Categorization in the Perception of Breathy Voice Quality and Its Relation to Voice Production in Healthy Speakers.

Purpose Previous studies of speech articulation have shown that individuals who can perceive smaller differences between similar-sounding phonemes showed larger contrasts in their productions of those phonemes. Here, a similar relationship was examined between the perception and production of breathy voice quality. Method Twenty females with healthy voices were recruited to participate in both a voice production and a perception experiment. Each participant produced repetitions of a sustained vowel, and acoustic correlates of breathiness were calculated. Identification and discrimination tasks were performed with a series of synthetic stimuli along a breathiness continuum. Categorical boundary location and boundary width were obtained from the identification task as a measurement of perception of breathiness. Spearman's correlation analysis was performed to estimate associations between values of boundary location and width and the acoustic correlates of breathiness from the participants' voices. Results Significant correlations between boundary width (r = -.53 to -.6) and some acoustic correlates were found, but no significant relationships were observed between boundary location and the acoustic correlates. Conclusions Speakers with small boundary widths, which suggest higher perceptual precision in differentiating breathiness, had typical voices that were less breathy, as estimated with acoustic measures, compared to speakers with large boundary widths. Our findings may support a link between perception and production of breathy voice quality. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.9808478.

The influence of auditory acuity on acoustic variability and the use of motor equivalence during adaptation to a perturbation.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to relate speakers' auditory acuity for the sibilant contrast, their use of motor equivalent trading relationships in producing the sibilant /∫/, and their produced acoustic distance between the sibilants /s/ and /∫/. Specifically, the study tested the hypotheses that during adaptation to a perturbation of vocal-tract shape, high-acuity speakers use motor equivalence strategies to a greater extent than do low-acuity speakers in order to reach their smaller phonemic goal regions, and that high-acuity speakers produce greater acoustic distance between 2 sibilant phonemes than do low-acuity speakers. METHOD: Articulographic data from 7 German speakers adapting to a perturbation were analyzed for the use of motor equivalence. The speakers' produced acoustic distance between /s/ and /∫/ was calculated. Auditory acuity was assessed for the same speakers. RESULTS: High-acuity speakers used motor equivalence to a greater extent when adapting to a perturbation than did low-acuity speakers. Additionally, high-acuity speakers produced greater acoustic contrasts than did low-acuity-speakers. It was observed that speech rate had an influence on the use of motor equivalence: Slow speakers used motor equivalence to a lesser degree than did fast speakers. CONCLUSION: These results provide support for the mutual interdependence of speech perception and production.

An investigation of the relation between sibilant production and somatosensory and auditory acuity.

The relation between auditory acuity, somatosensory acuity and the magnitude of produced sibilant contrast was investigated with data from 18 participants. To measure auditory acuity, stimuli from a synthetic sibilant continuum ([s]-[ʃ]) were used in a four-interval, two-alternative forced choice adaptive-staircase discrimination task. To measure somatosensory acuity, small plastic domes with grooves of different spacing were pressed against each participant's tongue tip and the participant was asked to identify one of four possible orientations of the grooves. Sibilant contrast magnitudes were estimated from productions of the words 'said,' 'shed,' 'sid,' and 'shid'. Multiple linear regression revealed a significant relation indicating that a combination of somatosensory and auditory acuity measures predicts produced acoustic contrast. When the participants were divided into high- and low-acuity groups based on their median somatosensory and auditory acuity measures, separate ANOVA analyses with sibilant contrast as the dependent variable yielded a significant main effect for each acuity group. These results provide evidence that sibilant productions have auditory as well as somatosensory goals and are consistent with prior results and the theoretical framework underlying the DIVA model of speech production.

Perception and production of /r/ allophones improve with hearing from a cochlear implant.

Tongue shape can vary greatly for allophones of /r/ produced in different phonetic contexts but the primary acoustic cue used by listeners, lowered F3, remains stable. For the current study, it was hypothesized that auditory feedback maintains the speech motor control mechanisms that are constraining acoustic variability of F3 in /r/; thus the listener's percept remains /r/ despite the range of articulatory configurations employed by the speaker. Given the potential importance of auditory feedback, postlingually deafened speakers should show larger acoustic variation in /r/ allophones than hearing controls, and auditory feedback from a cochlear implant could reduce that variation over time. To test these hypotheses, measures were made of phoneme perception and of production of tokens containing /r/, stop consonants, and /r/+stop clusters in hearing controls and in eight postlingually deafened adults pre- and postimplant. Postimplant, seven of the eight implant speakers did not differ from the control mean. It was also found that implant users' production of stop and stop+/r/ blend improved with time but the measured acoustic contrast between these was still better in the control speakers than for the implant group even after the implant users had experienced a year of improved auditory feedback.

Effects of short- and long-term changes in auditory feedback on vowel and sibilant contrasts.

PURPOSE: To assess the effects of short- and long-term changes in auditory feedback on vowel and sibilant contrasts and to evaluate hypotheses arising from a model of speech motor planning. METHOD: The perception and production of vowel and sibilant contrasts were measured in 8 postlingually deafened adults prior to activation of their cochlear implant speech processors, 1 month postactivation, and 1 year postactivation. Measures were taken postactivation both with and without auditory feedback. Contrast measures were also made for a group of speakers with reportedly normal hearing speaking with masked and unmasked auditory feedback. RESULTS: Vowel and sibilant contrasts, measured in the absence of auditory feedback after 1 month of prosthesis use, were diminished compared with their values measured before prosthesis. Contrasts measured in the absence of auditory feedback after 1 year's experience with the prosthesis were increased compared with their values after 1 month's experience. In both time samples, contrasts were enhanced when auditory feedback was restored. CONCLUSION: The provision of prosthetic hearing to postlingually deafened adults impaired their phonemic contrasts at first, as their auditory feedback had novel characteristics. Once auditory feedback became recalibrated with prosthesis use, it could, in turn, revise feedforward commands that control the contrasts in its absence.

Interactions of speaking condition and auditory feedback on vowel production in postlingually deaf adults with cochlear implants.

This study investigates the effects of speaking condition and auditory feedback on vowel production by postlingually deafened adults. Thirteen cochlear implant users produced repetitions of nine American English vowels prior to implantation, and at one month and one year after implantation. There were three speaking conditions (clear, normal, and fast), and two feedback conditions after implantation (implant processor turned on and off). Ten normal-hearing controls were also recorded once. Vowel contrasts in the formant space (expressed in mels) were larger in the clear than in the fast condition, both for controls and for implant users at all three time samples. Implant users also produced differences in duration between clear and fast conditions that were in the range of those obtained from the controls. In agreement with prior work, the implant users had contrast values lower than did the controls. The implant users' contrasts were larger with hearing on than off and improved from one month to one year postimplant. Because the controls and implant users responded similarly to a change in speaking condition, it is inferred that auditory feedback, although demonstrably important for maintaining normative values of vowel contrasts, is not needed to maintain the distinctiveness of those contrasts in different speaking conditions.

Time course of speech changes in response to unanticipated short-term changes in hearing state.

The timing of changes in parameters of speech production was investigated in six cochlear implant users by switching their implant microphones off and on a number of times in a single experimental session. The subjects repeated four short, two-word utterances, /dV1n#SV2d/ (S = /s/ or /S/), in quasi-random order. The changes between hearing and nonhearing states were introduced by a voice-activated switch at V1 onset. "Postural" measures were made of vowel sound pressure level (SPL), duration, F0; contrast measures were made of vowel separation (distance between pair members in the formant plane) and sibilant separation (difference in spectral means). Changes in parameter values were averaged over multiple utterances, lined up with respect to the switch. No matter whether prosthetic hearing was blocked or restored, contrast measures for vowels and sibilants did not change systematically. Some changes in duration, SPL and F0 were observed during the vowel within which hearing state was changed, V1, as well as during V2 and subsequent utterance repetitions. Thus, sound segment contrasts appear to be controlled differently from the postural parameters of speaking rate and average SPL and F0. These findings are interpreted in terms of the function of hypothesized feedback and feedforward mechanisms for speech motor control.

On the structure of phoneme categories in listeners with cochlear implants.

PURPOSE: To describe cochlear implant users' phoneme labeling, discrimination, and prototypes for a vowel and a sibilant contrast, and to assess the effects of 1 year's experience with prosthetic hearing. METHOD: Based on naturally produced clear examples of "boot," "beet," "said," and "shed" by 1 male and 1 female speaker, continua with 13 stimuli were synthesized for each contrast. Seven hearing controls labeled those stimuli and assigned them goodness ratings, as did 7 implant users at 1-month postimplant. One year later, these measures were repeated, and within category discrimination, d', was assessed. RESULTS: Compared with controls, implant users' vowel and sibilant labeling slopes were substantially shallower but improved over 1 year of prosthesis use. Their sensitivity to phonetic differences within phoneme categories was about half that of controls. The slopes of their goodness rating functions were shallower and did not improve. Their prototypes for the sibilant contrast (but not the vowels) were closer to one another and did not improve by moving apart. CONCLUSIONS: Implant users' phoneme labeling and within-category perceptual structure were anomalous at 1-month postimplant. After 1 year of prosthesis use, phoneme labeling categories had sharpened but within category discrimination was well below that of hearing controls.

Effects of masking noise on vowel and sibilant contrasts in normal-hearing speakers and postlingually deafened cochlear implant users.

The role of auditory feedback in speech production was investigated by examining speakers' phonemic contrasts produced under increases in the noise to signal ratio (N/S). Seven cochlear implant users and seven normal-hearing controls pronounced utterances containing the vowels /i/, /u/, /e/ and /ae/ and the sibilants /s/ and /I/ while hearing their speech mixed with noise at seven equally spaced levels between their thresholds of detection and discomfort. Speakers' average vowel duration and SPL generally rose with increasing N/S. Average vowel contrast was initially flat or rising; at higher N/S levels, it fell. A contrast increase is interpreted as reflecting speakers' attempts to maintain clarity under degraded acoustic transmission conditions. As N/S increased, speakers could detect the extent of their phonemic contrasts less effectively, and the competing influence of economy of effort led to contrast decrements. The sibilant contrast was more vulnerable to noise; it decreased over the entire range of increasing N/S for controls and was variable for implant users. The results are interpreted as reflecting the combined influences of a clarity constraint, economy of effort and the effect of masking on achieving auditory phonemic goals-with implant users less able to increase contrasts in noise than controls.

Effects of bite blocks and hearing status on vowel production.

This study explores the effects of hearing status and bite blocks on vowel production. Normal-hearing controls and postlingually deaf adults read elicitation lists of /hVd/ syllables with and without bite blocks and auditory feedback. Deaf participants' auditory feedback was provided by a cochlear prosthesis and interrupted by switching off their implant microphones. Recording sessions were held before prosthesis was provided and one month and one year after. Long-term absence of auditory feedback was associated with heightened dispersion of vowel tokens, which was inflated further by inserting bite blocks. The restoration of some hearing with prosthesis reduced dispersion. Deaf speakers' vowel spaces were reduced in size compared to controls. Insertion of bite blocks reduced them further because of the speakers' incomplete compensation. A year of prosthesis use increased vowel contrast with feedback during elicitation. These findings support the inference that models of speech production must assign a role to auditory feedback in error-based correction of feedforward commands for subsequent articulatory gestures.

The distinctness of speakers' productions of vowel contrasts is related to their discrimination of the contrasts.

This study addresses the hypothesis that the more accurately a speaker discriminates a vowel contrast, the more distinctly the speaker produces that contrast. Measures of speech production and perception were collected from 19 young adult speakers of American English. In the production experiment, speakers repeated the words cod, cud, who'd, and hood in a carrier phrase at normal, clear, and fast rates. Articulatory movements and the associated acoustic signal were recorded, yielding measures of contrast distance between /a/ and /[see text for symbol]/ and between /u/ and /[see text for symbol]/. In the discrimination experiment, sets of seven natural-sounding stimuli ranging from cod to cud and who'd to hood were synthesized, based on productions by one male and one female speaker. The continua were then presented to each of the 19 speakers in labeling and discrimination tasks. Consistent with the hypothesis, speakers with discrimination scores above the median produced greater acoustic contrasts than speakers with discrimination scores at or below the median. Such a relation between speech production and perception is compatible with a model of speech production in which articulatory movements for vowels are planned primarily in auditory space.

The distinctness of speakers' /s/-/S/ contrast is related to their auditory discrimination and use of an articulatory saturation effect.

This study examines individual differences in producing the sibilant contrast in American English and the relation of those differences to 2 speaker characteristics: (a) use of a quantal biomechanical effect (called a "saturation effect") in producing the sibilants and (b) performance on a test of sibilant discrimination. Twenty participants produced the sibilants /s/ and /S/ in normal-, clear-, and fast-speaking conditions. The degree to which the participants used a saturation effect in producing /s/ and /S/ was assessed with a custom-made sensor that measured contact of the underside of the tongue tip with the lower alveolar ridge; such contact normally occurs during the production of /s/ but not /S/. The acuteness of the participants' discrimination of the sibilant contrast was measured using the ABX paradigm and synthesized sibilants. Differences among speakers in the degree of acoustic contrast between /s/ and /S/ that they produced proved related to differences among them in their use of contact contrastively and in their discriminative performance. The most distinct sibilant productions were obtained from participants who used contact in producing /s/ but not /S/ and who had high discrimination scores. The participants who did not use contact differentially when producing the 2 sibilants and who also discriminated the synthetic sibilants less well produced the least distinct sibilant contrasts. Intermediate degrees of sibilant contrast were found with participants who used contact differentially or discriminated well. These findings are compatible with a model of speech motor planning in which goals for phonemic speech movements are in somatosensory and auditory spaces.

Boston University Doctor of Science Degree Program: clinical doctorate in audiology.

This article describes the development of the Boston University Clinical Doctoral Program in Audiology dating from its inception in 1985 to the present. The issues surrounding the establishment of the clinical doctorate, entering the program, and the curriculum are discussed. The unique features of this program and associated resources available within the clinical and scientific community of the greater Boston area are highlighted.

Economy of effort in different speaking conditions. I. A preliminary study of intersubject differences and modeling issues.

This study explores the hypothesis that clear speech is produced with greater "articulatory effort" than normal speech. Kinematic and acoustic data were gathered from seven subjects as they pronounced multiple repetitions of utterances in different speaking conditions, including normal, fast, clear, and slow. Data were analyzed within a framework based on a dynamical model of single-axis frictionless movements, in which peak movement speed is used as a relative measure of articulatory effort (Nelson, 1983). There were differences in peak movement speed, distance and duration among the conditions and among the speakers. Three speakers produced the "clear" condition utterances with movements that had larger distances and durations than those for "normal" utterances. Analyses of the data within a peak speed, distance, duration "performance space" indicated increased effort (reflected in greater peak speed) in the clear condition for the three speakers, in support of the hypothesis. The remaining four speakers used other combinations of parameters to produce the clear condition. The validity of the simple dynamical model for analyzing these complex movements was considered by examining several additional parameters. Some movement characteristics differed from those required for the model-based analysis, presumably because the articulators are complicated structurally and interact with one another mechanically. More refined tests of control strategies for different speaking styles will depend on future analyses of more complicated movements with more realistic models.

Effects of acoustic degradation on syntactic processing: implications for the nature of the resource system used in language processing.

This study investigated the effect of noise masking on on-line syntactic processing. Ninety college students were tested on measures of working memory and on-line sentence comprehension. Subjects were divided equally into three listening conditions: no noise masking, -3 dB signal-to-noise ratio (S:N), -4.5 dB S:N. The auditory moving windows (AMW) paradigm was used to measure on-line sentence processing. In the AMW paradigm, subjects pressed a button for the successive presentation of each phrase in two types of sentences (syntactically simple and complex), and listening times were recorded for each phrase. Previous studies have shown that the verb in the more complex sentence type is the most capacity demanding portion of the sentence. Listening times were longer overall with increased noise masking, and listening times were longer overall at the verb of the harder sentence type. However, the increase at the verb was not larger with increased noise masking. All three groups showed similar effects of syntactic structure in the on-line data. The on-line syntactic effects were not due to problems in word recognition. Correlational analyses did not indicate a relationship between the increase in processing time at the capacity demanding region of the harder sentence types and any of the measures of working memory capacity in any of the three listening conditions. Results indicate that on-line sentence processing is not affected by noise masking if lexical access (e.g., word recognition) remains intact.