Vertical larynx actions and intergestural timing stability in Hausa ejectives and implosives.

The current project undertakes a kinematic examination of vertical larynx actions and intergestural timing stability within multi-gesture complex segments such as ejectives and implosives that may possess specific temporal goals critical to their articulatory realization. Using real-time MRI (rtMRI) speech production data from Hausa non-pulmonic and pulmonic consonants, this study illuminates speech timing between oral constriction and vertical larynx actions within segments and the role this intergestural timing plays in realizing phonological contrasts and processes in varying prosodic contexts. Results suggest that vertical larynx actions have greater magnitude in the production of ejectives compared to their pulmonic counterparts, but implosives and pulmonic consonants are differentiated not by vertical larynx magnitude but by the intergestural timing patterns between their oral and vertical larynx gestures.

The role of speech planning in the articulation of pauses.

Extensive research has found that the duration of a pause is influenced by the length of an upcoming utterance, suggesting that speakers plan the upcoming utterance during this time. Research has more recently begun to examine articulation during pauses. A specific configuration of the vocal tract during acoustic pauses, termed pause posture (PP), has been identified in Greek and American English.

Improved 3D real-time MRI of speech production.

Purpose: To provide 3D real-time MRI of speech production with improved spatio-temporal sharpness using randomized, variable-density, stack-of-spiral sampling combined with a 3D spatio-temporally constrained reconstruction.

Methods: We evaluated five candidate (k, t) sampling strategies using a previously proposed gradient-echo stack-of-spiral sequence and a 3D constrained reconstruction with spatial and temporal penalties. Regularization parameters were chosen by expert readers based on qualitative assessment.

How an aglossic speaker produces an alveolar-like percept without a functional tongue tip.

It has been previously observed [McMicken, Salles, Berg, Vento-Wilson, Rogers, Toutios, and Narayanan. (2017). J.

Improved real-time tagged MRI using REALTAG.

Objectives: To evaluate a novel method for real-time tagged MRI with increased tag persistence using phase sensitive tagging (REALTAG), demonstrated for speech imaging.

Methods: Tagging is applied as a brief interruption to a continuous real-time spiral acquisition. REALTAG is implemented using a total tagging flip angle of 180° and a novel frame-by-frame phase sensitive reconstruction to remove smooth background phase while preserving the sign of the tag lines.

Intermittently tagged real-time MRI reveals internal tongue motion during speech production.

Purpose: To demonstrate a tagging method compatible with RT-MRI for the study of speech production.

Methods: Tagging is applied as a brief interruption to a continuous real-time spiral acquisition. Tagging can be initiated manually by the operator, cued to the speech stimulus, or be automatically applied with a fixed frequency.

Simultaneous electromagnetic articulography and electroglottography data acquisition of natural speech.

This paper reports on the concurrent use of electroglottography (EGG) and electromagnetic articulography (EMA) in the acquisition of EMA trajectory data for running speech. Static and dynamic intersensor distances, standard deviations, and coefficients of variation associated with inter-sample distances were compared in two conditions: with and without EGG present. Results indicate that measurement discrepancies between the two conditions are within the EMA system's measurement uncertainty.

Evaluation of prosodic juncture strength using functional data analysis.

Prosodic structure has large effects on the temporal realization of speech via the shaping of articulatory events. It is important for speech scientists to be able to systematically quantify these prosodic effects on articulation in a way that is capable both of differentiating between the degree of prosodic lengthening associated with varying linguistic contexts and that is generalizable across speakers. The current paper presents a novel method to automatically quantify boundary strength from articulatory speech data based on functional data analysis (FDA).

An investigation of articulatory setting using real-time magnetic resonance imaging.

This paper presents an automatic procedure to analyze articulatory setting in speech production using real-time magnetic resonance imaging of the moving human vocal tract. The procedure extracts frames corresponding to inter-speech pauses, speech-ready intervals and absolute rest intervals from magnetic resonance imaging sequences of read and spontaneous speech elicited from five healthy speakers of American English and uses automatically extracted image features to quantify vocal tract posture during these intervals. Statistical analyses show significant differences between vocal tract postures adopted during inter-speech pauses and those at absolute rest before speech; the latter also exhibits a greater variability in the adopted postures.

Prosodic boundary strength: An articulatory and perceptual study.

This study examines the production and perception of Intonational Phrase (IP) boundaries. In particular, it investigates (1) whether the articulatory events that occur at IP boundaries can exhibit temporal distinctions that would indicate a difference in degree of disjuncture, and (2) to what extent listeners are sensitive to the effects of such differences among IP boundaries. Two experiments investigate these questions.

Paralinguistic mechanisms of production in human "beatboxing": a real-time magnetic resonance imaging study.

Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) was used to examine mechanisms of sound production by an American male beatbox artist. rtMRI was found to be a useful modality with which to study this form of sound production, providing a global dynamic view of the midsagittal vocal tract at frame rates sufficient to observe the movement and coordination of critical articulators. The subject's repertoire included percussion elements generated using a wide range of articulatory and airstream mechanisms.

Timing effects of syllable structure and stress on nasals: a real-time MRI examination.

The coordination of velum and oral gestures for English [n] is studied using real-time MRI movies to reconstruct vocal tract aperture functions. This technique allows for the examination of parts of the vocal tract otherwise inaccessible to dynamic imaging or movement tracking. The present experiment considers syllable onset, coda, and juncture geminate nasals and also addresses the effects of a variety of word stress patterns on segment internal coordination.

An articulatory view of Kinyarwanda coronal harmony.

Coronal harmony in Kinyarwanda causes alveolar fricatives to become postalveolar preceding a postalveolar fricative within a stem. Alveolar and postalveolar stops, affricates and palatals block coronal harmony, but the flap and non-coronal consonants are reported to be transparent. Kinematic data on consonant production in Kinyarwanda were collected using electromagnetic articulography.

Analysis of pausing behavior in spontaneous speech using real-time magnetic resonance imaging of articulation.

It is hypothesized that pauses at major syntactic boundaries (i.e., grammatical pauses), but not ungrammatical (e.

Locality interactions with prominence in determining the scope of phrasal lengthening.

Temporal lengthening of gestures and segments located in a boundary-adjacent syllable has been found in both pre- and postboundary contexts. However, the temporal extent or scope of this lengthening, particularly in the articulatory domain, is not well described. We address the question of scope of prosodic lengthening by considering specifically whether prominence interacts with boundary-related articulatory lengthening in such a way that prominent elements not immediately at a phrase edge are lengthened relative to the same prominent elements phrase-medially (i.

Phrase boundary effects on the temporal kinematics of sequential tongue tip consonants.

This study evaluates the effects of phrase boundaries on the intra- and intergestural kinematic characteristics of blended gestures, i.e., overlapping gestures produced with a single articulator.

IDENTIFYING AND EVALUATING APRAXIC SPEECH DEFICITS USING MAGNETOMETRY.

An understanding of the relationship of speech and language symptoms to lesions in the frontal region of the dominant hemisphere depends on a fuller description of the speech phenomena than can be provided by transcriptional or acoustic investigation alone. This paper provides examples of how articulatory movement tracking can aid in describing apraxic speech deficits.

How far, how long: on the temporal scope of prosodic boundary effects.

Acoustic lengthening at prosodic boundaries is well explored, and the articulatory bases for this lengthening are becoming better understood. However, the temporal scope of prosodic boundary effects has not been examined in the articulatory domain. The few acoustic studies examining the distribution of lengthening indicate that boundary effects extend from one to three syllables before the boundary, and that effects diminish as distance from the boundary increases.