Most theories of categorization emphasize how continuous perceptual information is mapped to categories. However, equally important are the informational assumptions of a model, the type of information subserving this mapping. This is crucial in speech perception where the signal is variable and context dependent.

Intelligibility of foreign-accented speech for older adults with and without hearing loss.

Background: Numerous studies have demonstrated that the negative effect of noise and other distortions on speech understanding is greater for older adults than for younger adults. Anecdotal evidence suggests that older adults may also be disproportionately negatively affected by foreign accent. While two previous studies found no interaction between foreign accent and listener age, these studies reported no audiometric data and assessed speech understanding in quiet only.