Segmental and Syllabic Articulations: A Descriptive Approach.

Purpose: This article reports on jaw articulation, in connection with the segmental articulations of tongue tip and lips. The jaw is considered a syllable articulator as it opens and closes for each syllable, and the amount of jaw opening is related to syllable strength, given the same phonemic vowel. Here, we investigate the syllabic and the segmental articulations relationships to the acoustic segments.

Acoustic correlates of English rhythmic patterns for American versus Japanese speakers.

This study investigates acoustic correlates of English rhythmic patterns for 20 American English speakers (AS) and 42 Japanese learners of English (JS). The results indicate that for AS in an English sentence where monosyllabic content and function words alternate, the vowels in content words are over twice as long as those in function words, resulting in alternating long-short vowels. In contrast, the JS show no stress-related duration control and realize a similar rhythmic pattern mostly through recursive high-low fundamental frequency (F0).

Metrical structure and production of English rhythm.

This paper examines kinematic patterns of jaw opening and associated F1 values of 4 American English speakers in productions of the sentence 'I saw five bright highlights in the sky'. Results show strong-weak jaw opening alternations during the production of the utterance, and significant correlation of F1 with jaw opening for 3 of the 4 speakers. The observed jaw opening patterns correspond to metrically generated syllable stress levels for productions of the sentence by these 4 speakers.

Processing of infant-directed speech by adults.

Adults typically address infants in a special speech mode called infant-directed speech (IDS). IDS is characterized by a special prosody (i.e.

Sounds of melody--pitch patterns of speech in autism.

The objective of this study was to find a pattern in vocalizations of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We compared the intonational features of 15 children with ASD who showed speech, aged 4-10 years, with 10 age-matched typically developing controls. Exaggerated pitch, pitch range, pitch excursion and pitch contours were observed in speech of children with autism, but absent in age-matched controls.

Multimodal indices to Japanese and French prosodically expressed social affects.

Whereas several studies have explored the expression of emotions, little is known on how the visual and audio channels are combined during production of what we call the more controlled social affects, for example, "attitudinal" expressions. This article presents a perception study of the audovisual expression of 12 Japanese and 6 French attitudes in order to understand the contribution of audio and visual modalities for affective communication. The relative importance of each modality in the perceptual decoding of the expressions of four speakers is analyzed as a first step towards a deeper comprehension of their influence on the expression of social affects.

A moderate-protein diet produces sustained weight loss and long-term changes in body composition and blood lipids in obese adults.

Diets with increased protein and reduced carbohydrates (PRO) are effective for weight loss, but the long-term effect on maintenance is unknown. This study compared changes in body weight and composition and blood lipids after short-term weight loss (4 mo) followed by weight maintenance (8 mo) using moderate PRO or conventional high-carbohydrate (CHO) diets. Participants (age = 45.

Effects of accentual fall on phrase-final vowel duration in Japanese.

This study explores the effect of accentual fall on phrase-final vowel duration in read declarative sentences of Standard Japanese. The results show that an intonational phrase-final vowel is significantly shorter when the final phrase has an accentual pitch fall than when it does not. Previous studies have reported a vowel-shortening effect for the final position of Japanese declarative sentences; the new finding reported in this paper is that this shortening effect is enhanced by the pitch fall of an accent in the sentence-final phrase.

Exploratory study of some acoustic and articulatory characteristics of sad speech.

This study examines acoustic and articulatory EMA data of two female speakers (American and Japanese) spontaneously producing emotional speech while engaged in an informal telephone-type conversation. A set of control data in which the speakers imitated or read the original emotional utterance was also recorded; for the American speaker, the intonation pattern was also imitated. The results suggest (1) acoustic and articulatory characteristics of spontaneous sad speech differ from that of read speech or imitated intonation speech, (2) spontaneous sad speech and imitated sad speech seem to have similar acoustic characteristics (high F(0), changed F(1) as well as voice quality), but articulation is different in terms of lip, jaw and tongue positions, and (3) speech that is rated highly by listeners as sad is associated with high F(0) and changed voice quality.

Dietary protein and exercise have additive effects on body composition during weight loss in adult women.

This study examined the interaction of 2 diets (high protein, reduced carbohydrates vs. low protein, high carbohydrates) with exercise on body composition and blood lipids in women (n = 48, approximately 46 y old, BMI = 33 kg/m(2)) during weight loss. The study was a 4-mo weight loss trial using a 2 x 2 block design (Diet x Exercise).

A reduced ratio of dietary carbohydrate to protein improves body composition and blood lipid profiles during weight loss in adult women.

Claims about the merits or risks of carbohydrate (CHO) vs. protein for weight loss diets are extensive, yet the ideal ratio of dietary carbohydrate to protein for adult health and weight management remains unknown. This study examined the efficacy of two weight loss diets with modified CHO/protein ratios to change body composition and blood lipids in adult women.

Increased dietary protein modifies glucose and insulin homeostasis in adult women during weight loss.

Amino acids interact with glucose metabolism both as carbon substrates and by recycling glucose carbon via alanine and glutamine; however, the effect of protein intake on glucose homeostasis during weight loss remains unknown. This study tests the hypothesis that a moderate increase in dietary protein with a corresponding reduction of carbohydrates (CHO) stabilizes fasting and postprandial blood glucose and insulin during weight loss. Adult women (n = 24; >15% above ideal body weight) were assigned to either a Protein Group [protein: 1.

Articulation of extreme formant patterns for emphasized vowels.

This study examined formant, jaw and tongue dorsum measurements from X-ray microbeam recordings of American English speakers producing emphasized vs. unemphasized words containing high-front, mid-front and low vowels. For emphasized vowels, the jaw position, regardless of vowel height, was lower, while the tongue dorsum had a more extreme articulation in the direction of the phonological specification of the vowel.