Speech networks at rest and in action: interactions between functional brain networks controlling speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Simonyan, Kristina; Fuertinger, Stefan

2015-04-01

Speech production is one of the most complex human behaviors. Although brain activation during speaking has been well investigated, our understanding of interactions between the brain regions and neural networks remains scarce. We combined seed-based interregional correlation analysis with graph theoretical analysis of functional MRI data during the resting state and sentence production in healthy subjects to investigate the interface and topology of functional networks originating from the key brain regions controlling speech, i.e., the laryngeal/orofacial motor cortex, inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex, putamen, and thalamus. During both resting and speaking, the interactions between these networks were bilaterally distributed and centered on the sensorimotor brain regions. However, speech production preferentially recruited the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and cerebellum into the large-scale network, suggesting the importance of these regions in facilitation of the transition from the resting state to speaking. Furthermore, the cerebellum (lobule VI) was the most prominent region showing functional influences on speech-network integration and segregation. Although networks were bilaterally distributed, interregional connectivity during speaking was stronger in the left vs. right hemisphere, which may have underlined a more homogeneous overlap between the examined networks in the left hemisphere. Among these, the laryngeal motor cortex (LMC) established a core network that fully overlapped with all other speech-related networks, determining the extent of network interactions. Our data demonstrate complex interactions of large-scale brain networks controlling speech production and point to the critical role of the LMC, IPL, and cerebellum in the formation of speech production network. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

A theory of lexical access in speech production [target paper

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Levelt, W.J.M.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Meyer, A.S.

1999-01-01

Preparing words in speech production is normally a fast and accurate process. We generate them two or three per second in fluent conversation; and overtly naming a clear picture of an object can easily be initiated within 600 ms after picture onset. The underlying process, however, is exceedingly

Effect of "developmental speech and language training through music" on speech production in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Hayoung A

2010-01-01

The study compared the effect of music training, speech training and no-training on the verbal production of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Participants were 50 children with ASD, age range 3 to 5 years, who had previously been evaluated on standard tests of language and level of functioning. They were randomly assigned to one of three 3-day conditions. Participants in music training (n = 18) watched a music video containing 6 songs and pictures of the 36 target words; those in speech training (n = 18) watched a speech video containing 6 stories and pictures, and those in the control condition (n = 14) received no treatment. Participants' verbal production including semantics, phonology, pragmatics, and prosody was measured by an experimenter designed verbal production evaluation scale. Results showed that participants in both music and speech training significantly increased their pre to posttest verbal production. Results also indicated that both high and low functioning participants improved their speech production after receiving either music or speech training; however, low functioning participants showed a greater improvement after the music training than the speech training. Children with ASD perceive important linguistic information embedded in music stimuli organized by principles of pattern perception, and produce the functional speech.

Are precues effective in proactively controlling taboo interference during speech production?

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White, Katherine K; Abrams, Lise; Hsi, Lisa R; Watkins, Emily C

2018-02-07

This research investigated whether precues engage proactive control to reduce emotional interference during speech production. A picture-word interference task required participants to name target pictures accompanied by taboo, negative, or neutral distractors. Proactive control was manipulated by presenting precues that signalled the type of distractor that would appear on the next trial. Experiment 1 included one block of trials with precues and one without, whereas Experiment 2 mixed precued and uncued trials. Consistent with previous research, picture naming was slowed in both experiments when distractors were taboo or negative compared to neutral, with the greatest slowing effect when distractors were taboo. Evidence that precues engaged proactive control to reduce interference from taboo (but not negative) distractors was found in Experiment 1. In contrast, mixing precued trials in Experiment 2 resulted in no taboo cueing benefit. These results suggest that item-level proactive control can be engaged under certain conditions to reduce taboo interference during speech production, findings that help to refine a role for cognitive control of distraction during speech production.

Patterns of Post-Stroke Brain Damage that Predict Speech Production Errors in Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia Dissociate

Science.gov (United States)

Basilakos, Alexandra; Rorden, Chris; Bonilha, Leonardo; Moser, Dana; Fridriksson, Julius

2015-01-01

Background and Purpose Acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) is a motor speech disorder caused by brain damage. AOS often co-occurs with aphasia, a language disorder in which patients may also demonstrate speech production errors. The overlap of speech production deficits in both disorders has raised questions regarding if AOS emerges from a unique pattern of brain damage or as a sub-element of the aphasic syndrome. The purpose of this study was to determine whether speech production errors in AOS and aphasia are associated with distinctive patterns of brain injury. Methods Forty-three patients with history of a single left-hemisphere stroke underwent comprehensive speech and language testing. The Apraxia of Speech Rating Scale was used to rate speech errors specific to AOS versus speech errors that can also be associated with AOS and/or aphasia. Localized brain damage was identified using structural MRI, and voxel-based lesion-impairment mapping was used to evaluate the relationship between speech errors specific to AOS, those that can occur in AOS and/or aphasia, and brain damage. Results The pattern of brain damage associated with AOS was most strongly associated with damage to cortical motor regions, with additional involvement of somatosensory areas. Speech production deficits that could be attributed to AOS and/or aphasia were associated with damage to the temporal lobe and the inferior pre-central frontal regions. Conclusion AOS likely occurs in conjunction with aphasia due to the proximity of the brain areas supporting speech and language, but the neurobiological substrate for each disorder differs. PMID:25908457

Binaural speech discrimination under noise in hearing-impaired listeners

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, K. V.; Rao, A. B.

1988-01-01

This paper presents the results of an assessment of speech discrimination by hearing-impaired listeners (sensori-neural, conductive, and mixed groups) under binaural free-field listening in the presence of background noise. Subjects with pure-tone thresholds greater than 20 dB in 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 kHz were presented with a version of the W-22 list of phonetically balanced words under three conditions: (1) 'quiet', with the chamber noise below 28 dB and speech at 60 dB; (2) at a constant S/N ratio of +10 dB, and with a background white noise at 70 dB; and (3) same as condition (2), but with the background noise at 80 dB. The mean speech discrimination scores decreased significantly with noise in all groups. However, the decrease in binaural speech discrimination scores with an increase in hearing impairment was less for material presented under the noise conditions than for the material presented in quiet.

Orthography and Modality Influence Speech Production in Adults and Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Saletta, Meredith; Goffman, Lisa; Hogan, Tiffany P

2016-12-01

The acquisition of literacy skills influences the perception and production of spoken language. We examined if orthography influences implicit processing in speech production in child readers and in adult readers with low and high reading proficiency. Children (n = 17), adults with typical reading skills (n = 17), and adults demonstrating low reading proficiency (n = 18) repeated or read aloud nonwords varying in orthographic transparency. Analyses of implicit linguistic processing (segmental accuracy and speech movement stability) were conducted. The accuracy and articulatory stability of productions of the nonwords were assessed before and after repetition or reading. Segmental accuracy results indicate that all 3 groups demonstrated greater learning when they were able to read, rather than just hear, the nonwords. Speech movement results indicate that, for adults with poor reading skills, exposure to the nonwords in a transparent spelling reduces the articulatory variability of speech production. Reading skill was correlated with speech movement stability in the groups of adults. In children and adults, orthography interacts with speech production; all participants integrate orthography into their lexical representations. Adults with poor reading skills do not use the same reading or speaking strategies as children with typical reading skills.

Damage to the anterior arcuate fasciculus predicts non-fluent speech production in aphasia

OpenAIRE

Fridriksson, Julius; Guo, Dazhou; Fillmore, Paul; Holland, Audrey; Rorden, Chris

2013-01-01

Non-fluent aphasia implies a relatively straightforward neurological condition characterized by limited speech output. However, it is an umbrella term for different underlying impairments affecting speech production. Several studies have sought the critical lesion location that gives rise to non-fluent aphasia. The results have been mixed but typically implicate anterior cortical regions such as Broca’s area, the left anterior insula, and deep white matter regions. To provide a clearer pictur...

Beyond production: Brain responses during speech perception in adults who stutter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tali Halag-Milo

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Developmental stuttering is a speech disorder that disrupts the ability to produce speech fluently. While stuttering is typically diagnosed based on one's behavior during speech production, some models suggest that it involves more central representations of language, and thus may affect language perception as well. Here we tested the hypothesis that developmental stuttering implicates neural systems involved in language perception, in a task that manipulates comprehensibility without an overt speech production component. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD signals in adults who do and do not stutter, while they were engaged in an incidental speech perception task. We found that speech perception evokes stronger activation in adults who stutter (AWS compared to controls, specifically in the right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG and in left Heschl's gyrus (LHG. Significant differences were additionally found in the lateralization of response in the inferior frontal cortex: AWS showed bilateral inferior frontal activity, while controls showed a left lateralized pattern of activation. These findings suggest that developmental stuttering is associated with an imbalanced neural network for speech processing, which is not limited to speech production, but also affects cortical responses during speech perception.

Conflict monitoring in speech processing : An fMRI study of error detection in speech production and perception

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gauvin, Hanna; De Baene, W.; Brass, Marcel; Hartsuiker, Robert

2016-01-01

To minimize the number of errors in speech, and thereby facilitate communication, speech is monitored before articulation. It is, however, unclear at which level during speech production monitoring takes place, and what mechanisms are used to detect and correct errors. The present study investigated

Speech production gains following constraint-induced movement therapy in children with hemiparesis.

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Allison, Kristen M; Reidy, Teressa Garcia; Boyle, Mary; Naber, Erin; Carney, Joan; Pidcock, Frank S

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in speech skills of children who have hemiparesis and speech impairment after participation in a constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) program. While case studies have reported collateral speech gains following CIMT, the effect of CIMT on speech production has not previously been directly investigated to the knowledge of these investigators. Eighteen children with hemiparesis and co-occurring speech impairment participated in a 21-day clinical CIMT program. The Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation-2 (GFTA-2) was used to assess children's articulation of speech sounds before and after the intervention. Changes in percent of consonants correct (PCC) on the GFTA-2 were used as a measure of change in speech production. Children made significant gains in PCC following CIMT. Gains were similar in children with left and right-sided hemiparesis, and across age groups. This study reports significant collateral gains in speech production following CIMT and suggests benefits of CIMT may also spread to speech motor domains.

Adaptation to delayed auditory feedback induces the temporal recalibration effect in both speech perception and production.

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Yamamoto, Kosuke; Kawabata, Hideaki

2014-12-01

We ordinarily speak fluently, even though our perceptions of our own voices are disrupted by various environmental acoustic properties. The underlying mechanism of speech is supposed to monitor the temporal relationship between speech production and the perception of auditory feedback, as suggested by a reduction in speech fluency when the speaker is exposed to delayed auditory feedback (DAF). While many studies have reported that DAF influences speech motor processing, its relationship to the temporal tuning effect on multimodal integration, or temporal recalibration, remains unclear. We investigated whether the temporal aspects of both speech perception and production change due to adaptation to the delay between the motor sensation and the auditory feedback. This is a well-used method of inducing temporal recalibration. Participants continually read texts with specific DAF times in order to adapt to the delay. Then, they judged the simultaneity between the motor sensation and the vocal feedback. We measured the rates of speech with which participants read the texts in both the exposure and re-exposure phases. We found that exposure to DAF changed both the rate of speech and the simultaneity judgment, that is, participants' speech gained fluency. Although we also found that a delay of 200 ms appeared to be most effective in decreasing the rates of speech and shifting the distribution on the simultaneity judgment, there was no correlation between these measurements. These findings suggest that both speech motor production and multimodal perception are adaptive to temporal lag but are processed in distinct ways.

Mechanisms of Interaction in Speech Production

Science.gov (United States)

Baese-Berk, Melissa; Goldrick, Matthew

2009-01-01

Many theories predict the presence of interactive effects involving information represented by distinct cognitive processes in speech production. There is considerably less agreement regarding the precise cognitive mechanisms that underlie these interactive effects. For example, are they driven by purely production-internal mechanisms (e.g., Dell,…

An evaluation of speech production in two boys with neurodevelopmental disorders who received communication intervention with a speech-generating device.

Science.gov (United States)

Roche, Laura; Sigafoos, Jeff; Lancioni, Giulio E; O'Reilly, Mark F; Schlosser, Ralf W; Stevens, Michelle; van der Meer, Larah; Achmadi, Donna; Kagohara, Debora; James, Ruth; Carnett, Amarie; Hodis, Flaviu; Green, Vanessa A; Sutherland, Dean; Lang, Russell; Rispoli, Mandy; Machalicek, Wendy; Marschik, Peter B

2014-11-01

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often present with little or no speech. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) aims to promote functional communication using non-speech modes, but it might also influence natural speech production. To investigate this possibility, we provided AAC intervention to two boys with neurodevelopmental disorders and severe communication impairment. Intervention focused on teaching the boys to use a tablet computer-based speech-generating device (SGD) to request preferred stimuli. During SGD intervention, both boys began to utter relevant single words. In an effort to induce more speech, and investigate the relation between SGD availability and natural speech production, the SGD was removed during some requesting opportunities. With intervention, both participants learned to use the SGD to request preferred stimuli. After learning to use the SGD, both participants began to respond more frequently with natural speech when the SGD was removed. The results suggest that a rehabilitation program involving initial SGD intervention, followed by subsequent withdrawal of the SGD, might increase the frequency of natural speech production in some children with neurodevelopmental disorders. This effect could be an example of response generalization. Copyright © 2014 ISDN. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automatic analysis of slips of the tongue: Insights into the cognitive architecture of speech production.

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Goldrick, Matthew; Keshet, Joseph; Gustafson, Erin; Heller, Jordana; Needle, Jeremy

2016-04-01

Traces of the cognitive mechanisms underlying speaking can be found within subtle variations in how we pronounce sounds. While speech errors have traditionally been seen as categorical substitutions of one sound for another, acoustic/articulatory analyses show they partially reflect the intended sound. When "pig" is mispronounced as "big," the resulting /b/ sound differs from correct productions of "big," moving towards intended "pig"-revealing the role of graded sound representations in speech production. Investigating the origins of such phenomena requires detailed estimation of speech sound distributions; this has been hampered by reliance on subjective, labor-intensive manual annotation. Computational methods can address these issues by providing for objective, automatic measurements. We develop a novel high-precision computational approach, based on a set of machine learning algorithms, for measurement of elicited speech. The algorithms are trained on existing manually labeled data to detect and locate linguistically relevant acoustic properties with high accuracy. Our approach is robust, is designed to handle mis-productions, and overall matches the performance of expert coders. It allows us to analyze a very large dataset of speech errors (containing far more errors than the total in the existing literature), illuminating properties of speech sound distributions previously impossible to reliably observe. We argue that this provides novel evidence that two sources both contribute to deviations in speech errors: planning processes specifying the targets of articulation and articulatory processes specifying the motor movements that execute this plan. These findings illustrate how a much richer picture of speech provides an opportunity to gain novel insights into language processing. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Age-related changes in the functional neuroanatomy of overt speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Sörös, Peter; Bose, Arpita; Sokoloff, Lisa Guttman; Graham, Simon J; Stuss, Donald T

2011-08-01

Alterations of existing neural networks during healthy aging, resulting in behavioral deficits and changes in brain activity, have been described for cognitive, motor, and sensory functions. To investigate age-related changes in the neural circuitry underlying overt non-lexical speech production, functional MRI was performed in 14 healthy younger (21-32 years) and 14 healthy older individuals (62-84 years). The experimental task involved the acoustically cued overt production of the vowel /a/ and the polysyllabic utterance /pataka/. In younger and older individuals, overt speech production was associated with the activation of a widespread articulo-phonological network, including the primary motor cortex, the supplementary motor area, the cingulate motor areas, and the posterior superior temporal cortex, similar in the /a/ and /pataka/ condition. An analysis of variance with the factors age and condition revealed a significant main effect of age. Irrespective of the experimental condition, significantly greater activation was found in the bilateral posterior superior temporal cortex, the posterior temporal plane, and the transverse temporal gyri in younger compared to older individuals. Significantly greater activation was found in the bilateral middle temporal gyri, medial frontal gyri, middle frontal gyri, and inferior frontal gyri in older vs. younger individuals. The analysis of variance did not reveal a significant main effect of condition and no significant interaction of age and condition. These results suggest a complex reorganization of neural networks dedicated to the production of speech during healthy aging. Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Structural brain aging and speech production: a surface-based brain morphometry study.

Science.gov (United States)

Tremblay, Pascale; Deschamps, Isabelle

2016-07-01

While there has been a growing number of studies examining the neurofunctional correlates of speech production over the past decade, the neurostructural correlates of this immensely important human behaviour remain less well understood, despite the fact that previous studies have established links between brain structure and behaviour, including speech and language. In the present study, we thus examined, for the first time, the relationship between surface-based cortical thickness (CT) and three different behavioural indexes of sublexical speech production: response duration, reaction times and articulatory accuracy, in healthy young and older adults during the production of simple and complex meaningless sequences of syllables (e.g., /pa-pa-pa/ vs. /pa-ta-ka/). The results show that each behavioural speech measure was sensitive to the complexity of the sequences, as indicated by slower reaction times, longer response durations and decreased articulatory accuracy in both groups for the complex sequences. Older adults produced longer speech responses, particularly during the production of complex sequence. Unique age-independent and age-dependent relationships between brain structure and each of these behavioural measures were found in several cortical and subcortical regions known for their involvement in speech production, including the bilateral anterior insula, the left primary motor area, the rostral supramarginal gyrus, the right inferior frontal sulcus, the bilateral putamen and caudate, and in some region less typically associated with speech production, such as the posterior cingulate cortex.

Abnormal Brain Dynamics Underlie Speech Production in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Elizabeth W; Valica, Tatiana; MacDonald, Matt J; Taylor, Margot J; Brian, Jessica; Lerch, Jason P; Anagnostou, Evdokia

2016-02-01

A large proportion of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have speech and/or language difficulties. While a number of structural and functional neuroimaging methods have been used to explore the brain differences in ASD with regards to speech and language comprehension and production, the neurobiology of basic speech function in ASD has not been examined. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a neuroimaging modality with high spatial and temporal resolution that can be applied to the examination of brain dynamics underlying speech as it can capture the fast responses fundamental to this function. We acquired MEG from 21 children with high-functioning autism (mean age: 11.43 years) and 21 age- and sex-matched controls as they performed a simple oromotor task, a phoneme production task and a phonemic sequencing task. Results showed significant differences in activation magnitude and peak latencies in primary motor cortex (Brodmann Area 4), motor planning areas (BA 6), temporal sequencing and sensorimotor integration areas (BA 22/13) and executive control areas (BA 9). Our findings of significant functional brain differences between these two groups on these simple oromotor and phonemic tasks suggest that these deficits may be foundational and could underlie the language deficits seen in ASD. © 2015 The Authors Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Autism Research.

Perceptual statistical learning over one week in child speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Richtsmeier, Peter T; Goffman, Lisa

2017-07-01

What cognitive mechanisms account for the trajectory of speech sound development, in particular, gradually increasing accuracy during childhood? An intriguing potential contributor is statistical learning, a type of learning that has been studied frequently in infant perception but less often in child speech production. To assess the relevance of statistical learning to developing speech accuracy, we carried out a statistical learning experiment with four- and five-year-olds in which statistical learning was examined over one week. Children were familiarized with and tested on word-medial consonant sequences in novel words. There was only modest evidence for statistical learning, primarily in the first few productions of the first session. This initial learning effect nevertheless aligns with previous statistical learning research. Furthermore, the overall learning effect was similar to an estimate of weekly accuracy growth based on normative studies. The results implicate other important factors in speech sound development, particularly learning via production. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Through the magnifying glass: Underlying literacy deficits and remediation potential in childhood apraxia of speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Zaretsky, Elena; Velleman, Shelley L; Curro, Kristina

2010-02-01

Interactions among psycholinguistic deficits and literacy difficulties in childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) have been inadequately studied. Comparisons with other disorders (Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and phonological dyslexia) and the possibility of reading remediation in CAS warrant further research. This case study describes the speech, language, cognitive, and literacy deficits and therapy gains in a girl aged 11;6 with severe CAS and borderline IQ. A comprehensive assessment of literacy-related cognitive skills, including phonological memory and working memory capacity, language, speech production and reading skills, was administered. Treatment from 6;0 to 11;6 targeted speech sounds, oral sequencing, phonological awareness (PA), speech-print connections, syllabic structure, and real and non-word decoding. Phonological memory was similar to that of children with SLI, but working memory was significantly worse. Unlike children with phonological dyslexia, our participant demonstrated relative strength in letter-sound correspondence rules. Despite deficits, she made progress in literacy with intensive long-term intervention. Results suggest that the underlying cognitive-linguistic profile of children with CAS may differ from those of children with SLI or dyslexia. Our results also show that long-term intensive intervention promotes acquisition of adequate literacy skills even in a child with a severe motor speech disorder and borderline IQ.

Speech Motor Development in Childhood Apraxia of Speech : Generating Testable Hypotheses by Neurocomputational Modeling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Terband, H.; Maassen, B.

2010-01-01

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a highly controversial clinical entity, with respect to both clinical signs and underlying neuromotor deficit. In the current paper, we advocate a modeling approach in which a computational neural model of speech acquisition and production is utilized in order to

Speech motor development in childhood apraxia of speech: generating testable hypotheses by neurocomputational modeling.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Terband, H.R.; Maassen, B.A.M.

2010-01-01

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a highly controversial clinical entity, with respect to both clinical signs and underlying neuromotor deficit. In the current paper, we advocate a modeling approach in which a computational neural model of speech acquisition and production is utilized in order to

Under-resourced speech recognition based on the speech manifold

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Sahraeian, R

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Conventional acoustic modeling involves estimating many parameters to effectively model feature distributions. The sparseness of speech and text data, however, degrades the reliability of the estimation process and makes speech recognition a...

Common neural substrates support speech and non-speech vocal tract gestures.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Soo-Eun; Kenney, Mary Kay; Loucks, Torrey M J; Poletto, Christopher J; Ludlow, Christy L

2009-08-01

The issue of whether speech is supported by the same neural substrates as non-speech vocal tract gestures has been contentious. In this fMRI study we tested whether producing non-speech vocal tract gestures in humans shares the same functional neuroanatomy as non-sense speech syllables. Production of non-speech vocal tract gestures, devoid of phonological content but similar to speech in that they had familiar acoustic and somatosensory targets, was compared to the production of speech syllables without meaning. Brain activation related to overt production was captured with BOLD fMRI using a sparse sampling design for both conditions. Speech and non-speech were compared using voxel-wise whole brain analyses, and ROI analyses focused on frontal and temporoparietal structures previously reported to support speech production. Results showed substantial activation overlap between speech and non-speech function in regions. Although non-speech gesture production showed greater extent and amplitude of activation in the regions examined, both speech and non-speech showed comparable left laterality in activation for both target perception and production. These findings posit a more general role of the previously proposed "auditory dorsal stream" in the left hemisphere--to support the production of vocal tract gestures that are not limited to speech processing.

Selective Attention Enhances Beta-Band Cortical Oscillation to Speech under "Cocktail-Party" Listening Conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yayue; Wang, Qian; Ding, Yu; Wang, Changming; Li, Haifeng; Wu, Xihong; Qu, Tianshu; Li, Liang

2017-01-01

Human listeners are able to selectively attend to target speech in a noisy environment with multiple-people talking. Using recordings of scalp electroencephalogram (EEG), this study investigated how selective attention facilitates the cortical representation of target speech under a simulated "cocktail-party" listening condition with speech-on-speech masking. The result shows that the cortical representation of target-speech signals under the multiple-people talking condition was specifically improved by selective attention relative to the non-selective-attention listening condition, and the beta-band activity was most strongly modulated by selective attention. Moreover, measured with the Granger Causality value, selective attention to the single target speech in the mixed-speech complex enhanced the following four causal connectivities for the beta-band oscillation: the ones (1) from site FT7 to the right motor area, (2) from the left frontal area to the right motor area, (3) from the central frontal area to the right motor area, and (4) from the central frontal area to the right frontal area. However, the selective-attention-induced change in beta-band causal connectivity from the central frontal area to the right motor area, but not other beta-band causal connectivities, was significantly correlated with the selective-attention-induced change in the cortical beta-band representation of target speech. These findings suggest that under the "cocktail-party" listening condition, the beta-band oscillation in EEGs to target speech is specifically facilitated by selective attention to the target speech that is embedded in the mixed-speech complex. The selective attention-induced unmasking of target speech may be associated with the improved beta-band functional connectivity from the central frontal area to the right motor area, suggesting a top-down attentional modulation of the speech-motor process.

Production planning and coronal stop deletion in spontaneous speech

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James Tanner

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Many phonological processes can be affected by segmental context spanning word boundaries, which often lead to variable outcomes. This paper tests the idea that some of this variability can be explained by reference to production planning. We examine coronal stop deletion (CSD, a variable process conditioned by preceding and upcoming phonological context, in a corpus of spontaneous British English speech, as a means of investigating a number of variables associated with planning: Prosodic boundary strength, word frequency, conditional probability of the following word, and speech rate. From the perspective of production planning, (1 prosodic boundaries should affect deletion rate independently of following context; (2 given the locality of production planning, the effect of the following context should decrease at stronger prosodic boundaries; and (3 other factors affecting planning scope should modulate the effect of upcoming phonological material above and beyond the modulating effect of prosodic boundaries. We build a statistical model of CSD realization, using pause length as a quantitative proxy for boundary strength, and find support for these predictions. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that the locality of production planning constrains variability in speech production, and have practical implications for work on CSD and other variable processes.

The Importance of Production Frequency in Therapy for Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Edeal, Denice Michelle; Gildersleeve-Neumann, Christina Elke

2011-01-01

Purpose: This study explores the importance of production frequency during speech therapy to determine whether more practice of speech targets leads to increased performance within a treatment session, as well as to motor learning, in the form of generalization to untrained words. Method: Two children with childhood apraxia of speech were treated…

Selective Attention Enhances Beta-Band Cortical Oscillation to Speech under “Cocktail-Party” Listening Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yayue; Wang, Qian; Ding, Yu; Wang, Changming; Li, Haifeng; Wu, Xihong; Qu, Tianshu; Li, Liang

2017-01-01

Human listeners are able to selectively attend to target speech in a noisy environment with multiple-people talking. Using recordings of scalp electroencephalogram (EEG), this study investigated how selective attention facilitates the cortical representation of target speech under a simulated “cocktail-party” listening condition with speech-on-speech masking. The result shows that the cortical representation of target-speech signals under the multiple-people talking condition was specifically improved by selective attention relative to the non-selective-attention listening condition, and the beta-band activity was most strongly modulated by selective attention. Moreover, measured with the Granger Causality value, selective attention to the single target speech in the mixed-speech complex enhanced the following four causal connectivities for the beta-band oscillation: the ones (1) from site FT7 to the right motor area, (2) from the left frontal area to the right motor area, (3) from the central frontal area to the right motor area, and (4) from the central frontal area to the right frontal area. However, the selective-attention-induced change in beta-band causal connectivity from the central frontal area to the right motor area, but not other beta-band causal connectivities, was significantly correlated with the selective-attention-induced change in the cortical beta-band representation of target speech. These findings suggest that under the “cocktail-party” listening condition, the beta-band oscillation in EEGs to target speech is specifically facilitated by selective attention to the target speech that is embedded in the mixed-speech complex. The selective attention-induced unmasking of target speech may be associated with the improved beta-band functional connectivity from the central frontal area to the right motor area, suggesting a top-down attentional modulation of the speech-motor process. PMID:28239344

Innovative activities for teaching anatomy of speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Skinder-Meredith, Amy E

2010-01-01

Courses in anatomy have traditionally relied on lectures and cadaver dissection laboratories. In speech and hearing sciences, there tends to be less access to cadavers than in medical schools and other allied health professions. It is more typical to use anatomical models, diagrams and lecture slides. Regardless of the resources available, anatomy is a subject that lends itself to hands-on learning. This article briefly reviews teaching methods and describes a variety of innovative activities to enhance learning of anatomical concepts and clinical relevance of anatomy for speech production. Teaching strategies and activities were developed to capitalize on students' multimodal learning preferences as revealed by responses to a survey administered to 49 undergraduates in the beginning of an anatomy of speech production course. At the end of the semester, students completed a second survey. A five-point Likert scale was used to assess the usefulness of each activity as a learning tool or level of clinical relevance and the level of enjoyability. The responses were overwhelmingly positive with level of usefulness and level of clinical relevance rated higher on average than the level of enjoyment.

Grammatical constraints on phonological encoding in speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Heller, Jordana R; Goldrick, Matthew

2014-12-01

To better understand the influence of grammatical encoding on the retrieval and encoding of phonological word-form information during speech production, we examine how grammatical class constraints influence the activation of phonological neighbors (words phonologically related to the target--e.g., MOON, TWO for target TUNE). Specifically, we compare how neighbors that share a target's grammatical category (here, nouns) influence its planning and retrieval, assessed by picture naming latencies, and phonetic encoding, assessed by word productions in picture names, when grammatical constraints are strong (in sentence contexts) versus weak (bare naming). Within-category (noun) neighbors influenced planning time and phonetic encoding more strongly in sentence contexts. This suggests that grammatical encoding constrains phonological processing; the influence of phonological neighbors is grammatically dependent. Moreover, effects on planning times could not fully account for phonetic effects, suggesting that phonological interaction affects articulation after speech onset. These results support production theories integrating grammatical, phonological, and phonetic processes.

High gamma oscillations in medial temporal lobe during overt production of speech and gestures.

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Marstaller, Lars; Burianová, Hana; Sowman, Paul F

2014-01-01

The study of the production of co-speech gestures (CSGs), i.e., meaningful hand movements that often accompany speech during everyday discourse, provides an important opportunity to investigate the integration of language, action, and memory because of the semantic overlap between gesture movements and speech content. Behavioral studies of CSGs and speech suggest that they have a common base in memory and predict that overt production of both speech and CSGs would be preceded by neural activity related to memory processes. However, to date the neural correlates and timing of CSG production are still largely unknown. In the current study, we addressed these questions with magnetoencephalography and a semantic association paradigm in which participants overtly produced speech or gesture responses that were either meaningfully related to a stimulus or not. Using spectral and beamforming analyses to investigate the neural activity preceding the responses, we found a desynchronization in the beta band (15-25 Hz), which originated 900 ms prior to the onset of speech and was localized to motor and somatosensory regions in the cortex and cerebellum, as well as right inferior frontal gyrus. Beta desynchronization is often seen as an indicator of motor processing and thus reflects motor activity related to the hand movements that gestures add to speech. Furthermore, our results show oscillations in the high gamma band (50-90 Hz), which originated 400 ms prior to speech onset and were localized to the left medial temporal lobe. High gamma oscillations have previously been found to be involved in memory processes and we thus interpret them to be related to contextual association of semantic information in memory. The results of our study show that high gamma oscillations in medial temporal cortex play an important role in the binding of information in human memory during speech and CSG production.

High gamma oscillations in medial temporal lobe during overt production of speech and gestures.

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Lars Marstaller

Full Text Available The study of the production of co-speech gestures (CSGs, i.e., meaningful hand movements that often accompany speech during everyday discourse, provides an important opportunity to investigate the integration of language, action, and memory because of the semantic overlap between gesture movements and speech content. Behavioral studies of CSGs and speech suggest that they have a common base in memory and predict that overt production of both speech and CSGs would be preceded by neural activity related to memory processes. However, to date the neural correlates and timing of CSG production are still largely unknown. In the current study, we addressed these questions with magnetoencephalography and a semantic association paradigm in which participants overtly produced speech or gesture responses that were either meaningfully related to a stimulus or not. Using spectral and beamforming analyses to investigate the neural activity preceding the responses, we found a desynchronization in the beta band (15-25 Hz, which originated 900 ms prior to the onset of speech and was localized to motor and somatosensory regions in the cortex and cerebellum, as well as right inferior frontal gyrus. Beta desynchronization is often seen as an indicator of motor processing and thus reflects motor activity related to the hand movements that gestures add to speech. Furthermore, our results show oscillations in the high gamma band (50-90 Hz, which originated 400 ms prior to speech onset and were localized to the left medial temporal lobe. High gamma oscillations have previously been found to be involved in memory processes and we thus interpret them to be related to contextual association of semantic information in memory. The results of our study show that high gamma oscillations in medial temporal cortex play an important role in the binding of information in human memory during speech and CSG production.

[Investigating phonological planning processes in speech production through a speech-error induction technique].

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Nakayama, Masataka; Saito, Satoru

2015-08-01

The present study investigated principles of phonological planning, a common serial ordering mechanism for speech production and phonological short-term memory. Nakayama and Saito (2014) have investigated the principles by using a speech-error induction technique, in which participants were exposed to an auditory distracIor word immediately before an utterance of a target word. They demonstrated within-word adjacent mora exchanges and serial position effects on error rates. These findings support, respectively, the temporal distance and the edge principles at a within-word level. As this previous study induced errors using word distractors created by exchanging adjacent morae in the target words, it is possible that the speech errors are expressions of lexical intrusions reflecting interactive activation of phonological and lexical/semantic representations. To eliminate this possibility, the present study used nonword distractors that had no lexical or semantic representations. This approach successfully replicated the error patterns identified in the abovementioned study, further confirming that the temporal distance and edge principles are organizing precepts in phonological planning.

Subcortical processing of speech regularities underlies reading and music aptitude in children

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities supports fundamental human behaviors such as hearing in noise and reading. Although the failure to encode acoustic regularities in ongoing speech has been associated with language and literacy deficits, how auditory expertise, such as the expertise that is associated with musical skill, relates to the brainstem processing of speech regularities is unknown. An association between musical skill and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities would not be surprising given the importance of repetition and regularity in music. Here, we aimed to define relationships between the subcortical processing of speech regularities, music aptitude, and reading abilities in children with and without reading impairment. We hypothesized that, in combination with auditory cognitive abilities, neural sensitivity to regularities in ongoing speech provides a common biological mechanism underlying the development of music and reading abilities. Methods We assessed auditory working memory and attention, music aptitude, reading ability, and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities in 42 school-aged children with a wide range of reading ability. Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities was assessed by recording brainstem responses to the same speech sound presented in predictable and variable speech streams. Results Through correlation analyses and structural equation modeling, we reveal that music aptitude and literacy both relate to the extent of subcortical adaptation to regularities in ongoing speech as well as with auditory working memory and attention. Relationships between music and speech processing are specifically driven by performance on a musical rhythm task, underscoring the importance of rhythmic regularity for both language and music. Conclusions These data indicate common brain mechanisms underlying reading and music abilities that relate to how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input

Subcortical processing of speech regularities underlies reading and music aptitude in children.

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Strait, Dana L; Hornickel, Jane; Kraus, Nina

2011-10-17

Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities supports fundamental human behaviors such as hearing in noise and reading. Although the failure to encode acoustic regularities in ongoing speech has been associated with language and literacy deficits, how auditory expertise, such as the expertise that is associated with musical skill, relates to the brainstem processing of speech regularities is unknown. An association between musical skill and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities would not be surprising given the importance of repetition and regularity in music. Here, we aimed to define relationships between the subcortical processing of speech regularities, music aptitude, and reading abilities in children with and without reading impairment. We hypothesized that, in combination with auditory cognitive abilities, neural sensitivity to regularities in ongoing speech provides a common biological mechanism underlying the development of music and reading abilities. We assessed auditory working memory and attention, music aptitude, reading ability, and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities in 42 school-aged children with a wide range of reading ability. Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities was assessed by recording brainstem responses to the same speech sound presented in predictable and variable speech streams. Through correlation analyses and structural equation modeling, we reveal that music aptitude and literacy both relate to the extent of subcortical adaptation to regularities in ongoing speech as well as with auditory working memory and attention. Relationships between music and speech processing are specifically driven by performance on a musical rhythm task, underscoring the importance of rhythmic regularity for both language and music. These data indicate common brain mechanisms underlying reading and music abilities that relate to how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input. Definition of common biological underpinnings

Subcortical processing of speech regularities underlies reading and music aptitude in children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Strait Dana L

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities supports fundamental human behaviors such as hearing in noise and reading. Although the failure to encode acoustic regularities in ongoing speech has been associated with language and literacy deficits, how auditory expertise, such as the expertise that is associated with musical skill, relates to the brainstem processing of speech regularities is unknown. An association between musical skill and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities would not be surprising given the importance of repetition and regularity in music. Here, we aimed to define relationships between the subcortical processing of speech regularities, music aptitude, and reading abilities in children with and without reading impairment. We hypothesized that, in combination with auditory cognitive abilities, neural sensitivity to regularities in ongoing speech provides a common biological mechanism underlying the development of music and reading abilities. Methods We assessed auditory working memory and attention, music aptitude, reading ability, and neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities in 42 school-aged children with a wide range of reading ability. Neural sensitivity to acoustic regularities was assessed by recording brainstem responses to the same speech sound presented in predictable and variable speech streams. Results Through correlation analyses and structural equation modeling, we reveal that music aptitude and literacy both relate to the extent of subcortical adaptation to regularities in ongoing speech as well as with auditory working memory and attention. Relationships between music and speech processing are specifically driven by performance on a musical rhythm task, underscoring the importance of rhythmic regularity for both language and music. Conclusions These data indicate common brain mechanisms underlying reading and music abilities that relate to how the nervous system responds to

Stuttering Frequency, Speech Rate, Speech Naturalness, and Speech Effort During the Production of Voluntary Stuttering.

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Davidow, Jason H; Grossman, Heather L; Edge, Robin L

2018-05-01

Voluntary stuttering techniques involve persons who stutter purposefully interjecting disfluencies into their speech. Little research has been conducted on the impact of these techniques on the speech pattern of persons who stutter. The present study examined whether changes in the frequency of voluntary stuttering accompanied changes in stuttering frequency, articulation rate, speech naturalness, and speech effort. In total, 12 persons who stutter aged 16-34 years participated. Participants read four 300-syllable passages during a control condition, and three voluntary stuttering conditions that involved attempting to produce purposeful, tension-free repetitions of initial sounds or syllables of a word for two or more repetitions (i.e., bouncing). The three voluntary stuttering conditions included bouncing on 5%, 10%, and 15% of syllables read. Friedman tests and follow-up Wilcoxon signed ranks tests were conducted for the statistical analyses. Stuttering frequency, articulation rate, and speech naturalness were significantly different between the voluntary stuttering conditions. Speech effort did not differ between the voluntary stuttering conditions. Stuttering frequency was significantly lower during the three voluntary stuttering conditions compared to the control condition, and speech effort was significantly lower during two of the three voluntary stuttering conditions compared to the control condition. Due to changes in articulation rate across the voluntary stuttering conditions, it is difficult to conclude, as has been suggested previously, that voluntary stuttering is the reason for stuttering reductions found when using voluntary stuttering techniques. Additionally, future investigations should examine different types of voluntary stuttering over an extended period of time to determine their impact on stuttering frequency, speech rate, speech naturalness, and speech effort.

Cognitive Processes Underlying Nonnative Speech Production: The Significance of Recurrent Sequences.

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Oppenheim, Nancy

This study was designed to identify whether advanced nonnative speakers of English rely on recurrent sequences to produce fluent speech in conformance with neural network theories and symbolic network theories; participants were 6 advanced, speaking and listening university students, aged 18-37 years (their native countries being Korea, Japan,…

Irrelevant sound disrupts speech production: exploring the relationship between short-term memory and experimentally induced slips of the tongue.

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Saito, Satoru; Baddeley, Alan

2004-10-01

To explore the relationship between short-term memory and speech production, we developed a speech error induction technique. The technique, which was adapted from a Japanese word game, exposed participants to an auditory distractor word immediately before the utterance of a target word. In Experiment 1, the distractor words that were phonologically similar to the target word led to a greater number of errors in speaking the target than did the dissimilar distractor words. Furthermore, the speech error scores were significantly correlated with memory span scores. In Experiment 2, memory span scores were again correlated with the rate of the speech errors that were induced from the task-irrelevant speech sounds. Experiment 3 showed a strong irrelevant-sound effect in the serial recall of nonwords. The magnitude of the irrelevant-sound effects was not affected by phonological similarity between the to-be-remembered nonwords and the irrelevant-sound materials. Analysis of recall errors in Experiment 3 also suggested that there were no essential differences in recall error patterns between the dissimilar and similar irrelevant-sound conditions. We proposed two different underlying mechanisms in immediate memory, one operating via the phonological short-term memory store and the other via the processes underpinning speech production.

Damage to the anterior arcuate fasciculus predicts non-fluent speech production in aphasia.

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Fridriksson, Julius; Guo, Dazhou; Fillmore, Paul; Holland, Audrey; Rorden, Chris

2013-11-01

Non-fluent aphasia implies a relatively straightforward neurological condition characterized by limited speech output. However, it is an umbrella term for different underlying impairments affecting speech production. Several studies have sought the critical lesion location that gives rise to non-fluent aphasia. The results have been mixed but typically implicate anterior cortical regions such as Broca's area, the left anterior insula, and deep white matter regions. To provide a clearer picture of cortical damage in non-fluent aphasia, the current study examined brain damage that negatively influences speech fluency in patients with aphasia. It controlled for some basic speech and language comprehension factors in order to better isolate the contribution of different mechanisms to fluency, or its lack. Cortical damage was related to overall speech fluency, as estimated by clinical judgements using the Western Aphasia Battery speech fluency scale, diadochokinetic rate, rudimentary auditory language comprehension, and executive functioning (scores on a matrix reasoning test) in 64 patients with chronic left hemisphere stroke. A region of interest analysis that included brain regions typically implicated in speech and language processing revealed that non-fluency in aphasia is primarily predicted by damage to the anterior segment of the left arcuate fasciculus. An improved prediction model also included the left uncinate fasciculus, a white matter tract connecting the middle and anterior temporal lobe with frontal lobe regions, including the pars triangularis. Models that controlled for diadochokinetic rate, picture-word recognition, or executive functioning also revealed a strong relationship between anterior segment involvement and speech fluency. Whole brain analyses corroborated the findings from the region of interest analyses. An additional exploratory analysis revealed that involvement of the uncinate fasciculus adjudicated between Broca's and global aphasia

Developmental relationships between speech and writing: is verb-phrase anaphora production a special case?

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Donaldson, Morag L; Cooper, Lynn S M

2013-09-01

Young children's speech is typically more linguistically sophisticated than their writing. However, there are grounds for asking whether production of cohesive devices, such as verb-phrase anaphora (VPA), might represent an exception to this developmental pattern, as cohesive devices are generally more important in writing than in speech and so might be expected to be more frequent in children's writing than in their speech. The study reported herein aims to compare the frequency of children's production of VPA constructions (e.g., Mary is eating an apple and so is John) between a written and a spoken task. Forty-eight children participated from each of two age groups: 7-year-olds and 10-year-olds. All the children received both a spoken and a written sentence completion task designed to elicit production of VPA. Task order was counterbalanced. VPA production was significantly more frequent in speech than in writing and when the spoken task was presented first. Surprisingly, the 7-year-olds produced VPA constructions more frequently than the 10-year-olds. Despite the greater importance of cohesion in writing than in speech, children's production of VPA is similar to their production of most other aspects of language in that more sophisticated constructions are used more frequently in speech than in writing. Children's written production of cohesive devices could probably be enhanced by presenting spoken tasks immediately before written tasks. The lower frequency of VPA production in the older children may reflect syntactic priming effects or a belief that they should produce sentences that are as fully specified as possible. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

Common neural substrates support speech and non-speech vocal tract gestures

OpenAIRE

Chang, Soo-Eun; Kenney, Mary Kay; Loucks, Torrey M.J.; Poletto, Christopher J.; Ludlow, Christy L.

2009-01-01

The issue of whether speech is supported by the same neural substrates as non-speech vocal-tract gestures has been contentious. In this fMRI study we tested whether producing non-speech vocal tract gestures in humans shares the same functional neuroanatomy as non-sense speech syllables. Production of non-speech vocal tract gestures, devoid of phonological content but similar to speech in that they had familiar acoustic and somatosensory targets, were compared to the production of speech sylla...

Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs in Speech Production

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2017-06-01

capacity of discrete motor responses under different cognitive sets. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 71 (4), 475. SPEED-ACCURACY TRADEOFFS IN HUMAN...space defined by vocal tract constriction degree and location, as in Articulatory Phonology Browman & Goldstein (1992). These high-level spaces are...relationship between speech gestures varies as a function of their positions within the syllable Browman & Goldstein (1995); Krakow (1999); Byrd et al

How lingering representations of abandoned context words affect speech production.

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Tydgat, Ilse; Diependaele, Kevin; Hartsuiker, Robert J; Pickering, Martin J

2012-07-01

Four experiments tested whether and how initially planned but then abandoned speech can influence the production of a subsequent resumption. Participants named initial pictures, which were sometimes suddenly replaced by target pictures that were related in meaning or word form or were unrelated. They then had to stop and resume with the name of the target picture. Target picture naming latencies were measured separately for trials in which the initial speech was skipped, interrupted, or completed. Semantically related initial pictures helped the production of the target word, although the effect dissipated once the utterance of the initial picture name had been completed. In contrast, phonologically related initial pictures hindered the production of the target word, but only for trials in which the name of the initial picture had at least partly been uttered. This semantic facilitation and phonological interference did not depend on the time interval between the initial and target picture, which was either varied between 200 ms and 400 ms (Experiments 1-2) or was kept constant at 300 ms (Experiments 3-4). We discuss the implications of these results for models of speech self-monitoring and for models of problem-free word production. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Schizophrenia affects speech-induced functional connectivity of the superior temporal gyrus under cocktail-party listening conditions.

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Li, Juanhua; Wu, Chao; Zheng, Yingjun; Li, Ruikeng; Li, Xuanzi; She, Shenglin; Wu, Haibo; Peng, Hongjun; Ning, Yuping; Li, Liang

2017-09-17

The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is involved in speech recognition against informational masking under cocktail-party-listening conditions. Compared to healthy listeners, people with schizophrenia perform worse in speech recognition under informational speech-on-speech masking conditions. It is not clear whether the schizophrenia-related vulnerability to informational masking is associated with certain changes in FC of the STG with some critical brain regions. Using sparse-sampling fMRI design, this study investigated the differences between people with schizophrenia and healthy controls in FC of the STG for target-speech listening against informational speech-on-speech masking, when a listening condition with either perceived spatial separation (PSS, with a spatial release of informational masking) or perceived spatial co-location (PSC, without the spatial release) between target speech and masking speech was introduced. The results showed that in healthy participants, but not participants with schizophrenia, the contrast of either the PSS or PSC condition against the masker-only condition induced an enhancement of functional connectivity (FC) of the STG with the left superior parietal lobule and the right precuneus. Compared to healthy participants, participants with schizophrenia showed declined FC of the STG with the bilateral precuneus, right SPL, and right supplementary motor area. Thus, FC of the STG with the parietal areas is normally involved in speech listening against informational masking under either the PSS or PSC conditions, and declined FC of the STG in people with schizophrenia with the parietal areas may be associated with the increased vulnerability to informational masking. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An investigation of co-speech gesture production during action description in Parkinson's disease.

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Cleary, Rebecca A; Poliakoff, Ellen; Galpin, Adam; Dick, Jeremy P R; Holler, Judith

2011-12-01

Parkinson's disease (PD) can impact enormously on speech communication. One aspect of non-verbal behaviour closely tied to speech is co-speech gesture production. In healthy people, co-speech gestures can add significant meaning and emphasis to speech. There is, however, little research into how this important channel of communication is affected in PD. The present study provides a systematic analysis of co-speech gestures which spontaneously accompany the description of actions in a group of PD patients (N = 23, Hoehn and Yahr Stage III or less) and age-matched healthy controls (N = 22). The analysis considers different co-speech gesture types, using established classification schemes from the field of gesture research. The analysis focuses on the rate of these gestures as well as on their qualitative nature. In doing so, the analysis attempts to overcome several methodological shortcomings of research in this area. Contrary to expectation, gesture rate was not significantly affected in our patient group, with relatively mild PD. This indicates that co-speech gestures could compensate for speech problems. However, while gesture rate seems unaffected, the qualitative precision of gestures representing actions was significantly reduced. This study demonstrates the feasibility of carrying out fine-grained, detailed analyses of gestures in PD and offers insights into an as yet neglected facet of communication in patients with PD. Based on the present findings, an important next step is the closer investigation of the qualitative changes in gesture (including different communicative situations) and an analysis of the heterogeneity in co-speech gesture production in PD. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of cognitive impairment on prosodic parameters of speech production planning in multiple sclerosis.

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De Looze, Céline; Moreau, Noémie; Renié, Laurent; Kelly, Finnian; Ghio, Alain; Rico, Audrey; Audoin, Bertrand; Viallet, François; Pelletier, Jean; Petrone, Caterina

2017-05-24

Cognitive impairment (CI) affects 40-65% of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). CI can have a negative impact on a patient's everyday activities, such as engaging in conversations. Speech production planning ability is crucial for successful verbal interactions and thus for preserving social and occupational skills. This study investigates the effect of cognitive-linguistic demand and CI on speech production planning in MS, as reflected in speech prosody. A secondary aim is to explore the clinical potential of prosodic features for the prediction of an individual's cognitive status in MS. A total of 45 subjects, that is 22 healthy controls (HC) and 23 patients in early stages of relapsing-remitting MS, underwent neuropsychological tests probing specific cognitive processes involved in speech production planning. All subjects also performed a read speech task, in which they had to read isolated sentences manipulated as for phonological length. Results show that the speech of MS patients with CI is mainly affected at the temporal level (articulation and speech rate, pause duration). Regression analyses further indicate that rate measures are correlated with working memory scores. In addition, linear discriminant analysis shows the ROC AUC of identifying MS patients with CI is 0.70 (95% confidence interval: 0.68-0.73). Our findings indicate that prosodic planning is deficient in patients with MS-CI and that the scope of planning depends on patients' cognitive abilities. We discuss how speech-based approaches could be used as an ecological method for the assessment and monitoring of CI in MS. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

The DIVA model: A neural theory of speech acquisition and production.

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Tourville, Jason A; Guenther, Frank H

2011-01-01

The DIVA model of speech production provides a computationally and neuroanatomically explicit account of the network of brain regions involved in speech acquisition and production. An overview of the model is provided along with descriptions of the computations performed in the different brain regions represented in the model. The latest version of the model, which contains a new right-lateralized feedback control map in ventral premotor cortex, will be described, and experimental results that motivated this new model component will be discussed. Application of the model to the study and treatment of communication disorders will also be briefly described.

Prosodic influences on speech production in children with specific language impairment and speech deficits: kinematic, acoustic, and transcription evidence.

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Goffman, L

1999-12-01

It is often hypothesized that young children's difficulties with producing weak-strong (iambic) prosodic forms arise from perceptual or linguistically based production factors. A third possible contributor to errors in the iambic form may be biological constraints, or biases, of the motor system. In the present study, 7 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and speech deficits were matched to same age peers. Multiple levels of analysis, including kinematic (modulation and stability of movement), acoustic, and transcription, were applied to children's productions of iambic (weak-strong) and trochaic (strong-weak) prosodic forms. Findings suggest that a motor bias toward producing unmodulated rhythmic articulatory movements, similar to that observed in canonical babbling, contribute to children's acquisition of metrical forms. Children with SLI and speech deficits show less mature segmental and speech motor systems, as well as decreased modulation of movement in later developing iambic forms. Further, components of prosodic and segmental acquisition develop independently and at different rates.

Bite Block Vowel Production in Apraxia of Speech

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Jacks, Adam

2008-01-01

Purpose: This study explored vowel production and adaptation to articulatory constraints in adults with acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) plus aphasia. Method: Five adults with acquired AOS plus aphasia and 5 healthy control participants produced the vowels [iota], [epsilon], and [ash] in four word-length conditions in unconstrained and bite block…

Didactic speech synthesizer – acoustic module, formants model

OpenAIRE

Teixeira, João Paulo; Fernandes, Anildo

2013-01-01

Text-to-speech synthesis is the main subject treated in this work. It will be presented the constitution of a generic text-to-speech system conversion, explained the functions of the various modules and described the development techniques using the formants model. The development of a didactic formant synthesiser under Matlab environment will also be described. This didactic synthesiser is intended for a didactic understanding of the formant model of speech production.

Audiovisual integration of speech falters under high attention demands.

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Alsius, Agnès; Navarra, Jordi; Campbell, Ruth; Soto-Faraco, Salvador

2005-05-10

One of the most commonly cited examples of human multisensory integration occurs during exposure to natural speech, when the vocal and the visual aspects of the signal are integrated in a unitary percept. Audiovisual association of facial gestures and vocal sounds has been demonstrated in nonhuman primates and in prelinguistic children, arguing for a general basis for this capacity. One critical question, however, concerns the role of attention in such multisensory integration. Although both behavioral and neurophysiological studies have converged on a preattentive conceptualization of audiovisual speech integration, this mechanism has rarely been measured under conditions of high attentional load, when the observers' attention resources are depleted. We tested the extent to which audiovisual integration was modulated by the amount of available attentional resources by measuring the observers' susceptibility to the classic McGurk illusion in a dual-task paradigm. The proportion of visually influenced responses was severely, and selectively, reduced if participants were concurrently performing an unrelated visual or auditory task. In contrast with the assumption that crossmodal speech integration is automatic, our results suggest that these multisensory binding processes are subject to attentional demands.

Speech perception under adverse conditions: Insights from behavioral, computational and neuroscience research

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Sara eGuediche

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Adult speech perception reflects the long-term regularities of the native language, but it is also flexible such that it accommodates and adapts to adverse listening conditions and short-term deviations from native-language norms. The purpose of this review article is to examine how the broader neuroscience literature can inform and advance research efforts in understanding the neural basis of flexibility and adaptive plasticity in speech perception. In particular, we consider several domains of neuroscience research that offer insight into how perception can be adaptively tuned to short-term deviations while also maintaining without affecting the long-term learned regularities for mapping sensory input. We review several literatures to highlight the potential role of learning algorithms that rely on prediction error signals and discuss specific neural structures that are likely to contribute to such learning. Already, a few studies have alluded to a potential role of these mechanisms in adaptive plasticity in speech perception. Better understanding the application and limitations of these algorithms for the challenges of flexible speech perception under adverse conditions promises to inform theoretical models of speech.

Longitudinal decline in speech production in Parkinson's disease spectrum disorders.

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Ash, Sharon; Jester, Charles; York, Collin; Kofman, Olga L; Langey, Rachel; Halpin, Amy; Firn, Kim; Dominguez Perez, Sophia; Chahine, Lama; Spindler, Meredith; Dahodwala, Nabila; Irwin, David J; McMillan, Corey; Weintraub, Daniel; Grossman, Murray

2017-08-01

We examined narrative speech production longitudinally in non-demented (n=15) and mildly demented (n=8) patients with Parkinson's disease spectrum disorder (PDSD), and we related increasing impairment to structural brain changes in specific language and motor regions. Patients provided semi-structured speech samples, describing a standardized picture at two time points (mean±SD interval=38±24months). The recorded speech samples were analyzed for fluency, grammar, and informativeness. PDSD patients with dementia exhibited significant decline in their speech, unrelated to changes in overall cognitive or motor functioning. Regression analysis in a subset of patients with MRI scans (n=11) revealed that impaired language performance at Time 2 was associated with reduced gray matter (GM) volume at Time 1 in regions of interest important for language functioning but not with reduced GM volume in motor brain areas. These results dissociate language and motor systems and highlight the importance of non-motor brain regions for declining language in PDSD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Twisting Tongues to Test for Conflict-Monitoring in Speech Production

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Daniel eAcheson

2014-04-01

Full Text Available A number of recent studies have hypothesized that monitoring in speech production may occur via domain-general mechanisms responsible for the detection of response conflict. Outside of language, two ERP components have consistently been elicited in conflict-inducing tasks (e.g., the flanker task: The stimulus-locked N2 on correct trials, and the response-locked error-related negativity (ERN. The present investigation used these electrophysiological markers to test whether a common response conflict monitor is responsible for monitoring in speech and non-speech tasks.EEG was recorded while participants performed a tongue twister (TT task and a manual version of the flanker task. In the TT task, people rapidly read sequences of four nonwords arranged in TT and non-TT patterns three times. In the flanker task, people responded with a left/right button press to a center-facing arrow, and conflict was manipulated by the congruency of the flanking arrows.Behavioral results showed typical effects of both tasks, with increased error rates and slower speech onset times for TT relative to non-TT trials and for incongruent relative to congruent flanker trials. In the flanker task, stimulus-locked EEG analyses replicated previous results, with a larger N2 for incongruent relative to congruent trials, and a response-locked ERN. In the TT task, stimulus-locked analyses revealed broad, frontally-distributed differences beginning around 50 ms and lasting until just before speech initiation, with TT trials more negative than non-TT trials; response-locked analyses revealed an ERN. Correlation across these measures showed some correlations within a task, but little evidence of systematic cross-task correlation. Although the present results do not speak against conflict signals from the production system serving as cues to self-monitoring, they are not consistent with signatures of response conflict being mediated by a single, domain-general conflict monitor.

Prosodic characteristics of read speech before and after treadmill running

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Trouvain, Jürgen; Truong, Khiet Phuong

Physical activity leads to a respiratory behaviour that is very different to a resting state and that influences speech production. How speech parameters are exactly affected by physical activity remains largely unknown. Hence, we investigated how several prosodic parameters change under influence

Unifying Speech and Language in a Developmentally Sensitive Model of Production.

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Redford, Melissa A

2015-11-01

Speaking is an intentional activity. It is also a complex motor skill; one that exhibits protracted development and the fully automatic character of an overlearned behavior. Together these observations suggest an analogy with skilled behavior in the non-language domain. This analogy is used here to argue for a model of production that is grounded in the activity of speaking and structured during language acquisition. The focus is on the plan that controls the execution of fluent speech; specifically, on the units that are activated during the production of an intonational phrase. These units are schemas: temporally structured sequences of remembered actions and their sensory outcomes. Schemas are activated and inhibited via associated goals, which are linked to specific meanings. Schemas may fuse together over developmental time with repeated use to form larger units, thereby affecting the relative timing of sequential action in participating schemas. In this way, the hierarchical structure of the speech plan and ensuing rhythm patterns of speech are a product of development. Individual schemas may also become differentiated during development, but only if subsequences are associated with meaning. The necessary association of action and meaning gives rise to assumptions about the primacy of certain linguistic forms in the production process. Overall, schema representations connect usage-based theories of language to the action of speaking.

Recovering With Acquired Apraxia of Speech: The First 2 Years.

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Haley, Katarina L; Shafer, Jennifer N; Harmon, Tyson G; Jacks, Adam

2016-12-01

This study was intended to document speech recovery for 1 person with acquired apraxia of speech quantitatively and on the basis of her lived experience. The second author sustained a traumatic brain injury that resulted in acquired apraxia of speech. Over a 2-year period, she documented her recovery through 22 video-recorded monologues. We analyzed these monologues using a combination of auditory perceptual, acoustic, and qualitative methods. Recovery was evident for all quantitative variables examined. For speech sound production, the recovery was most prominent during the first 3 months, but slower improvement was evident for many months. Measures of speaking rate, fluency, and prosody changed more gradually throughout the entire period. A qualitative analysis of topics addressed in the monologues was consistent with the quantitative speech recovery and indicated a subjective dynamic relationship between accuracy and rate, an observation that several factors made speech sound production variable, and a persisting need for cognitive effort while speaking. Speech features improved over an extended time, but the recovery trajectories differed, indicating dynamic reorganization of the underlying speech production system. The relationship among speech dimensions should be examined in other cases and in population samples. The combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods offers advantages for understanding clinically relevant aspects of recovery.

Speech monitoring and phonologically-mediated eye gaze in language perception and production: a comparison using printed word eye-tracking

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Gauvin, Hanna S.; Hartsuiker, Robert J.; Huettig, Falk

2013-01-01

The Perceptual Loop Theory of speech monitoring assumes that speakers routinely inspect their inner speech. In contrast, Huettig and Hartsuiker (2010) observed that listening to one's own speech during language production drives eye-movements to phonologically related printed words with a similar time-course as listening to someone else's speech does in speech perception experiments. This suggests that speakers use their speech perception system to listen to their own overt speech, but not to their inner speech. However, a direct comparison between production and perception with the same stimuli and participants is lacking so far. The current printed word eye-tracking experiment therefore used a within-subjects design, combining production and perception. Displays showed four words, of which one, the target, either had to be named or was presented auditorily. Accompanying words were phonologically related, semantically related, or unrelated to the target. There were small increases in looks to phonological competitors with a similar time-course in both production and perception. Phonological effects in perception however lasted longer and had a much larger magnitude. We conjecture that this difference is related to a difference in predictability of one's own and someone else's speech, which in turn has consequences for lexical competition in other-perception and possibly suppression of activation in self-perception. PMID:24339809

Statistical Learning, Syllable Processing, and Speech Production in Healthy Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Preschool Children: A Mismatch Negativity Study.

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Studer-Eichenberger, Esther; Studer-Eichenberger, Felix; Koenig, Thomas

2016-01-01

The objectives of the present study were to investigate temporal/spectral sound-feature processing in preschool children (4 to 7 years old) with peripheral hearing loss compared with age-matched controls. The results verified the presence of statistical learning, which was diminished in children with hearing impairments (HIs), and elucidated possible perceptual mediators of speech production. Perception and production of the syllables /ba/, /da/, /ta/, and /na/ were recorded in 13 children with normal hearing and 13 children with HI. Perception was assessed physiologically through event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded by EEG in a multifeature mismatch negativity paradigm and behaviorally through a discrimination task. Temporal and spectral features of the ERPs during speech perception were analyzed, and speech production was quantitatively evaluated using speech motor maximum performance tasks. Proximal to stimulus onset, children with HI displayed a difference in map topography, indicating diminished statistical learning. In later ERP components, children with HI exhibited reduced amplitudes in the N2 and early parts of the late disciminative negativity components specifically, which are associated with temporal and spectral control mechanisms. Abnormalities of speech perception were only subtly reflected in speech production, as the lone difference found in speech production studies was a mild delay in regulating speech intensity. In addition to previously reported deficits of sound-feature discriminations, the present study results reflect diminished statistical learning in children with HI, which plays an early and important, but so far neglected, role in phonological processing. Furthermore, the lack of corresponding behavioral abnormalities in speech production implies that impaired perceptual capacities do not necessarily translate into productive deficits.

Large Scale Functional Brain Networks Underlying Temporal Integration of Audio-Visual Speech Perception: An EEG Study.

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Kumar, G Vinodh; Halder, Tamesh; Jaiswal, Amit K; Mukherjee, Abhishek; Roy, Dipanjan; Banerjee, Arpan

2016-01-01

Observable lip movements of the speaker influence perception of auditory speech. A classical example of this influence is reported by listeners who perceive an illusory (cross-modal) speech sound (McGurk-effect) when presented with incongruent audio-visual (AV) speech stimuli. Recent neuroimaging studies of AV speech perception accentuate the role of frontal, parietal, and the integrative brain sites in the vicinity of the superior temporal sulcus (STS) for multisensory speech perception. However, if and how does the network across the whole brain participates during multisensory perception processing remains an open question. We posit that a large-scale functional connectivity among the neural population situated in distributed brain sites may provide valuable insights involved in processing and fusing of AV speech. Varying the psychophysical parameters in tandem with electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, we exploited the trial-by-trial perceptual variability of incongruent audio-visual (AV) speech stimuli to identify the characteristics of the large-scale cortical network that facilitates multisensory perception during synchronous and asynchronous AV speech. We evaluated the spectral landscape of EEG signals during multisensory speech perception at varying AV lags. Functional connectivity dynamics for all sensor pairs was computed using the time-frequency global coherence, the vector sum of pairwise coherence changes over time. During synchronous AV speech, we observed enhanced global gamma-band coherence and decreased alpha and beta-band coherence underlying cross-modal (illusory) perception compared to unisensory perception around a temporal window of 300-600 ms following onset of stimuli. During asynchronous speech stimuli, a global broadband coherence was observed during cross-modal perception at earlier times along with pre-stimulus decreases of lower frequency power, e.g., alpha rhythms for positive AV lags and theta rhythms for negative AV lags. Thus, our

Speech Compression

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Jerry D. Gibson

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Speech compression is a key technology underlying digital cellular communications, VoIP, voicemail, and voice response systems. We trace the evolution of speech coding based on the linear prediction model, highlight the key milestones in speech coding, and outline the structures of the most important speech coding standards. Current challenges, future research directions, fundamental limits on performance, and the critical open problem of speech coding for emergency first responders are all discussed.

Difficulty understanding speech in noise by the hearing impaired: underlying causes and technological solutions.

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Healy, Eric W; Yoho, Sarah E

2016-08-01

A primary complaint of hearing-impaired individuals involves poor speech understanding when background noise is present. Hearing aids and cochlear implants often allow good speech understanding in quiet backgrounds. But hearing-impaired individuals are highly noise intolerant, and existing devices are not very effective at combating background noise. As a result, speech understanding in noise is often quite poor. In accord with the significance of the problem, considerable effort has been expended toward understanding and remedying this issue. Fortunately, our understanding of the underlying issues is reasonably good. In sharp contrast, effective solutions have remained elusive. One solution that seems promising involves a single-microphone machine-learning algorithm to extract speech from background noise. Data from our group indicate that the algorithm is capable of producing vast increases in speech understanding by hearing-impaired individuals. This paper will first provide an overview of the speech-in-noise problem and outline why hearing-impaired individuals are so noise intolerant. An overview of our approach to solving this problem will follow.

Syllable Frequency and Syllable Structure in Apraxia of Speech

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Aichert, Ingrid; Ziegler, Wolfram

2004-01-01

Recent accounts of the pathomechanism underlying apraxia of speech (AOS) were based on the speech production model of Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer, and Meyer (1999)1999. The apraxic impairment was localized to the phonetic encoding level where the model postulates a mental store of motor programs for high-frequency syllables. Varley and Whiteside…

Lexical effects on speech production and intelligibility in Parkinson's disease

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Chiu, Yi-Fang

Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) often have speech deficits that lead to reduced speech intelligibility. Previous research provides a rich database regarding the articulatory deficits associated with PD including restricted vowel space (Skodda, Visser, & Schlegel, 2011) and flatter formant transitions (Tjaden & Wilding, 2004; Walsh & Smith, 2012). However, few studies consider the effect of higher level structural variables of word usage frequency and the number of similar sounding words (i.e. neighborhood density) on lower level articulation or on listeners' perception of dysarthric speech. The purpose of the study is to examine the interaction of lexical properties and speech articulation as measured acoustically in speakers with PD and healthy controls (HC) and the effect of lexical properties on the perception of their speech. Individuals diagnosed with PD and age-matched healthy controls read sentences with words that varied in word frequency and neighborhood density. Acoustic analysis was performed to compare second formant transitions in diphthongs, an indicator of the dynamics of tongue movement during speech production, across different lexical characteristics. Young listeners transcribed the spoken sentences and the transcription accuracy was compared across lexical conditions. The acoustic results indicate that both PD and HC speakers adjusted their articulation based on lexical properties but the PD group had significant reductions in second formant transitions compared to HC. Both groups of speakers increased second formant transitions for words with low frequency and low density, but the lexical effect is diphthong dependent. The change in second formant slope was limited in the PD group when the required formant movement for the diphthong is small. The data from listeners' perception of the speech by PD and HC show that listeners identified high frequency words with greater accuracy suggesting the use of lexical knowledge during the

The impact of brief restriction to articulation on children's subsequent speech production.

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Seidl, Amanda; Brosseau-Lapré, Françoise; Goffman, Lisa

2018-02-01

This project explored whether disruption of articulation during listening impacts subsequent speech production in 4-yr-olds with and without speech sound disorder (SSD). During novel word learning, typically-developing children showed effects of articulatory disruption as revealed by larger differences between two acoustic cues to a sound contrast, but children with SSD were unaffected by articulatory disruption. Findings suggest that, when typically developing 4-yr-olds experience an articulatory disruption during a listening task, the children's subsequent production is affected. Children with SSD show less influence of articulatory experience during perception, which could be the result of impaired or attenuated ties between perception and articulation.

Primary progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech.

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Jung, Youngsin; Duffy, Joseph R; Josephs, Keith A

2013-09-01

Primary progressive aphasia is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by progressive language dysfunction. The majority of primary progressive aphasia cases can be classified into three subtypes: nonfluent/agrammatic, semantic, and logopenic variants. Each variant presents with unique clinical features, and is associated with distinctive underlying pathology and neuroimaging findings. Unlike primary progressive aphasia, apraxia of speech is a disorder that involves inaccurate production of sounds secondary to impaired planning or programming of speech movements. Primary progressive apraxia of speech is a neurodegenerative form of apraxia of speech, and it should be distinguished from primary progressive aphasia given its discrete clinicopathological presentation. Recently, there have been substantial advances in our understanding of these speech and language disorders. The clinical, neuroimaging, and histopathological features of primary progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech are reviewed in this article. The distinctions among these disorders for accurate diagnosis are increasingly important from a prognostic and therapeutic standpoint. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Bridging computational approaches to speech production: The semantic–lexical–auditory–motor model (SLAM)

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Hickok, Gregory

2017-01-01

Speech production is studied from both psycholinguistic and motor-control perspectives, with little interaction between the approaches. We assessed the explanatory value of integrating psycholinguistic and motor-control concepts for theories of speech production. By augmenting a popular psycholinguistic model of lexical retrieval with a motor-control-inspired architecture, we created a new computational model to explain speech errors in the context of aphasia. Comparing the model fits to picture-naming data from 255 aphasic patients, we found that our new model improves fits for a theoretically predictable subtype of aphasia: conduction. We discovered that the improved fits for this group were a result of strong auditory-lexical feedback activation, combined with weaker auditory-motor feedforward activation, leading to increased competition from phonologically related neighbors during lexical selection. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to other extant models of lexical retrieval. PMID:26223468

Representational Similarity Analysis Reveals Heterogeneous Networks Supporting Speech Motor Control

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zheng, Zane; Cusack, Rhodri; Johnsrude, Ingrid

The everyday act of speaking involves the complex processes of speech motor control. One important feature of such control is regulation of articulation when auditory concomitants of speech do not correspond to the intended motor gesture. While theoretical accounts of speech monitoring posit...... multiple functional components required for detection of errors in speech planning (e.g., Levelt, 1983), neuroimaging studies generally indicate either single brain regions sensitive to speech production errors, or small, discrete networks. Here we demonstrate that the complex system controlling speech...... is supported by a complex neural network that is involved in linguistic, motoric and sensory processing. With the aid of novel real-time acoustic analyses and representational similarity analyses of fMRI signals, our data show functionally differentiated networks underlying auditory feedback control of speech....

Speech entrainment enables patients with Broca’s aphasia to produce fluent speech

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Hubbard, H. Isabel; Hudspeth, Sarah Grace; Holland, Audrey L.; Bonilha, Leonardo; Fromm, Davida; Rorden, Chris

2012-01-01

A distinguishing feature of Broca’s aphasia is non-fluent halting speech typically involving one to three words per utterance. Yet, despite such profound impairments, some patients can mimic audio-visual speech stimuli enabling them to produce fluent speech in real time. We call this effect ‘speech entrainment’ and reveal its neural mechanism as well as explore its usefulness as a treatment for speech production in Broca’s aphasia. In Experiment 1, 13 patients with Broca’s aphasia were tested in three conditions: (i) speech entrainment with audio-visual feedback where they attempted to mimic a speaker whose mouth was seen on an iPod screen; (ii) speech entrainment with audio-only feedback where patients mimicked heard speech; and (iii) spontaneous speech where patients spoke freely about assigned topics. The patients produced a greater variety of words using audio-visual feedback compared with audio-only feedback and spontaneous speech. No difference was found between audio-only feedback and spontaneous speech. In Experiment 2, 10 of the 13 patients included in Experiment 1 and 20 control subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the neural mechanism that supports speech entrainment. Group results with patients and controls revealed greater bilateral cortical activation for speech produced during speech entrainment compared with spontaneous speech at the junction of the anterior insula and Brodmann area 47, in Brodmann area 37, and unilaterally in the left middle temporal gyrus and the dorsal portion of Broca’s area. Probabilistic white matter tracts constructed for these regions in the normal subjects revealed a structural network connected via the corpus callosum and ventral fibres through the extreme capsule. Unilateral areas were connected via the arcuate fasciculus. In Experiment 3, all patients included in Experiment 1 participated in a 6-week treatment phase using speech entrainment to improve speech production

Self-Judgments of Word Production Accuracy in Acquired Apraxia of Speech.

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Wambaugh, Julie; Shuster, Linda; Bailey, Dallin J; Mauszycki, Shannon; Kean, Jacob; Nessler, Christina; Wright, Sandra; Brunsvold, Jessica

2016-12-01

The ability to recognize one's own speech errors has long been considered a clinical feature of acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) despite limited empirical data supporting this notion. This study was designed to (a) investigate the ability of speakers with AOS to self-judge the accuracy of their own word productions and (b) examine the test-retest stability of a measure to quantify the self-judgments of speakers with AOS. Twenty-four speakers with AOS and aphasia repeated mono- and multisyllabic words. After each word, they indicated whether their production was correct or incorrect. This procedure was repeated 1 week later to examine performance stability. Percentage of incorrect word productions was stable for the group across times. Accuracy of judgments ranged from 64% to 100% at Time 1 and from 56% to 100% at Time 2. Inaccurate judgments of error productions (false positives) occurred much more frequently than inaccurate judgments of correct productions (false negatives). Error production was remarkably stable in our participants. As a group, the participants failed to detect almost one third of words produced erroneously. However, accuracy and stability of judgments over sampling times varied across participants. Findings suggest that error awareness might be a worthwhile target for treatment in some individuals with AOS.

An evaluation of the effectiveness of PROMPT therapy in improving speech production accuracy in six children with cerebral palsy.

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Ward, Roslyn; Leitão, Suze; Strauss, Geoff

2014-08-01

This study evaluates perceptual changes in speech production accuracy in six children (3-11 years) with moderate-to-severe speech impairment associated with cerebral palsy before, during, and after participation in a motor-speech intervention program (Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets). An A1BCA2 single subject research design was implemented. Subsequent to the baseline phase (phase A1), phase B targeted each participant's first intervention priority on the PROMPT motor-speech hierarchy. Phase C then targeted one level higher. Weekly speech probes were administered, containing trained and untrained words at the two levels of intervention, plus an additional level that served as a control goal. The speech probes were analysed for motor-speech-movement-parameters and perceptual accuracy. Analysis of the speech probe data showed all participants recorded a statistically significant change. Between phases A1-B and B-C 6/6 and 4/6 participants, respectively, recorded a statistically significant increase in performance level on the motor speech movement patterns targeted during the training of that intervention. The preliminary data presented in this study make a contribution to providing evidence that supports the use of a treatment approach aligned with dynamic systems theory to improve the motor-speech movement patterns and speech production accuracy in children with cerebral palsy.

The Interaction between Prosody and Meaning in Second Language Speech Production

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Jackson, Carrie N.; O'Brien, Mary Grantham

2011-01-01

Research has shown that English and German native speakers use prosodic cues during speech production to convey the intended meaning of an utterance. However, little is known about whether American L2 learners of German also use such cues during L2 production. The present study shows that inter-mediate-level L2 learners of German (English L1) use…

Improving on hidden Markov models: An articulatorily constrained, maximum likelihood approach to speech recognition and speech coding

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hogden, J.

1996-11-05

The goal of the proposed research is to test a statistical model of speech recognition that incorporates the knowledge that speech is produced by relatively slow motions of the tongue, lips, and other speech articulators. This model is called Maximum Likelihood Continuity Mapping (Malcom). Many speech researchers believe that by using constraints imposed by articulator motions, we can improve or replace the current hidden Markov model based speech recognition algorithms. Unfortunately, previous efforts to incorporate information about articulation into speech recognition algorithms have suffered because (1) slight inaccuracies in our knowledge or the formulation of our knowledge about articulation may decrease recognition performance, (2) small changes in the assumptions underlying models of speech production can lead to large changes in the speech derived from the models, and (3) collecting measurements of human articulator positions in sufficient quantity for training a speech recognition algorithm is still impractical. The most interesting (and in fact, unique) quality of Malcom is that, even though Malcom makes use of a mapping between acoustics and articulation, Malcom can be trained to recognize speech using only acoustic data. By learning the mapping between acoustics and articulation using only acoustic data, Malcom avoids the difficulties involved in collecting articulator position measurements and does not require an articulatory synthesizer model to estimate the mapping between vocal tract shapes and speech acoustics. Preliminary experiments that demonstrate that Malcom can learn the mapping between acoustics and articulation are discussed. Potential applications of Malcom aside from speech recognition are also discussed. Finally, specific deliverables resulting from the proposed research are described.

Preserved speech abilities and compensation following prefrontal damage.

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Buckner, R L; Corbetta, M; Schatz, J; Raichle, M E; Petersen, S E

1996-02-06

Lesions to left frontal cortex in humans produce speech production impairments (nonfluent aphasia). These impairments vary from subject to subject and performance on certain speech production tasks can be relatively preserved in some patients. A possible explanation for preservation of function under these circumstances is that areas outside left prefrontal cortex are used to compensate for the injured brain area. We report here a direct demonstration of preserved language function in a stroke patient (LF1) apparently due to the activation of a compensatory brain pathway. We used functional brain imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) as a basis for this study.

Lexical Access in L2 Speech Production: a controlled serial search task

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Gicele Vergine Vieira

2017-09-01

Full Text Available When it comes to lexical access in L2 speech production, working memory (WM seems to play a central role as for less automatized procedures require more WM capacity to be executed (Prebianca, 2007. With that in mind, this paper aims at claiming that bilingual lexical access qualifies as a controlled serial strategic search task susceptible to individual differences in WM capacity. Evidence in support of such claim is provided by the results of AUTHOR's (2010 study conducted so as to investigate the relationship between L2 lexical access, WMC and L2 proficiency. AUTHOR's (2010 findings indicate that bilingual lexical access entails underlying processes such as cue generation, set delimitation, serial search and monitoring, which to be carried out, require the allocation of attention. Attention is limited and, as a result, only higher spans were able to perform these underlying processes automatically.

A causal test of the motor theory of speech perception: a case of impaired speech production and spared speech perception.

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Stasenko, Alena; Bonn, Cory; Teghipco, Alex; Garcea, Frank E; Sweet, Catherine; Dombovy, Mary; McDonough, Joyce; Mahon, Bradford Z

2015-01-01

The debate about the causal role of the motor system in speech perception has been reignited by demonstrations that motor processes are engaged during the processing of speech sounds. Here, we evaluate which aspects of auditory speech processing are affected, and which are not, in a stroke patient with dysfunction of the speech motor system. We found that the patient showed a normal phonemic categorical boundary when discriminating two non-words that differ by a minimal pair (e.g., ADA-AGA). However, using the same stimuli, the patient was unable to identify or label the non-word stimuli (using a button-press response). A control task showed that he could identify speech sounds by speaker gender, ruling out a general labelling impairment. These data suggest that while the motor system is not causally involved in perception of the speech signal, it may be used when other cues (e.g., meaning, context) are not available.

Inner Speech's Relationship With Overt Speech in Poststroke Aphasia.

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Stark, Brielle C; Geva, Sharon; Warburton, Elizabeth A

2017-09-18

Relatively preserved inner speech alongside poor overt speech has been documented in some persons with aphasia (PWA), but the relationship of overt speech with inner speech is still largely unclear, as few studies have directly investigated these factors. The present study investigates the relationship of relatively preserved inner speech in aphasia with selected measures of language and cognition. Thirty-eight persons with chronic aphasia (27 men, 11 women; average age 64.53 ± 13.29 years, time since stroke 8-111 months) were classified as having relatively preserved inner and overt speech (n = 21), relatively preserved inner speech with poor overt speech (n = 8), or not classified due to insufficient measurements of inner and/or overt speech (n = 9). Inner speech scores (by group) were correlated with selected measures of language and cognition from the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (Swinburn, Porter, & Al, 2004). The group with poor overt speech showed a significant relationship of inner speech with overt naming (r = .95, p speech and language and cognition factors were not significant for the group with relatively good overt speech. As in previous research, we show that relatively preserved inner speech is found alongside otherwise severe production deficits in PWA. PWA with poor overt speech may rely more on preserved inner speech for overt picture naming (perhaps due to shared resources with verbal working memory) and for written picture description (perhaps due to reliance on inner speech due to perceived task difficulty). Assessments of inner speech may be useful as a standard component of aphasia screening, and therapy focused on improving and using inner speech may prove clinically worthwhile. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5303542.

THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO‘S THOUGHT PATTERNS IN HIS ENGLISH SPEECH TEXTS

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Sulistya ningsih

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The underlying principles of thought patterns as shown in SBY's English Speeches Texts are made because there are different responses from the public, a part of public praise that SBY is a good president, and others claim and criticize him that  he is slow (Djalal, 2007: forward page. This title so far has not been investigated. This research was aimed at finding out:  the underlying principles of SBY’s thought patterns in his English Speech Texts related to Javanese philosophy. This research is qualitative. The data selected from SBY’s speech Texts were analyzed using semantic and pragmastylistic theory then were related to Javanese philosophy. The findings are the underlying principles of SBY’s thought patterns based on Javanese philosophy manifested in his English Speech Texts are: first is Memayu Hayuning Bawana, Ambrasta dur Hangkara means to reach safety, peace, happiness and well-being of the world and its contents, to keep the world maintained and harmony. Second, Rukun agawe santosa crah agawe bubrah  means to build the condition of harmony, and avoid conflict, because conflict can be harmful to both parties. Third, tepa selira means keep thinking not to offend others or lighten the burdens of others, tolerance. Fourth is ana rembug becik dirembug means thru negotiations can avoid conflict and achieve cooperation, safety, peace and prosperity. In sum, the world peace can be reached thru discussions without war, soft powers.

[Clinical study of post-stroke speech apraxia treated with scalp electric acupuncture under anatomic orientation and rehabilitation training].

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Yujuan; Yang, Yuxia; Xiang, Rong; Chang, E; Zhang, Yanchun; Zuo, Bingfang; Zhang, Qianwei

2015-07-01

To compare the differences in the clinical efficacy on post-stroke speech disorder between scalp electric acupuncture (EA) under anatomic orientation combined with rehabilitation training and simple rehabilitation training. Sixty patients of post-stroke speech apraxia were randomized into an observation group and a control group, 30 cases in each one. In the observation group, under anatomic orientation, the scalp EA was adopted to the dominant hemisphere Broca area on the left cerebrum. Additionally, the speech rehabilitation training was combined. In the control group, the speech rehabilitation training was simply,used. The treatment lasted for 4 weeks totally. The speech movement program module in the psychological language assessment and treatment system of Chinese aphasia was used for the evident of efficacy assessment. The scores of counting, singing scale, repeating phonetic alphabet, repeating monosyllable and repeating disyllable were observed in the patients of the two groups. The assessment was done separately on the day of grouping and 4 weeks after treatment. In 4 weeks of treatment, the scores of counting, singing scale, repeating phonetic alphabet, repeating monosyllable and repeating disyllable were all improved as compared with those before treatment in the two groups (all Pspeech rehabilitation training obviously improves speech apraxia in stroke patients so that the speech disorder cani be relieved. The efficacy is better than that in simple rehabilitation training.

The treatment of apraxia of speech : Speech and music therapy, an innovative joint effort

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hurkmans, Josephus Johannes Stephanus

2016-01-01

Apraxia of Speech (AoS) is a neurogenic speech disorder. A wide variety of behavioural methods have been developed to treat AoS. Various therapy programmes use musical elements to improve speech production. A unique therapy programme combining elements of speech therapy and music therapy is called

Neurophysiology of speech differences in childhood apraxia of speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Preston, Jonathan L; Molfese, Peter J; Gumkowski, Nina; Sorcinelli, Andrea; Harwood, Vanessa; Irwin, Julia R; Landi, Nicole

2014-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a picture naming task of simple and complex words in children with typical speech and with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Results reveal reduced amplitude prior to speaking complex (multisyllabic) words relative to simple (monosyllabic) words for the CAS group over the right hemisphere during a time window thought to reflect phonological encoding of word forms. Group differences were also observed prior to production of spoken tokens regardless of word complexity during a time window just prior to speech onset (thought to reflect motor planning/programming). Results suggest differences in pre-speech neurolinguistic processes.

Hotel workers and the production of tourist speech

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Juliana Souza Dartora

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Exploratory research undertaken in the city of Caxias do Sul/RS, aimed to analyze the production of speeches related to Tourism by local hotel workers. Concepts and basis from Social Psychology are used, specially the constructs ‘perception’ and ‘attitude’, and the theories on Social Communication about imaginaries. The methodology of the analysis also makes use of the content analysis as proposed by Bardin (1997, in the context of communication studies. The results illustrate that the subjects do not consider satisfactory the city relationship with the tourist activity, when it is compared to other cities belonging to the same region, attributing the fact, among others, that other cities would be in the media more frequently and that in Caxias do Sul, the industry sector would overlap the tourist sector. This illustrates the reproduction of a traditional imaginary pointed out by the WTO, in which tourism would be associated exclusively to leisure. Nevertheless, the category business travel is a constant in the worker’s speech.

Visual Grouping in Accordance With Utterance Planning Facilitates Speech Production

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Liming Zhao

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Research on language production has focused on the process of utterance planning and involved studying the synchronization between visual gaze and the production of sentences that refer to objects in the immediate visual environment. However, it remains unclear how the visual grouping of these objects might influence this process. To shed light on this issue, the present research examined the effects of the visual grouping of objects in a visual display on utterance planning in two experiments. Participants produced utterances of the form “The snail and the necklace are above/below/on the left/right side of the toothbrush” for objects containing these referents (e.g., a snail, a necklace and a toothbrush. These objects were grouped using classic Gestalt principles of color similarity (Experiment 1 and common region (Experiment 2 so that the induced perceptual grouping was congruent or incongruent with the required phrasal organization. The results showed that speech onset latencies were shorter in congruent than incongruent conditions. The findings therefore reveal that the congruency between the visual grouping of referents and the required phrasal organization can influence speech production. Such findings suggest that, when language is produced in a visual context, speakers make use of both visual and linguistic cues to plan utterances.

Visual Grouping in Accordance With Utterance Planning Facilitates Speech Production.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Liming; Paterson, Kevin B; Bai, Xuejun

2018-01-01

Research on language production has focused on the process of utterance planning and involved studying the synchronization between visual gaze and the production of sentences that refer to objects in the immediate visual environment. However, it remains unclear how the visual grouping of these objects might influence this process. To shed light on this issue, the present research examined the effects of the visual grouping of objects in a visual display on utterance planning in two experiments. Participants produced utterances of the form "The snail and the necklace are above/below/on the left/right side of the toothbrush" for objects containing these referents (e.g., a snail, a necklace and a toothbrush). These objects were grouped using classic Gestalt principles of color similarity (Experiment 1) and common region (Experiment 2) so that the induced perceptual grouping was congruent or incongruent with the required phrasal organization. The results showed that speech onset latencies were shorter in congruent than incongruent conditions. The findings therefore reveal that the congruency between the visual grouping of referents and the required phrasal organization can influence speech production. Such findings suggest that, when language is produced in a visual context, speakers make use of both visual and linguistic cues to plan utterances.

Digital speech processing using Matlab

CERN Document Server

Gopi, E S

2014-01-01

Digital Speech Processing Using Matlab deals with digital speech pattern recognition, speech production model, speech feature extraction, and speech compression. The book is written in a manner that is suitable for beginners pursuing basic research in digital speech processing. Matlab illustrations are provided for most topics to enable better understanding of concepts. This book also deals with the basic pattern recognition techniques (illustrated with speech signals using Matlab) such as PCA, LDA, ICA, SVM, HMM, GMM, BPN, and KSOM.

Psychometric characteristics of single-word tests of children's speech sound production.

Science.gov (United States)

Flipsen, Peter; Ogiela, Diane A

2015-04-01

Our understanding of test construction has improved since the now-classic review by McCauley and Swisher (1984). The current review article examines the psychometric characteristics of current single-word tests of speech sound production in an attempt to determine whether our tests have improved since then. It also provides a resource that clinicians may use to help them make test selection decisions for their particular client populations. Ten tests published since 1990 were reviewed to determine whether they met the 10 criteria set out by McCauley and Swisher (1984), as well as 7 additional criteria. All of the tests reviewed met at least 3 of McCauley and Swisher's (1984) original criteria, and 9 of 10 tests met at least 5 of them. Most of the tests met some of the additional criteria as well. The state of the art for single-word tests of speech sound production in children appears to have improved in the last 30 years. There remains, however, room for improvement.

THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE ON THE STEPS OF PERSUASIVE KEYNOTE SPEECH

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Alief Noor Farida

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Persuasion in business is important. It can be done by giving information about the products to the customers via advertisements or keynote speech when the company is launching the products. As the function of a keynote speech is important, the speaker of the event should be able to deliver the speech in a clear and concise manner. In this study, discourse analysis was done to find out the moves of persuasive keynote speech in mobile phone launching events. There were four keynote speeches analyzed. They have similar move structure: Introduction^Body^Conclusion, but the steps constructing the moves are different, especially in Move 1 and Move 3. In Move 2, the steps follow Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. The structure of the steps in the move 1 and move 2 of the keynote speeches under study varies. The variation of step structure is highly influenced by the cultural background of both the speakers and the audiences; eastern and western culture have some significant differences. This study shows that basic knowledge on the audience’s cultural background will help the keynote speaker to construct his/her speech to give better persuasive effect on the audience.

Sensory-motor relationships in speech production in post-lingually deaf cochlear-implanted adults and normal-hearing seniors: Evidence from phonetic convergence and speech imitation.

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Scarbel, Lucie; Beautemps, Denis; Schwartz, Jean-Luc; Sato, Marc

2017-07-01

Speech communication can be viewed as an interactive process involving a functional coupling between sensory and motor systems. One striking example comes from phonetic convergence, when speakers automatically tend to mimic their interlocutor's speech during communicative interaction. The goal of this study was to investigate sensory-motor linkage in speech production in postlingually deaf cochlear implanted participants and normal hearing elderly adults through phonetic convergence and imitation. To this aim, two vowel production tasks, with or without instruction to imitate an acoustic vowel, were proposed to three groups of young adults with normal hearing, elderly adults with normal hearing and post-lingually deaf cochlear-implanted patients. Measure of the deviation of each participant's f 0 from their own mean f 0 was measured to evaluate the ability to converge to each acoustic target. showed that cochlear-implanted participants have the ability to converge to an acoustic target, both intentionally and unintentionally, albeit with a lower degree than young and elderly participants with normal hearing. By providing evidence for phonetic convergence and speech imitation, these results suggest that, as in young adults, perceptuo-motor relationships are efficient in elderly adults with normal hearing and that cochlear-implanted adults recovered significant perceptuo-motor abilities following cochlear implantation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The speech perception skills of children with and without speech sound disorder.

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Hearnshaw, Stephanie; Baker, Elise; Munro, Natalie

To investigate whether Australian-English speaking children with and without speech sound disorder (SSD) differ in their overall speech perception accuracy. Additionally, to investigate differences in the perception of specific phonemes and the association between speech perception and speech production skills. Twenty-five Australian-English speaking children aged 48-60 months participated in this study. The SSD group included 12 children and the typically developing (TD) group included 13 children. Children completed routine speech and language assessments in addition to an experimental Australian-English lexical and phonetic judgement task based on Rvachew's Speech Assessment and Interactive Learning System (SAILS) program (Rvachew, 2009). This task included eight words across four word-initial phonemes-/k, ɹ, ʃ, s/. Children with SSD showed significantly poorer perceptual accuracy on the lexical and phonetic judgement task compared with TD peers. The phonemes /ɹ/ and /s/ were most frequently perceived in error across both groups. Additionally, the phoneme /ɹ/ was most commonly produced in error. There was also a positive correlation between overall speech perception and speech production scores. Children with SSD perceived speech less accurately than their typically developing peers. The findings suggest that an Australian-English variation of a lexical and phonetic judgement task similar to the SAILS program is promising and worthy of a larger scale study. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Environmental Contamination of Normal Speech.

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Harley, Trevor A.

1990-01-01

Environmentally contaminated speech errors (irrelevant words or phrases derived from the speaker's environment and erroneously incorporated into speech) are hypothesized to occur at a high level of speech processing, but with a relatively late insertion point. The data indicate that speech production processes are not independent of other…

Distinct ERP Signatures of Word Frequency, Phrase Frequency, and Prototypicality in Speech Production

Science.gov (United States)

Hendrix, Peter; Bolger, Patrick; Baayen, Harald

2017-01-01

Recent studies have documented frequency effects for word n-grams, independently of word unigram frequency. Further studies have revealed constructional prototype effects, both at the word level as well as for phrases. The present speech production study investigates the time course of these effects for the production of prepositional phrases in…

Speech Prosody in Cerebellar Ataxia

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Casper, Maureen A.; Raphael, Lawrence J.; Harris, Katherine S.; Geibel, Jennifer M.

2007-01-01

Persons with cerebellar ataxia exhibit changes in physical coordination and speech and voice production. Previously, these alterations of speech and voice production were described primarily via perceptual coordinates. In this study, the spatial-temporal properties of syllable production were examined in 12 speakers, six of whom were healthy…

A test of speech motor control on word level productions: The SPA Test (Dutch: Screening Pittige Articulatie)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P. Dejonckere; F. Wijnen; Dr. Yvonne van Zaalen

2009-01-01

The primary objective of this article is to study whether an assessment instrument specifically designed to assess speech motor control on word level productions would be able to add differential diagnostic speech characteristics between people who clutter and people who stutter. It was hypothesized

Exploring the Link Between Cognitive Abilities and Speech Recognition in the Elderly Under Different Listening Conditions

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Theresa Nuesse

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Elderly listeners are known to differ considerably in their ability to understand speech in noise. Several studies have addressed the underlying factors that contribute to these differences. These factors include audibility, and age-related changes in supra-threshold auditory processing abilities, and it has been suggested that differences in cognitive abilities may also be important. The objective of this study was to investigate associations between performance in cognitive tasks and speech recognition under different listening conditions in older adults with either age appropriate hearing or hearing-impairment. To that end, speech recognition threshold (SRT measurements were performed under several masking conditions that varied along the perceptual dimensions of dip listening, spatial separation, and informational masking. In addition, a neuropsychological test battery was administered, which included measures of verbal working and short-term memory, executive functioning, selective and divided attention, and lexical and semantic abilities. Age-matched groups of older adults with either age-appropriate hearing (ENH, n = 20 or aided hearing impairment (EHI, n = 21 participated. In repeated linear regression analyses, composite scores of cognitive test outcomes (evaluated using PCA were included to predict SRTs. These associations were different for the two groups. When hearing thresholds were controlled for, composed cognitive factors were significantly associated with the SRTs for the ENH listeners. Whereas better lexical and semantic abilities were associated with lower (better SRTs in this group, there was a negative association between attentional abilities and speech recognition in the presence of spatially separated speech-like maskers. For the EHI group, the pure-tone thresholds (averaged across 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz were significantly associated with the SRTs, despite the fact that all signals were amplified and therefore in principle

Speech Act Classification of German Advertising Texts

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Артур Нарманович Мамедов

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This paper uses the theory of speech acts and the underlying concept of pragmalinguistics to determine the types of speech acts and their classification in the German advertising printed texts. We ascertain that the advertising of cars and accessories, household appliances and computer equipment, watches, fancy goods, food, pharmaceuticals, and financial, insurance, legal services and also airline advertising is dominated by a pragmatic principle, which is based on demonstrating information about the benefits of a product / service. This influences the frequent usage of certain speech acts. The dominant form of exposure is to inform the recipient-user about the characteristics of the advertised product. This information is fore-grounded by means of stylistic and syntactic constructions specific to the advertisement (participial constructions, appositional constructions which contribute to emphasize certain notional components within the framework of the advertising text. Stylistic and syntactic devices of reduction (parceling constructions convey the author's idea. Other means like repetitions, enumerations etc are used by the advertiser to strengthen his selling power. The advertiser focuses the attention of the consumer on the characteristics of the product seeking to convince him of the utility of the product and to influence his/ her buying behavior.

Systematic Studies of Modified Vocalization: The Effect of Speech Rate on Speech Production Measures during Metronome-Paced Speech in Persons Who Stutter

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Davidow, Jason H.

2014-01-01

Background: Metronome-paced speech results in the elimination, or substantial reduction, of stuttering moments. The cause of fluency during this fluency-inducing condition is unknown. Several investigations have reported changes in speech pattern characteristics from a control condition to a metronome-paced speech condition, but failure to control…

The normalities and abnormalities associated with speech in psychometrically-defined schizotypy.

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Cohen, Alex S; Auster, Tracey L; McGovern, Jessica E; MacAulay, Rebecca K

2014-12-01

Speech deficits are thought to be an important feature of schizotypy--defined as the personality organization reflecting a putative liability for schizophrenia. There is reason to suspect that these deficits manifest as a function of limited cognitive resources. To evaluate this idea, we examined speech from individuals with psychometrically-defined schizotypy during a low cognitively-demanding task versus a relatively high cognitively-demanding task. A range of objective, computer-based measures of speech tapping speech production (silence, number and length of pauses, number and length of utterances), speech variability (global and local intonation and emphasis) and speech content (word fillers, idea density) were employed. Data for control (n=37) and schizotypy (n=39) groups were examined. Results did not confirm our hypotheses. While the cognitive-load task reduced speech expressivity for subjects as a group for most variables, the schizotypy group was not more pathological in speech characteristics compared to the control group. Interestingly, some aspects of speech in schizotypal versus control subjects were healthier under high cognitive load. Moreover, schizotypal subjects performed better, at a trend level, than controls on the cognitively demanding task. These findings hold important implications for our understanding of the neurocognitive architecture associated with the schizophrenia-spectrum. Of particular note concerns the apparent mismatch between self-reported schizotypal traits and objective performance, and the resiliency of speech under cognitive stress in persons with high levels of schizotypy. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Functional heterogeneity within the default network during semantic processing and speech production.

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Mohamed L Seghier

2012-08-01

Full Text Available This fMRI study investigated the functional heterogeneity of the core nodes of the default mode network (DMN during language processing. The core nodes of the DMN were defined as task-induced deactivations over multiple tasks in 94 healthy subjects. We used a factorial design that manipulated different tasks (semantic matching or speech production and stimuli (familiar words and objects or unfamiliar stimuli, alternating with periods of fixation/rest. Our findings revealed several consistent effects in the DMN, namely less deactivations in the left inferior parietal lobule during semantic than perceptual matching in parallel with greater deactivations during semantic matching in anterior subdivisions of the posterior cingulate cortex and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This suggests that, when the brain is engaged in effortful semantic tasks, a part of the DMN in the left angular gyrus was less deactivated as five other nodes of the DMN were more deactivated. These five DMN areas, where deactivation was greater for semantic than perceptual matching, were further differentiated because deactivation was greater in (i posterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex for speech production relative to semantic matching, (ii posterior precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex for perceptual processing relative to speech production and (iii right inferior parietal cortex for pictures of objects relative to written words during both naming and semantic decisions. Our results thus highlight that task difficulty alone cannot fully explain the functional variability in task-induced deactivations. Together these results emphasize that core nodes within the DMN are functionally heterogeneous and differentially sensitive to the type of language processing.

Speech and nonspeech: What are we talking about?

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Maas, Edwin

2017-08-01

Understanding of the behavioural, cognitive and neural underpinnings of speech production is of interest theoretically, and is important for understanding disorders of speech production and how to assess and treat such disorders in the clinic. This paper addresses two claims about the neuromotor control of speech production: (1) speech is subserved by a distinct, specialised motor control system and (2) speech is holistic and cannot be decomposed into smaller primitives. Both claims have gained traction in recent literature, and are central to a task-dependent model of speech motor control. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate thinking about speech production, its disorders and the clinical implications of these claims. The paper poses several conceptual and empirical challenges for these claims - including the critical importance of defining speech. The emerging conclusion is that a task-dependent model is called into question as its two central claims are founded on ill-defined and inconsistently applied concepts. The paper concludes with discussion of methodological and clinical implications, including the potential utility of diadochokinetic (DDK) tasks in assessment of motor speech disorders and the contraindication of nonspeech oral motor exercises to improve speech function.

Changes in speech production in a child with a cochlear implant: acoustic and kinematic evidence.

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Goffman, Lisa; Ertmer, David J; Erdle, Christa

2002-10-01

A method is presented for examining change in motor patterns used to produce linguistic contrasts. In this case study, the method is applied to a child receiving new auditory input following cochlear implantation. This child experienced hearing loss at age 3 years and received a multichannel cochlear implant at age 7 years. Data collection points occurred both pre- and postimplant and included acoustic and kinematic analyses. Overall, this child's speech output was transcribed as accurate across the pre- and postimplant periods. Postimplant, with the onset of new auditory experience, acoustic durations showed a predictable maturational change, usually decreasing in duration. Conversely, the spatiotemporal stability of speech movements initially became more variable postimplantation. The auditory perturbations experienced by this child during development led to changes in the physiological underpinnings of speech production, even when speech output was perceived as accurate.

The analysis of speech acts patterns in two Egyptian inaugural speeches

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Imad Hayif Sameer

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The theory of speech acts, which clarifies what people do when they speak, is not about individual words or sentences that form the basic elements of human communication, but rather about particular speech acts that are performed when uttering words. A speech act is the attempt at doing something purely by speaking. Many things can be done by speaking.  Speech acts are studied under what is called speech act theory, and belong to the domain of pragmatics. In this paper, two Egyptian inaugural speeches from El-Sadat and El-Sisi, belonging to different periods were analyzed to find out whether there were differences within this genre in the same culture or not. The study showed that there was a very small difference between these two speeches which were analyzed according to Searle’s theory of speech acts. In El Sadat’s speech, commissives came to occupy the first place. Meanwhile, in El–Sisi’s speech, assertives occupied the first place. Within the speeches of one culture, we can find that the differences depended on the circumstances that surrounded the elections of the Presidents at the time. Speech acts were tools they used to convey what they wanted and to obtain support from their audiences.

The development of speech production in children with cleft palate

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Willadsen, Elisabeth; Chapman, Kathy

2012-01-01

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of speech development of children with cleft palate +/- cleft lip. The chapter will begin with a discussion of the impact of clefting on speech. Next, we will provide a brief description of those factors impacting speech development...... for this population of children. Finally, research examining various aspects of speech development of infants and young children with cleft palate (birth to age five) will be reviewed. This final section will be organized by typical stages of speech sound development (e.g., prespeech, the early word stage...

Speech Entrainment Compensates for Broca's Area Damage

Science.gov (United States)

Fridriksson, Julius; Basilakos, Alexandra; Hickok, Gregory; Bonilha, Leonardo; Rorden, Chris

2015-01-01

Speech entrainment (SE), the online mimicking of an audiovisual speech model, has been shown to increase speech fluency in patients with Broca's aphasia. However, not all individuals with aphasia benefit from SE. The purpose of this study was to identify patterns of cortical damage that predict a positive response SE's fluency-inducing effects. Forty-four chronic patients with left hemisphere stroke (15 female) were included in this study. Participants completed two tasks: 1) spontaneous speech production, and 2) audiovisual SE. Number of different words per minute was calculated as a speech output measure for each task, with the difference between SE and spontaneous speech conditions yielding a measure of fluency improvement. Voxel-wise lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) was used to relate the number of different words per minute for spontaneous speech, SE, and SE-related improvement to patterns of brain damage in order to predict lesion locations associated with the fluency-inducing response to speech entrainment. Individuals with Broca's aphasia demonstrated a significant increase in different words per minute during speech entrainment versus spontaneous speech. A similar pattern of improvement was not seen in patients with other types of aphasia. VLSM analysis revealed damage to the inferior frontal gyrus predicted this response. Results suggest that SE exerts its fluency-inducing effects by providing a surrogate target for speech production via internal monitoring processes. Clinically, these results add further support for the use of speech entrainment to improve speech production and may help select patients for speech entrainment treatment. PMID:25989443

Perception of synthetic speech produced automatically by rule: Intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Greene, Beth G; Logan, John S; Pisoni, David B

1986-03-01

We present the results of studies designed to measure the segmental intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems and a natural speech control, using the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT). Results indicated that the voices tested could be grouped into four categories: natural speech, high-quality synthetic speech, moderate-quality synthetic speech, and low-quality synthetic speech. The overall performance of the best synthesis system, DECtalk-Paul, was equivalent to natural speech only in terms of performance on initial consonants. The findings are discussed in terms of recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions. Suggestions for future research on improving the quality of synthetic speech are also considered.

Perception of synthetic speech produced automatically by rule: Intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems

Science.gov (United States)

GREENE, BETH G.; LOGAN, JOHN S.; PISONI, DAVID B.

2012-01-01

We present the results of studies designed to measure the segmental intelligibility of eight text-to-speech systems and a natural speech control, using the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT). Results indicated that the voices tested could be grouped into four categories: natural speech, high-quality synthetic speech, moderate-quality synthetic speech, and low-quality synthetic speech. The overall performance of the best synthesis system, DECtalk-Paul, was equivalent to natural speech only in terms of performance on initial consonants. The findings are discussed in terms of recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions. Suggestions for future research on improving the quality of synthetic speech are also considered. PMID:23225916

The role of consolidation in learning context-dependent phonotactic patterns in speech and digital sequence production.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Nathaniel D; Dell, Gary S

2018-04-03

Speakers implicitly learn novel phonotactic patterns by producing strings of syllables. The learning is revealed in their speech errors. First-order patterns, such as "/f/ must be a syllable onset," can be distinguished from contingent, or second-order, patterns, such as "/f/ must be an onset if the vowel is /a/, but a coda if the vowel is /o/." A metaanalysis of 19 experiments clearly demonstrated that first-order patterns affect speech errors to a very great extent in a single experimental session, but second-order vowel-contingent patterns only affect errors on the second day of testing, suggesting the need for a consolidation period. Two experiments tested an analogue to these studies involving sequences of button pushes, with fingers as "consonants" and thumbs as "vowels." The button-push errors revealed two of the key speech-error findings: first-order patterns are learned quickly, but second-order thumb-contingent patterns are only strongly revealed in the errors on the second day of testing. The influence of computational complexity on the implicit learning of phonotactic patterns in speech production may be a general feature of sequence production.

Normal Aspects of Speech, Hearing, and Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Minifie, Fred. D., Ed.; And Others

This book is written as a guide to the understanding of the processes involved in human speech communication. Ten authorities contributed material to provide an introduction to the physiological aspects of speech production and reception, the acoustical aspects of speech production and transmission, the psychophysics of sound reception, the nature…

A functional near-infrared spectroscopic investigation of speech production during reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Nick; Hancock, Allison S; Moon, Todd K; Gillam, Ronald B

2018-03-01

This study was designed to test the extent to which speaking processes related to articulation and voicing influence Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) measures of cortical hemodynamics and functional connectivity. Participants read passages in three conditions (oral reading, silent mouthing, and silent reading) while undergoing fNIRS imaging. Area under the curve (AUC) analyses of the oxygenated and deoxygenated hemodynamic response function concentration values were compared for each task across five regions of interest. There were significant region main effects for both oxy and deoxy AUC analyses, and a significant region × task interaction for deoxy AUC favoring the oral reading condition over the silent reading condition for two nonmotor regions. Assessment of functional connectivity using Granger Causality revealed stronger networks between motor areas during oral reading and stronger networks between language areas during silent reading. There was no evidence that the hemodynamic flow from motor areas during oral reading compromised measures of language-related neural activity in nonmotor areas. However, speech movements had small, but measurable effects on fNIRS measures of neural connections between motor and nonmotor brain areas across the perisylvian region, even after wavelet filtering. Therefore, researchers studying speech processes with fNIRS should use wavelet filtering during preprocessing to reduce speech motion artifacts, incorporate a nonspeech communication or language control task into the research design, and conduct a connectivity analysis to adequately assess the impact of functional speech on the hemodynamic response across the perisylvian region. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The effectiveness of Speech-Music Therapy for Aphasia (SMTA) in five speakers with Apraxia of Speech and aphasia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hurkmans, Joost; Jonkers, Roel; de Bruijn, Madeleen; Boonstra, Anne M.; Hartman, Paul P.; Arendzen, Hans; Reinders - Messelink, Heelen

2015-01-01

Background: Several studies using musical elements in the treatment of neurological language and speech disorders have reported improvement of speech production. One such programme, Speech-Music Therapy for Aphasia (SMTA), integrates speech therapy and music therapy (MT) to treat the individual with

Perceptual pitch deficits coexist with pitch production difficulties in music but not Mandarin speech

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Wu-xia; Feng, Jie; Huang, Wan-ting; Zhang, Cheng-xiang; Nan, Yun

2014-01-01

Congenital amusia is a musical disorder that mainly affects pitch perception. Among Mandarin speakers, some amusics also have difficulties in processing lexical tones (tone agnosics). To examine to what extent these perceptual deficits may be related to pitch production impairments in music and Mandarin speech, eight amusics, eight tone agnosics, and 12 age- and IQ-matched normal native Mandarin speakers were asked to imitate music note sequences and Mandarin words of comparable lengths. The results indicated that both the amusics and tone agnosics underperformed the controls on musical pitch production. However, tone agnosics performed no worse than the amusics, suggesting that lexical tone perception deficits may not aggravate musical pitch production difficulties. Moreover, these three groups were all able to imitate lexical tones with perfect intelligibility. Taken together, the current study shows that perceptual musical pitch and lexical tone deficits might coexist with musical pitch production difficulties. But at the same time these perceptual pitch deficits might not affect lexical tone production or the intelligibility of the speech words that were produced. The perception-production relationship for pitch among individuals with perceptual pitch deficits may be, therefore, domain-dependent. PMID:24474944

Perceptual Pitch Deficits Coexist with Pitch Production Difficulties in Music but Not Mandarin Speech

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Wu-xia eYang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Congenital amusia is a musical disorder that mainly affects pitch perception. Among Mandarin speakers, some amusics also have difficulties in processing lexical tones (tone agnosics. To examine to what extent these perceptual deficits may be related to pitch production impairments in music and Mandarin speech, 8 amusics, 8 tone agnosics, and 12 age- and IQ-matched normal native Mandarin speakers were asked to imitate music note sequences and Mandarin words of comparable lengths. The results indicated that both the amusics and tone agnosics underperformed the controls on musical pitch production. However, tone agnosics performed no worse than the amusics, suggesting that lexical tone perception deficits may not aggravate musical pitch production difficulties. Moreover, these three groups were all able to imitate lexical tones with perfect intelligibility. Taken together, the current study shows that perceptual musical pitch and lexical tone deficits might coexist with musical pitch production difficulties. But at the same time these perceptual pitch deficits might not affect lexical tone production or the intelligibility of the speech words that were produced. The perception-production relationship for pitch among individuals with perceptual pitch deficits may be, therefore, domain-dependent.

Tackling the complexity in speech

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

section includes four carefully selected chapters. They deal with facets of speech production, speech acoustics, and/or speech perception or recognition, place them in an integrated phonetic-phonological perspective, and relate them in more or less explicit ways to aspects of speech technology. Therefore......, we hope that this volume can help speech scientists with traditional training in phonetics and phonology to keep up with the latest developments in speech technology. In the opposite direction, speech researchers starting from a technological perspective will hopefully get inspired by reading about...... the questions, phenomena, and communicative functions that are currently addressed in phonetics and phonology. Either way, the future of speech research lies in international, interdisciplinary collaborations, and our volume is meant to reflect and facilitate such collaborations...

Song and speech: examining the link between singing talent and speech imitation ability.

Science.gov (United States)

Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne M

2013-01-01

In previous research on speech imitation, musicality, and an ability to sing were isolated as the strongest indicators of good pronunciation skills in foreign languages. We, therefore, wanted to take a closer look at the nature of the ability to sing, which shares a common ground with the ability to imitate speech. This study focuses on whether good singing performance predicts good speech imitation. Forty-one singers of different levels of proficiency were selected for the study and their ability to sing, to imitate speech, their musical talent and working memory were tested. Results indicated that singing performance is a better indicator of the ability to imitate speech than the playing of a musical instrument. A multiple regression revealed that 64% of the speech imitation score variance could be explained by working memory together with educational background and singing performance. A second multiple regression showed that 66% of the speech imitation variance of completely unintelligible and unfamiliar language stimuli (Hindi) could be explained by working memory together with a singer's sense of rhythm and quality of voice. This supports the idea that both vocal behaviors have a common grounding in terms of vocal and motor flexibility, ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, neural orchestration and auditory memory with singing fitting better into the category of "speech" on the productive level and "music" on the acoustic level. As a result, good singers benefit from vocal and motor flexibility, productively and cognitively, in three ways. (1) Motor flexibility and the ability to sing improve language and musical function. (2) Good singers retain a certain plasticity and are open to new and unusual sound combinations during adulthood both perceptually and productively. (3) The ability to sing improves the memory span of the auditory working memory.

Song and speech: examining the link between singing talent and speech imitation ability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Markus eChristiner

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In previous research on speech imitation, musicality and an ability to sing were isolated as the strongest indicators of good pronunciation skills in foreign languages. We, therefore, wanted to take a closer look at the nature of the ability to sing, which shares a common ground with the ability to imitate speech. This study focuses on whether good singing performance predicts good speech imitation. Fourty-one singers of different levels of proficiency were selected for the study and their ability to sing, to imitate speech, their musical talent and working memory were tested. Results indicated that singing performance is a better indicator of the ability to imitate speech than the playing of a musical instrument. A multiple regression revealed that 64 % of the speech imitation score variance could be explained by working memory together with educational background and singing performance. A second multiple regression showed that 66 % of the speech imitation variance of completely unintelligible and unfamiliar language stimuli (Hindi could be explained by working memory together with a singer’s sense of rhythm and quality of voice. This supports the idea that both vocal behaviors have a common grounding in terms of vocal and motor flexibility, ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, neural orchestration and sound memory with singing fitting better into the category of "speech" on the productive level and "music" on the acoustic level. As a result, good singers benefit from vocal and motor flexibility, productively and cognitively, in three ways. 1. Motor flexibility and the ability to sing improve language and musical function. 2. Good singers retain a certain plasticity and are open to new and unusual sound combinations during adulthood both perceptually and productively. 3. The ability to sing improves the memory span of the auditory short term memory.

Speech-like rhythm in a voiced and voiceless orangutan call.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adriano R Lameira

Full Text Available The evolutionary origins of speech remain obscure. Recently, it was proposed that speech derived from monkey facial signals which exhibit a speech-like rhythm of ∼5 open-close lip cycles per second. In monkeys, these signals may also be vocalized, offering a plausible evolutionary stepping stone towards speech. Three essential predictions remain, however, to be tested to assess this hypothesis' validity; (i Great apes, our closest relatives, should likewise produce 5Hz-rhythm signals, (ii speech-like rhythm should involve calls articulatorily similar to consonants and vowels given that speech rhythm is the direct product of stringing together these two basic elements, and (iii speech-like rhythm should be experience-based. Via cinematic analyses we demonstrate that an ex-entertainment orangutan produces two calls at a speech-like rhythm, coined "clicks" and "faux-speech." Like voiceless consonants, clicks required no vocal fold action, but did involve independent manoeuvring over lips and tongue. In parallel to vowels, faux-speech showed harmonic and formant modulations, implying vocal fold and supralaryngeal action. This rhythm was several times faster than orangutan chewing rates, as observed in monkeys and humans. Critically, this rhythm was seven-fold faster, and contextually distinct, than any other known rhythmic calls described to date in the largest database of the orangutan repertoire ever assembled. The first two predictions advanced by this study are validated and, based on parsimony and exclusion of potential alternative explanations, initial support is given to the third prediction. Irrespectively of the putative origins of these calls and underlying mechanisms, our findings demonstrate irrevocably that great apes are not respiratorily, articulatorilly, or neurologically constrained for the production of consonant- and vowel-like calls at speech rhythm. Orangutan clicks and faux-speech confirm the importance of rhythmic speech

Speech perception, production and intelligibility in French-speaking children with profound hearing loss and early cochlear implantation after congenital cytomegalovirus infection.

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Laccourreye, L; Ettienne, V; Prang, I; Couloigner, V; Garabedian, E-N; Loundon, N

2015-12-01

To analyze speech in children with profound hearing loss following congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection with cochlear implantation (CI) before the age of 3 years. In a cohort of 15 children with profound hearing loss, speech perception, production and intelligibility were assessed before and 3 years after CI; variables impacting results were explored. Post-CI, median word recognition was 74% on closed-list and 48% on open-list testing; 80% of children acquired speech production; and 60% were intelligible for all listeners or listeners attentive to lip-reading and/or aware of the child's hearing loss. Univariate analysis identified 3 variables (mean post-CI hearing threshold, bilateral vestibular areflexia, and brain abnormality on MRI) with significant negative impact on the development of speech perception, production and intelligibility. CI showed positive impact on hearing and speech in children with post-cCMV profound hearing loss. Our study demonstrated the key role of maximizing post-CI hearing gain. A few children had insufficient progress, especially in case of bilateral vestibular areflexia and/or brain abnormality on MRI. This led us to suggest that balance rehabilitation and speech therapy should be intensified in such cases. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Exploring the link between cognitive abilities and speech recognition in the elderly under different listening conditions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nuesse, Theresa; Steenken, Rike; Neher, Tobias

2018-01-01

, and it has been suggested that differences in cognitive abilities may also be important. The objective of this study was to investigate associations between performance in cognitive tasks and speech recognition under different listening conditions in older adults with either age appropriate hearing...... or hearing-impairment. To that end, speech recognition threshold (SRT) measurements were performed under several masking conditions that varied along the perceptual dimensions of dip listening, spatial separation, and informational masking. In addition, a neuropsychological test battery was administered......, which included measures of verbal working- and short-term memory, executive functioning, selective and divided attention, and lexical and semantic abilities. Age-matched groups of older adults with either age-appropriate hearing (ENH, N = 20) or aided hearing impairment (EHI, N = 21) participated...

Analysis of vocal signal in its amplitude - time representation. speech synthesis-by-rules

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rodet, Xavier

1977-01-01

In the first part of this dissertation, the natural speech production and the resulting acoustic waveform are examined under various aspects: communication, phonetics, frequency and temporal analysis. Our own study of direct signal is compared to other researches in these different fields, and fundamental features of vocal signals are described. The second part deals with the numerous methods already used for automatic text-to-speech synthesis. In the last part, we expose the new speech synthesis-by-rule methods that we have worked out, and we present in details the structure of the real-time speech synthesiser that we have implemented on a mini-computer. (author) [fr

Plasticity in the Human Speech Motor System Drives Changes in Speech Perception

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Lametti, Daniel R.; Rochet-Capellan, Amélie; Neufeld, Emily; Shiller, Douglas M.

2014-01-01

Recent studies of human speech motor learning suggest that learning is accompanied by changes in auditory perception. But what drives the perceptual change? Is it a consequence of changes in the motor system? Or is it a result of sensory inflow during learning? Here, subjects participated in a speech motor-learning task involving adaptation to altered auditory feedback and they were subsequently tested for perceptual change. In two separate experiments, involving two different auditory perceptual continua, we show that changes in the speech motor system that accompany learning drive changes in auditory speech perception. Specifically, we obtained changes in speech perception when adaptation to altered auditory feedback led to speech production that fell into the phonetic range of the speech perceptual tests. However, a similar change in perception was not observed when the auditory feedback that subjects' received during learning fell into the phonetic range of the perceptual tests. This indicates that the central motor outflow associated with vocal sensorimotor adaptation drives changes to the perceptual classification of speech sounds. PMID:25080594

If it quacks like a duck: reviewing health care providers' speech restrictions under the first prong of Central Hudson.

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Fultz, Shawn L

2013-01-01

The First Amendment protects the speech of health care providers. This protection can limit states' abilities to protect patients from harmful therapies involving speech, such as sexual orientation change efforts. Because providers' speech is more similar to commercial speech than traditional political discourse, it is possible to create a First Amendment review analysis that better balances states' police powers with providers' First Amendment rights. Under a "single-prong" approach, the first prong of Central Hudson can be used to identify quackery, which is analogous to false or misleading commercial speech and would therefore be outside the protection of the First Amendment. Because health care must be tailored to individual patients, restrictions on speech that survive the first prong of Central Hudson would be subject to strict scrutiny in order to leave the therapeutic decision to the provider and her patient, and maintain consistency with current jurisprudence. This Comment examines litigation from California's attempted ban on sexual orientation change therapy to illustrate the conflicts created by the current approach to First Amendment review of health care provider speech. This Comment then demonstrates the benefit of the proposed single-prong approach, including how it simultaneously protects patients from harm while protecting health care providers' speech.

Transfer Effect of Speech-sound Learning on Auditory-motor Processing of Perceived Vocal Pitch Errors.

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Chen, Zhaocong; Wong, Francis C K; Jones, Jeffery A; Li, Weifeng; Liu, Peng; Chen, Xi; Liu, Hanjun

2015-08-17

Speech perception and production are intimately linked. There is evidence that speech motor learning results in changes to auditory processing of speech. Whether speech motor control benefits from perceptual learning in speech, however, remains unclear. This event-related potential study investigated whether speech-sound learning can modulate the processing of feedback errors during vocal pitch regulation. Mandarin speakers were trained to perceive five Thai lexical tones while learning to associate pictures with spoken words over 5 days. Before and after training, participants produced sustained vowel sounds while they heard their vocal pitch feedback unexpectedly perturbed. As compared to the pre-training session, the magnitude of vocal compensation significantly decreased for the control group, but remained consistent for the trained group at the post-training session. However, the trained group had smaller and faster N1 responses to pitch perturbations and exhibited enhanced P2 responses that correlated significantly with their learning performance. These findings indicate that the cortical processing of vocal pitch regulation can be shaped by learning new speech-sound associations, suggesting that perceptual learning in speech can produce transfer effects to facilitating the neural mechanisms underlying the online monitoring of auditory feedback regarding vocal production.

Epoch-based analysis of speech signals

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

on speech production characteristics, but also helps in accurate analysis of speech. .... include time delay estimation, speech enhancement from single and multi- ...... log. (. E[k]. ∑K−1 l=0. E[l]. ) ,. (7) where K is the number of samples in the ...

78 FR 49693 - Speech-to-Speech and Internet Protocol (IP) Speech-to-Speech Telecommunications Relay Services...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-08-15

...-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities, Report and Order (Order), document...] Speech-to-Speech and Internet Protocol (IP) Speech-to-Speech Telecommunications Relay Services; Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities...

Development of The Viking Speech Scale to classify the speech of children with cerebral palsy.

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Pennington, Lindsay; Virella, Daniel; Mjøen, Tone; da Graça Andrada, Maria; Murray, Janice; Colver, Allan; Himmelmann, Kate; Rackauskaite, Gija; Greitane, Andra; Prasauskiene, Audrone; Andersen, Guro; de la Cruz, Javier

2013-10-01

Surveillance registers monitor the prevalence of cerebral palsy and the severity of resulting impairments across time and place. The motor disorders of cerebral palsy can affect children's speech production and limit their intelligibility. We describe the development of a scale to classify children's speech performance for use in cerebral palsy surveillance registers, and its reliability across raters and across time. Speech and language therapists, other healthcare professionals and parents classified the speech of 139 children with cerebral palsy (85 boys, 54 girls; mean age 6.03 years, SD 1.09) from observation and previous knowledge of the children. Another group of health professionals rated children's speech from information in their medical notes. With the exception of parents, raters reclassified children's speech at least four weeks after their initial classification. Raters were asked to rate how easy the scale was to use and how well the scale described the child's speech production using Likert scales. Inter-rater reliability was moderate to substantial (k>.58 for all comparisons). Test-retest reliability was substantial to almost perfect for all groups (k>.68). Over 74% of raters found the scale easy or very easy to use; 66% of parents and over 70% of health care professionals judged the scale to describe children's speech well or very well. We conclude that the Viking Speech Scale is a reliable tool to describe the speech performance of children with cerebral palsy, which can be applied through direct observation of children or through case note review. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Song and speech: examining the link between singing talent and speech imitation ability

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Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne M.

2013-01-01

In previous research on speech imitation, musicality, and an ability to sing were isolated as the strongest indicators of good pronunciation skills in foreign languages. We, therefore, wanted to take a closer look at the nature of the ability to sing, which shares a common ground with the ability to imitate speech. This study focuses on whether good singing performance predicts good speech imitation. Forty-one singers of different levels of proficiency were selected for the study and their ability to sing, to imitate speech, their musical talent and working memory were tested. Results indicated that singing performance is a better indicator of the ability to imitate speech than the playing of a musical instrument. A multiple regression revealed that 64% of the speech imitation score variance could be explained by working memory together with educational background and singing performance. A second multiple regression showed that 66% of the speech imitation variance of completely unintelligible and unfamiliar language stimuli (Hindi) could be explained by working memory together with a singer's sense of rhythm and quality of voice. This supports the idea that both vocal behaviors have a common grounding in terms of vocal and motor flexibility, ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, neural orchestration and auditory memory with singing fitting better into the category of “speech” on the productive level and “music” on the acoustic level. As a result, good singers benefit from vocal and motor flexibility, productively and cognitively, in three ways. (1) Motor flexibility and the ability to sing improve language and musical function. (2) Good singers retain a certain plasticity and are open to new and unusual sound combinations during adulthood both perceptually and productively. (3) The ability to sing improves the memory span of the auditory working memory. PMID:24319438

Can mergers-in-progress be unmerged in speech accommodation?

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Babel, Molly; McAuliffe, Michael; Haber, Graham

2013-01-01

This study examines spontaneous phonetic accommodation of a dialect with distinct categories by speakers who are in the process of merging those categories. We focus on the merger of the NEAR and SQUARE lexical sets in New Zealand English, presenting New Zealand participants with an unmerged speaker of Australian English. Mergers-in-progress are a uniquely interesting sound change as they showcase the asymmetry between speech perception and production. Yet, we examine mergers using spontaneous phonetic imitation, which is phenomenon that is necessarily a behavior where perceptual input influences speech production. Phonetic imitation is quantified by a perceptual measure and an acoustic calculation of mergedness using a Pillai-Bartlett trace. The results from both analyses indicate spontaneous phonetic imitation is moderated by extra-linguistic factors such as the valence of assigned conditions and social bias. We also find evidence for a decrease in the degree of mergedness in post-exposure productions. Taken together, our results suggest that under the appropriate conditions New Zealanders phonetically accommodate to Australian English and that in the process of speech imitation, mergers-in-progress can, but do not consistently, become less merged.

Can mergers-in-progress be unmerged in speech accommodation?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Molly eBabel

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This study examines spontaneous phonetic accommodation of a dialect with distinct categories by speakers who are in the process of merging those categories. We focus on the merger of the NEAR and SQUARE lexical sets in New Zealand English, presenting New Zealand participants with an unmerged speaker of Australian English. Mergers-in-progress are a uniquely interesting sound change as they showcase the asymmetry between speech perception and production. Yet, we examine mergers using spontaneous phonetic imitation, which is phenomenon that is necessarily a behavior where perceptual input influences speech production. Phonetic imitation is quantified by a perceptual measure and an acoustic calculation of mergedness using a Pillai-Bartlett trace. The results from both analyses indicate spontaneous phonetic imitation is moderated by extra-linguistic factors such as the valence of assigned conditions and social bias. We also find evidence for a decrease in the degree of mergedness in post-exposure productions. Taken together, our results suggest that under the appropriate conditions New Zealanders phonetically accommodate to Australian English and that in the process of speech imitation, mergers-in-progress can, but do not consistently, become less merged.

Effects of Synthetic Speech Output on Requesting and Natural Speech Production in Children with Autism: A Preliminary Study

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Schlosser, Ralf W.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Luiselli, James K.; Angermeier, Katie; Harasymowyz, Ulana; Schooley, Katherine; Belfiore, Phil J.

2007-01-01

Requesting is often taught as an initial target during augmentative and alternative communication intervention in children with autism. Speech-generating devices are purported to have advantages over non-electronic systems due to their synthetic speech output. On the other hand, it has been argued that speech output, being in the auditory…

Functional magnetic resonance imaging exploration of combined hand and speech movements in Parkinson's disease.

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Pinto, Serge; Mancini, Laura; Jahanshahi, Marjan; Thornton, John S; Tripoliti, Elina; Yousry, Tarek A; Limousin, Patricia

2011-10-01

Among the repertoire of motor functions, although hand movement and speech production tasks have been investigated widely by functional neuroimaging, paradigms combining both movements have been studied less so. Such paradigms are of particular interest in Parkinson's disease, in which patients have specific difficulties performing two movements simultaneously. In 9 unmedicated patients with Parkinson's disease and 15 healthy control subjects, externally cued tasks (i.e., hand movement, speech production, and combined hand movement and speech production) were performed twice in a random order and functional magnetic resonance imaging detected cerebral activations, compared to the rest. F-statistics tested within-group (significant activations at P values 10 voxels). For control subjects, the combined task activations comprised the sum of those obtained during hand movement and speech production performed separately, reflecting the neural correlates of performing movements sharing similar programming modalities. In patients with Parkinson's disease, only activations underlying hand movement were observed during the combined task. We interpreted this phenomenon as patients' potential inability to recruit facilitatory activations while performing two movements simultaneously. This lost capacity could be related to a functional prioritization of one movement (i.e., hand movement), in comparison with the other (i.e., speech production). Our observation could also reflect the inability of patients with Parkinson's disease to intrinsically engage the motor coordination necessary to perform a combined task. Copyright © 2011 Movement Disorder Society.

Non-fluent speech following stroke is caused by impaired efference copy.

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Feenaughty, Lynda; Basilakos, Alexandra; Bonilha, Leonardo; den Ouden, Dirk-Bart; Rorden, Chris; Stark, Brielle; Fridriksson, Julius

2017-09-01

Efference copy is a cognitive mechanism argued to be critical for initiating and monitoring speech: however, the extent to which breakdown of efference copy mechanisms impact speech production is unclear. This study examined the best mechanistic predictors of non-fluent speech among 88 stroke survivors. Objective speech fluency measures were subjected to a principal component analysis (PCA). The primary PCA factor was then entered into a multiple stepwise linear regression analysis as the dependent variable, with a set of independent mechanistic variables. Participants' ability to mimic audio-visual speech ("speech entrainment response") was the best independent predictor of non-fluent speech. We suggest that this "speech entrainment" factor reflects integrity of internal monitoring (i.e., efference copy) of speech production, which affects speech initiation and maintenance. Results support models of normal speech production and suggest that therapy focused on speech initiation and maintenance may improve speech fluency for individuals with chronic non-fluent aphasia post stroke.

Childhood apraxia of speech: A survey of praxis and typical speech characteristics.

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Malmenholt, Ann; Lohmander, Anette; McAllister, Anita

2017-07-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate current knowledge of the diagnosis childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) in Sweden and compare speech characteristics and symptoms to those of earlier survey findings in mainly English-speakers. In a web-based questionnaire 178 Swedish speech-language pathologists (SLPs) anonymously answered questions about their perception of typical speech characteristics for CAS. They graded own assessment skills and estimated clinical occurrence. The seven top speech characteristics reported as typical for children with CAS were: inconsistent speech production (85%), sequencing difficulties (71%), oro-motor deficits (63%), vowel errors (62%), voicing errors (61%), consonant cluster deletions (54%), and prosodic disturbance (53%). Motor-programming deficits described as lack of automatization of speech movements were perceived by 82%. All listed characteristics were consistent with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) consensus-based features, Strand's 10-point checklist, and the diagnostic model proposed by Ozanne. The mode for clinical occurrence was 5%. Number of suspected cases of CAS in the clinical caseload was approximately one new patient/year and SLP. The results support and add to findings from studies of CAS in English-speaking children with similar speech characteristics regarded as typical. Possibly, these findings could contribute to cross-linguistic consensus on CAS characteristics.

The chairman's speech

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Allen, A.M.

1986-01-01

The paper contains a transcript of a speech by the chairman of the UKAEA, to mark the publication of the 1985/6 annual report. The topics discussed in the speech include: the Chernobyl accident and its effect on public attitudes to nuclear power, management and disposal of radioactive waste, the operation of UKAEA as a trading fund, and the UKAEA development programmes. The development programmes include work on the following: fast reactor technology, thermal reactors, reactor safety, health and safety aspects of water cooled reactors, the Joint European Torus, and under-lying research. (U.K.)

Visual speech information: a help or hindrance in perceptual processing of dysarthric speech.

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Borrie, Stephanie A

2015-03-01

This study investigated the influence of visual speech information on perceptual processing of neurologically degraded speech. Fifty listeners identified spastic dysarthric speech under both audio (A) and audiovisual (AV) conditions. Condition comparisons revealed that the addition of visual speech information enhanced processing of the neurologically degraded input in terms of (a) acuity (percent phonemes correct) of vowels and consonants and (b) recognition (percent words correct) of predictive and nonpredictive phrases. Listeners exploited stress-based segmentation strategies more readily in AV conditions, suggesting that the perceptual benefit associated with adding visual speech information to the auditory signal-the AV advantage-has both segmental and suprasegmental origins. Results also revealed that the magnitude of the AV advantage can be predicted, to some degree, by the extent to which an individual utilizes syllabic stress cues to inform word recognition in AV conditions. Findings inform the development of a listener-specific model of speech perception that applies to processing of dysarthric speech in everyday communication contexts.

PRACTICING SPEECH THERAPY INTERVENTION FOR SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF CHILDREN WITH SPEECH DISORDERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Ofelia POPESCU

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The article presents a concise speech correction intervention program in of dyslalia in conjunction with capacity development of intra, interpersonal and social integration of children with speech disorders. The program main objectives represent: the potential increasing of individual social integration by correcting speech disorders in conjunction with intra- and interpersonal capacity, the potential growth of children and community groups for social integration by optimizing the socio-relational context of children with speech disorder. In the program were included 60 children / students with dyslalia speech disorders (monomorphic and polymorphic dyslalia, from 11 educational institutions - 6 kindergartens and 5 schools / secondary schools, joined with inter-school logopedic centre (CLI from Targu Jiu city and areas of Gorj district. The program was implemented under the assumption that therapeutic-formative intervention to correct speech disorders and facilitate the social integration will lead, in combination with correct pronunciation disorders, to social integration optimization of children with speech disorders. The results conirm the hypothesis and gives facts about the intervention program eficiency.

Speech neglect: A strange educational blind spot

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Harris, Katherine Safford

2005-09-01

Speaking is universally acknowledged as an important human talent, yet as a topic of educated common knowledge, it is peculiarly neglected. Partly, this is a consequence of the relatively recent growth of research on speech perception, production, and development, but also a function of the way that information is sliced up by undergraduate colleges. Although the basic acoustic mechanism of vowel production was known to Helmholtz, the ability to view speech production as a physiological event is evolving even now with such techniques as fMRI. Intensive research on speech perception emerged only in the early 1930s as Fletcher and the engineers at Bell Telephone Laboratories developed the transmission of speech over telephone lines. The study of speech development was revolutionized by the papers of Eimas and his colleagues on speech perception in infants in the 1970s. Dissemination of knowledge in these fields is the responsibility of no single academic discipline. It forms a center for two departments, Linguistics, and Speech and Hearing, but in the former, there is a heavy emphasis on other aspects of language than speech and, in the latter, a focus on clinical practice. For psychologists, it is a rather minor component of a very diverse assembly of topics. I will focus on these three fields in proposing possible remedies.

Validation of the second version of the LittlEARS® Early Speech Production Questionnaire (LEESPQ) in German-speaking children with normal hearing.

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Keilmann, Annerose; Friese, Barbara; Lässig, Anne; Hoffmann, Vanessa

2018-04-01

The introduction of neonatal hearing screening and the increasingly early age at which children can receive a cochlear implant has intensified the need for a validated questionnaire to assess the speech production of children aged 0‒18. Such a questionnaire has been created, the LittlEARS ® Early Speech Production Questionnaire (LEESPQ). This study aimed to validate a second, revised edition of the LEESPQ. Questionnaires were returned for 362 children with normal hearing. Completed questionnaires were analysed to determine if the LEESPQ is reliable, prognostically accurate, internally consistent, and if gender or multilingualism affects total scores. Total scores correlated positively with age. The LEESPQ is reliable, accurate, and consistent, and independent of gender or lingual status. A norm curve was created. This second version of the LEESPQ is a valid tool to assess the speech production development of children with normal hearing, aged 0‒18, regardless of their gender. As such, the LEESPQ may be a useful tool to monitor the development of paediatric hearing device users. The second version of the LEESPQ is a valid instrument for assessing early speech production of children aged 0‒18 months.

How Accurately Can the Google Web Speech API Recognize and Transcribe Japanese L2 English Learners' Oral Production?

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Ashwell, Tim; Elam, Jesse R.

2017-01-01

The ultimate aim of our research project was to use the Google Web Speech API to automate scoring of elicited imitation (EI) tests. However, in order to achieve this goal, we had to take a number of preparatory steps. We needed to assess how accurate this speech recognition tool is in recognizing native speakers' production of the test items; we…

Language lateralization of hearing native signers: A functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) study of speech and sign production.

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Gutierrez-Sigut, Eva; Daws, Richard; Payne, Heather; Blott, Jonathan; Marshall, Chloë; MacSweeney, Mairéad

2015-12-01

Neuroimaging studies suggest greater involvement of the left parietal lobe in sign language compared to speech production. This stronger activation might be linked to the specific demands of sign encoding and proprioceptive monitoring. In Experiment 1 we investigate hemispheric lateralization during sign and speech generation in hearing native users of English and British Sign Language (BSL). Participants exhibited stronger lateralization during BSL than English production. In Experiment 2 we investigated whether this increased lateralization index could be due exclusively to the higher motoric demands of sign production. Sign naïve participants performed a phonological fluency task in English and a non-sign repetition task. Participants were left lateralized in the phonological fluency task but there was no consistent pattern of lateralization for the non-sign repetition in these hearing non-signers. The current data demonstrate stronger left hemisphere lateralization for producing signs than speech, which was not primarily driven by motoric articulatory demands. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Apraxia of Speech: Perceptual Analysis of Trisyllabic Word Productions across Repeated Sampling Occasions

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Mauszycki, Shannon C.; Wambaugh, Julie L.; Cameron, Rosalea M.

2012-01-01

Purpose: Early apraxia of speech (AOS) research has characterized errors as being variable, resulting in a number of different error types being produced on repeated productions of the same stimuli. Conversely, recent research has uncovered greater consistency in errors, but there are limited data examining sound errors over time (more than one…

Speech-to-Speech Relay Service

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Consumer Guide Speech to Speech Relay Service Speech-to-Speech (STS) is one form of Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS). TRS is a service that allows persons with hearing and speech disabilities ...

Neuroscience-inspired computational systems for speech recognition under noisy conditions

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Schafer, Phillip B.

Humans routinely recognize speech in challenging acoustic environments with background music, engine sounds, competing talkers, and other acoustic noise. However, today's automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems perform poorly in such environments. In this dissertation, I present novel methods for ASR designed to approach human-level performance by emulating the brain's processing of sounds. I exploit recent advances in auditory neuroscience to compute neuron-based representations of speech, and design novel methods for decoding these representations to produce word transcriptions. I begin by considering speech representations modeled on the spectrotemporal receptive fields of auditory neurons. These representations can be tuned to optimize a variety of objective functions, which characterize the response properties of a neural population. I propose an objective function that explicitly optimizes the noise invariance of the neural responses, and find that it gives improved performance on an ASR task in noise compared to other objectives. The method as a whole, however, fails to significantly close the performance gap with humans. I next consider speech representations that make use of spiking model neurons. The neurons in this method are feature detectors that selectively respond to spectrotemporal patterns within short time windows in speech. I consider a number of methods for training the response properties of the neurons. In particular, I present a method using linear support vector machines (SVMs) and show that this method produces spikes that are robust to additive noise. I compute the spectrotemporal receptive fields of the neurons for comparison with previous physiological results. To decode the spike-based speech representations, I propose two methods designed to work on isolated word recordings. The first method uses a classical ASR technique based on the hidden Markov model. The second method is a novel template-based recognition scheme that takes

Relating speech production to tongue muscle compressions using tagged and high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging

Science.gov (United States)

Xing, Fangxu; Ye, Chuyang; Woo, Jonghye; Stone, Maureen; Prince, Jerry

2015-03-01

The human tongue is composed of multiple internal muscles that work collaboratively during the production of speech. Assessment of muscle mechanics can help understand the creation of tongue motion, interpret clinical observations, and predict surgical outcomes. Although various methods have been proposed for computing the tongue's motion, associating motion with muscle activity in an interdigitated fiber framework has not been studied. In this work, we aim to develop a method that reveals different tongue muscles' activities in different time phases during speech. We use fourdimensional tagged magnetic resonance (MR) images and static high-resolution MR images to obtain tongue motion and muscle anatomy, respectively. Then we compute strain tensors and local tissue compression along the muscle fiber directions in order to reveal their shortening pattern. This process relies on the support from multiple image analysis methods, including super-resolution volume reconstruction from MR image slices, segmentation of internal muscles, tracking the incompressible motion of tissue points using tagged images, propagation of muscle fiber directions over time, and calculation of strain in the line of action, etc. We evaluated the method on a control subject and two postglossectomy patients in a controlled speech task. The normal subject's tongue muscle activity shows high correspondence with the production of speech in different time instants, while both patients' muscle activities show different patterns from the control due to their resected tongues. This method shows potential for relating overall tongue motion to particular muscle activity, which may provide novel information for future clinical and scientific studies.

Auditory and Cognitive Factors Underlying Individual Differences in Aided Speech-Understanding among Older Adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Larry E. Humes

2013-10-01

Full Text Available This study was designed to address individual differences in aided speech understanding among a relatively large group of older adults. The group of older adults consisted of 98 adults (50 female and 48 male ranging in age from 60 to 86 (mean = 69.2. Hearing loss was typical for this age group and about 90% had not worn hearing aids. All subjects completed a battery of tests, including cognitive (6 measures, psychophysical (17 measures, and speech-understanding (9 measures, as well as the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing (SSQ self-report scale. Most of the speech-understanding measures made use of competing speech and the non-speech psychophysical measures were designed to tap phenomena thought to be relevant for the perception of speech in competing speech (e.g., stream segregation, modulation-detection interference. All measures of speech understanding were administered with spectral shaping applied to the speech stimuli to fully restore audibility through at least 4000 Hz. The measures used were demonstrated to be reliable in older adults and, when compared to a reference group of 28 young normal-hearing adults, age-group differences were observed on many of the measures. Principal-components factor analysis was applied successfully to reduce the number of independent and dependent (speech understanding measures for a multiple-regression analysis. Doing so yielded one global cognitive-processing factor and five non-speech psychoacoustic factors (hearing loss, dichotic signal detection, multi-burst masking, stream segregation, and modulation detection as potential predictors. To this set of six potential predictor variables were added subject age, Environmental Sound Identification (ESI, and performance on the text-recognition-threshold (TRT task (a visual analog of interrupted speech recognition. These variables were used to successfully predict one global aided speech-understanding factor, accounting for about 60% of the variance.

High-frequency energy in singing and speech

Science.gov (United States)

Monson, Brian Bruce

While human speech and the human voice generate acoustical energy up to (and beyond) 20 kHz, the energy above approximately 5 kHz has been largely neglected. Evidence is accruing that this high-frequency energy contains perceptual information relevant to speech and voice, including percepts of quality, localization, and intelligibility. The present research was an initial step in the long-range goal of characterizing high-frequency energy in singing voice and speech, with particular regard for its perceptual role and its potential for modification during voice and speech production. In this study, a database of high-fidelity recordings of talkers was created and used for a broad acoustical analysis and general characterization of high-frequency energy, as well as specific characterization of phoneme category, voice and speech intensity level, and mode of production (speech versus singing) by high-frequency energy content. Directionality of radiation of high-frequency energy from the mouth was also examined. The recordings were used for perceptual experiments wherein listeners were asked to discriminate between speech and voice samples that differed only in high-frequency energy content. Listeners were also subjected to gender discrimination tasks, mode-of-production discrimination tasks, and transcription tasks with samples of speech and singing that contained only high-frequency content. The combination of these experiments has revealed that (1) human listeners are able to detect very subtle level changes in high-frequency energy, and (2) human listeners are able to extract significant perceptual information from high-frequency energy.

Logopenic and nonfluent variants of primary progressive aphasia are differentiated by acoustic measures of speech production.

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Kirrie J Ballard

Full Text Available Differentiation of logopenic (lvPPA and nonfluent/agrammatic (nfvPPA variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia is important yet remains challenging since it hinges on expert based evaluation of speech and language production. In this study acoustic measures of speech in conjunction with voxel-based morphometry were used to determine the success of the measures as an adjunct to diagnosis and to explore the neural basis of apraxia of speech in nfvPPA. Forty-one patients (21 lvPPA, 20 nfvPPA were recruited from a consecutive sample with suspected frontotemporal dementia. Patients were diagnosed using the current gold-standard of expert perceptual judgment, based on presence/absence of particular speech features during speaking tasks. Seventeen healthy age-matched adults served as controls. MRI scans were available for 11 control and 37 PPA cases; 23 of the PPA cases underwent amyloid ligand PET imaging. Measures, corresponding to perceptual features of apraxia of speech, were periods of silence during reading and relative vowel duration and intensity in polysyllable word repetition. Discriminant function analyses revealed that a measure of relative vowel duration differentiated nfvPPA cases from both control and lvPPA cases (r(2 = 0.47 with 88% agreement with expert judgment of presence of apraxia of speech in nfvPPA cases. VBM analysis showed that relative vowel duration covaried with grey matter intensity in areas critical for speech motor planning and programming: precentral gyrus, supplementary motor area and inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally, only affected in the nfvPPA group. This bilateral involvement of frontal speech networks in nfvPPA potentially affects access to compensatory mechanisms involving right hemisphere homologues. Measures of silences during reading also discriminated the PPA and control groups, but did not increase predictive accuracy. Findings suggest that a measure of relative vowel duration from of a polysyllable word

Atypical speech lateralization in adults with developmental coordination disorder demonstrated using functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound.

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Hodgson, Jessica C; Hudson, John M

2017-03-01

Research using clinical populations to explore the relationship between hemispheric speech lateralization and handedness has focused on individuals with speech and language disorders, such as dyslexia or specific language impairment (SLI). Such work reveals atypical patterns of cerebral lateralization and handedness in these groups compared to controls. There are few studies that examine this relationship in people with motor coordination impairments but without speech or reading deficits, which is a surprising omission given the prevalence of theories suggesting a common neural network underlying both functions. We use an emerging imaging technique in cognitive neuroscience; functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD) ultrasound, to assess whether individuals with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) display reduced left-hemisphere lateralization for speech production compared to control participants. Twelve adult control participants and 12 adults with DCD, but no other developmental/cognitive impairments, performed a word-generation task whilst undergoing fTCD imaging to establish a hemispheric lateralization index for speech production. All participants also completed an electronic peg-moving task to determine hand skill. As predicted, the DCD group showed a significantly reduced left lateralization pattern for the speech production task compared to controls. Performance on the motor skill task showed a clear preference for the dominant hand across both groups; however, the DCD group mean movement times were significantly higher for the non-dominant hand. This is the first study of its kind to assess hand skill and speech lateralization in DCD. The results reveal a reduced leftwards asymmetry for speech and a slower motor performance. This fits alongside previous work showing atypical cerebral lateralization in DCD for other cognitive processes (e.g., executive function and short-term memory) and thus speaks to debates on theories of the links between motor

SPEECH ACT IN ADVERTISING LANGUAGE OF 3 PROVIDER MOBILE PHONE PRODUCT

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Suhartini Syukri

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This study is an analysis of selected commercial advertisement on product consumed relates to the 3 provider of mobile phone in Indonesian context. Consumers are generally believed to be active and skeptical users of information. Then, the speech act can contribute how successfulness the advertisers in persuading them. There are three kinds of act; they are locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. A perlocutionary act, the act that is produced as a consequences or effect of uttering a specific locution, what is brought about or achieved by saying something, in this case, the effects may be predictable by the conventional status of most illocutions, but may be force of their speech act. Using the qualitative method of research, the writers try to analyze the kinds of illocutionary forces and perlocutionary acts that occur in the advertisement through socio-pragmatic analysis. The result shows that the illocutionary acts commonly equal to the persuasive and informative as well as the advertisement goal, then the perlocutionary effects will be related to the hearers themselves.

Sensorimotor influences on speech perception in infancy.

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Bruderer, Alison G; Danielson, D Kyle; Kandhadai, Padmapriya; Werker, Janet F

2015-11-03

The influence of speech production on speech perception is well established in adults. However, because adults have a long history of both perceiving and producing speech, the extent to which the perception-production linkage is due to experience is unknown. We addressed this issue by asking whether articulatory configurations can influence infants' speech perception performance. To eliminate influences from specific linguistic experience, we studied preverbal, 6-mo-old infants and tested the discrimination of a nonnative, and hence never-before-experienced, speech sound distinction. In three experimental studies, we used teething toys to control the position and movement of the tongue tip while the infants listened to the speech sounds. Using ultrasound imaging technology, we verified that the teething toys consistently and effectively constrained the movement and positioning of infants' tongues. With a looking-time procedure, we found that temporarily restraining infants' articulators impeded their discrimination of a nonnative consonant contrast but only when the relevant articulator was selectively restrained to prevent the movements associated with producing those sounds. Our results provide striking evidence that even before infants speak their first words and without specific listening experience, sensorimotor information from the articulators influences speech perception. These results transform theories of speech perception by suggesting that even at the initial stages of development, oral-motor movements influence speech sound discrimination. Moreover, an experimentally induced "impairment" in articulator movement can compromise speech perception performance, raising the question of whether long-term oral-motor impairments may impact perceptual development.

Memory for speech and speech for memory.

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Locke, J L; Kutz, K J

1975-03-01

Thirty kindergarteners, 15 who substituted /w/ for /r/ and 15 with correct articulation, received two perception tests and a memory test that included /w/ and /r/ in minimally contrastive syllables. Although both groups had nearly perfect perception of the experimenter's productions of /w/ and /r/, misarticulating subjects perceived their own tape-recorded w/r productions as /w/. In the memory task these same misarticulating subjects committed significantly more /w/-/r/ confusions in unspoken recall. The discussion considers why people subvocally rehearse; a developmental period in which children do not rehearse; ways subvocalization may aid recall, including motor and acoustic encoding; an echoic store that provides additional recall support if subjects rehearse vocally, and perception of self- and other- produced phonemes by misarticulating children-including its relevance to a motor theory of perception. Evidence is presented that speech for memory can be sufficiently impaired to cause memory disorder. Conceptions that restrict speech disorder to an impairment of communication are challenged.

Riding the lexical speedway: a critical review on the time course of lexical selection in speech production.

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Strijkers, Kristof; Costa, Albert

2011-01-01

Speech requires time. How much time often depends on the amount of labor the brain has to perform in order to retrieve the linguistic information related to the ideas we want to express. Although most psycholinguistic research in the field of language production has focused on the net result of time required to utter words in various experimental conditions, over the last years more and more researchers pursued the objective to flesh out the time course of particular stages implicated in language production. Here we critically review these studies, with particular interest for the time course of lexical selection. First, we evaluate the data underlying the estimates of an influential temporal meta-analysis on language production (Indefrey and Levelt, 2004). We conclude that those data alone are not sufficient to provide a reliable time frame of lexical selection. Next, we discuss recent neurophysiological evidence which we argue to offer more explicit insights into the time course of lexical selection. Based on this evidence we suggest that, despite the absence of a clear time frame of how long lexical selection takes, there is sufficient direct evidence to conclude that the brain initiates lexical access within 200 ms after stimulus presentation, hereby confirming Indefrey and Levelt's estimate. In a final section, we briefly review the proposed mechanisms which could lead to this rapid onset of lexical access, namely automatic spreading activation versus specific concept selection, and discuss novel data which support the notion of spreading activation, but indicate that the speed with which this principle takes effect is driven by a top-down signal in function of the intention to engage in a speech act.

Riding the Lexical Speedway: A Critical Review on the Time Course of Lexical Selection in Speech Production

Science.gov (United States)

Strijkers, Kristof; Costa, Albert

2011-01-01

Speech requires time. How much time often depends on the amount of labor the brain has to perform in order to retrieve the linguistic information related to the ideas we want to express. Although most psycholinguistic research in the field of language production has focused on the net result of time required to utter words in various experimental conditions, over the last years more and more researchers pursued the objective to flesh out the time course of particular stages implicated in language production. Here we critically review these studies, with particular interest for the time course of lexical selection. First, we evaluate the data underlying the estimates of an influential temporal meta-analysis on language production (Indefrey and Levelt, 2004). We conclude that those data alone are not sufficient to provide a reliable time frame of lexical selection. Next, we discuss recent neurophysiological evidence which we argue to offer more explicit insights into the time course of lexical selection. Based on this evidence we suggest that, despite the absence of a clear time frame of how long lexical selection takes, there is sufficient direct evidence to conclude that the brain initiates lexical access within 200 ms after stimulus presentation, hereby confirming Indefrey and Levelt’s estimate. In a final section, we briefly review the proposed mechanisms which could lead to this rapid onset of lexical access, namely automatic spreading activation versus specific concept selection, and discuss novel data which support the notion of spreading activation, but indicate that the speed with which this principle takes effect is driven by a top-down signal in function of the intention to engage in a speech act. PMID:22144973

The Production of Emotional Prosody in Varying Degrees of Severity of Apraxia of Speech.

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Van Putten, Steffany M.; Walker, Judy P.

2003-01-01

A study examined the abilities of three adults with varying degrees of apraxia of speech (AOS) to produce emotional prosody. Acoustic analyses of the subjects' productions revealed that unlike the control subject, the subjects with AOS did not produce differences in duration and amplitude cues to convey different emotions. (Contains references.)…

Stability and composition of functional synergies for speech movements in children with developmental speech disorders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Terband, H.; Maassen, B.; van Lieshout, P.; Nijland, L.

2011-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the consistency and composition of functional synergies for speech movements in children with developmental speech disorders. Kinematic data were collected on the reiterated productions of syllables spa (/spa:/) and paas (/pa:s/) by 10 6- to 9-year-olds with

Cross-language activation in children's speech production: Evidence from second language learners, bilinguals, and trilinguals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Poarch, G.J.; Hell, J.G. van

2012-01-01

In five experiments, we examined cross-language activation during speech production in various groups of bilinguals and trilinguals who differed in nonnative language proficiency, language learning background, and age. In Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 5, German 5- to 8-year-old second language learners

Speech Pathology in Ancient India--A Review of Sanskrit Literature.

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Savithri, S. R.

1987-01-01

The paper is a review of ancient Sanskrit literature for information on the origin and development of speech and language, speech production, normality of speech and language, and disorders of speech and language and their treatment. (DB)

Short-Term and Working Memory Impairments in Early-Implanted, Long-Term Cochlear Implant Users Are Independent of Audibility and Speech Production.

Science.gov (United States)

AuBuchon, Angela M; Pisoni, David B; Kronenberger, William G

2015-01-01

To determine whether early-implanted, long-term cochlear implant (CI) users display delays in verbal short-term and working memory capacity when processes related to audibility and speech production are eliminated. Twenty-three long-term CI users and 23 normal-hearing controls each completed forward and backward digit span tasks under testing conditions that differed in presentation modality (auditory or visual) and response output (spoken recall or manual pointing). Normal-hearing controls reproduced more lists of digits than the CI users, even when the test items were presented visually and the responses were made manually via touchscreen response. Short-term and working memory delays observed in CI users are not due to greater demands from peripheral sensory processes such as audibility or from overt speech-motor planning and response output organization. Instead, CI users are less efficient at encoding and maintaining phonological representations in verbal short-term memory using phonological and linguistic strategies during memory tasks.

38 CFR 8.18 - Total disability-speech.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Total disability-speech... SERVICE LIFE INSURANCE Premium Waivers and Total Disability § 8.18 Total disability—speech. The organic loss of speech shall be deemed to be total disability under National Service Life Insurance. [67 FR...

Segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech produced by rule.

Science.gov (United States)

Logan, J S; Greene, B G; Pisoni, D B

1989-08-01

This paper reports the results of an investigation that employed the modified rhyme test (MRT) to measure the segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech generated automatically by rule. Synthetic speech produced by ten text-to-speech systems was studied and compared to natural speech. A variation of the standard MRT was also used to study the effects of response set size on perceptual confusions. Results indicated that the segmental intelligibility scores formed a continuum. Several systems displayed very high levels of performance that were close to or equal to scores obtained with natural speech; other systems displayed substantially worse performance compared to natural speech. The overall performance of the best system, DECtalk--Paul, was equivalent to the data obtained with natural speech for consonants in syllable-initial position. The findings from this study are discussed in terms of the use of a set of standardized procedures for measuring intelligibility of synthetic speech under controlled laboratory conditions. Recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions in which greater demands are made on the listener's processing resources is also considered. The wide range of intelligibility scores obtained in the present study demonstrates important differences in perception and suggests that not all synthetic speech is perceptually equivalent to the listener.

Segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech produced by rule

Science.gov (United States)

Logan, John S.; Greene, Beth G.; Pisoni, David B.

2012-01-01

This paper reports the results of an investigation that employed the modified rhyme test (MRT) to measure the segmental intelligibility of synthetic speech generated automatically by rule. Synthetic speech produced by ten text-to-speech systems was studied and compared to natural speech. A variation of the standard MRT was also used to study the effects of response set size on perceptual confusions. Results indicated that the segmental intelligibility scores formed a continuum. Several systems displayed very high levels of performance that were close to or equal to scores obtained with natural speech; other systems displayed substantially worse performance compared to natural speech. The overall performance of the best system, DECtalk—Paul, was equivalent to the data obtained with natural speech for consonants in syllable-initial position. The findings from this study are discussed in terms of the use of a set of standardized procedures for measuring intelligibility of synthetic speech under controlled laboratory conditions. Recent work investigating the perception of synthetic speech under more severe conditions in which greater demands are made on the listener’s processing resources is also considered. The wide range of intelligibility scores obtained in the present study demonstrates important differences in perception and suggests that not all synthetic speech is perceptually equivalent to the listener. PMID:2527884

Adaptation to Delayed Speech Feedback Induces Temporal Recalibration between Vocal Sensory and Auditory Modalities

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Kosuke Yamamoto

2011-10-01

Full Text Available We ordinarily perceive our voice sound as occurring simultaneously with vocal production, but the sense of simultaneity in vocalization can be easily interrupted by delayed auditory feedback (DAF. DAF causes normal people to have difficulty speaking fluently but helps people with stuttering to improve speech fluency. However, the underlying temporal mechanism for integrating the motor production of voice and the auditory perception of vocal sound remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the temporal tuning mechanism integrating vocal sensory and voice sounds under DAF with an adaptation technique. Participants read some sentences with specific delay times of DAF (0, 30, 75, 120 ms during three minutes to induce ‘Lag Adaptation’. After the adaptation, they then judged the simultaneity between motor sensation and vocal sound given feedback in producing simple voice but not speech. We found that speech production with lag adaptation induced a shift in simultaneity responses toward the adapted auditory delays. This indicates that the temporal tuning mechanism in vocalization can be temporally recalibrated after prolonged exposure to delayed vocal sounds. These findings suggest vocalization is finely tuned by the temporal recalibration mechanism, which acutely monitors the integration of temporal delays between motor sensation and vocal sound.

An analysis of machine translation and speech synthesis in speech-to-speech translation system

OpenAIRE

Hashimoto, K.; Yamagishi, J.; Byrne, W.; King, S.; Tokuda, K.

2011-01-01

This paper provides an analysis of the impacts of machine translation and speech synthesis on speech-to-speech translation systems. The speech-to-speech translation system consists of three components: speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis. Many techniques for integration of speech recognition and machine translation have been proposed. However, speech synthesis has not yet been considered. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on machine translation and speech synthesis, ...

Functional connectivity between face-movement and speech-intelligibility areas during auditory-only speech perception.

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Schall, Sonja; von Kriegstein, Katharina

2014-01-01

It has been proposed that internal simulation of the talking face of visually-known speakers facilitates auditory speech recognition. One prediction of this view is that brain areas involved in auditory-only speech comprehension interact with visual face-movement sensitive areas, even under auditory-only listening conditions. Here, we test this hypothesis using connectivity analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Participants (17 normal participants, 17 developmental prosopagnosics) first learned six speakers via brief voice-face or voice-occupation training (comprehension. Overall, the present findings indicate that learned visual information is integrated into the analysis of auditory-only speech and that this integration results from the interaction of task-relevant face-movement and auditory speech-sensitive areas.

Speech production accuracy and variability in young cochlear implant recipients: comparisons with typically developing age-peers.

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Ertmer, David J; Goffman, Lisa

2011-02-01

The speech production accuracy and variability scores of 6 young cochlear implant (CI) recipients with 2 years of device experience were compared with those of typically developing (TD) age-peers. Words from the First Words Speech Test (FWST; Ertmer, 1999) were imitated 3 times to assess the accuracy and variability of initial consonants, vowels, and words. The initial consonants in the 4 sets of the FWST followed a typical order of development. The TD group produced targets with high accuracy and low variability. Their scores across FWST sets reflected the expected order of development. The CI group produced most targets less accurately and with more variability than the TD children. Relatively high accuracy for the consonants of Sets 1 and 2 indicated that these phonemes were acquired early and in a typical developmental order. A trend toward greater accuracy for Set 4 as compared with Set 3 suggested that later-emerging consonants were not acquired in the expected order. Variability was greatest for later-emerging initial consonants and whole words. Although considerable speech production proficiency was evident, age-level performance was not attained after 2 years of CI experience. Factors that might influence the order of consonant acquisition are discussed.

Combined Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech Treatment (CAAST): effects of a novel therapy.

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Wambaugh, Julie L; Wright, Sandra; Nessler, Christina; Mauszycki, Shannon C

2014-12-01

This investigation was designed to examine the effects of a newly developed treatment for aphasia and acquired apraxia of speech (AOS). Combined Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech Treatment (CAAST) targets language and speech production simultaneously, with treatment techniques derived from Response Elaboration Training (Kearns, 1985) and Sound Production Treatment (Wambaugh, Kalinyak-Fliszar, West, & Doyle, 1998). The purpose of this study was to determine whether CAAST was associated with positive changes in verbal language and speech production with speakers with aphasia and AOS. Four participants with chronic aphasia and AOS received CAAST applied sequentially to sets of pictures in the context of multiple baseline designs. CAAST entailed elaboration of participant-initiated utterances, with sound production training applied as needed to the elaborated productions. The dependent variables were (a) production of correct information units (CIUs; Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993) in response to experimental picture stimuli, (b) percentage of consonants correct in sentence repetition, and (c) speech intelligibility. CAAST was associated with increased CIU production in trained and untrained picture sets for all participants. Gains in sound production accuracy and speech intelligibility varied across participants; a modification of CAAST to provide additional speech production treatment may be desirable.

Perceptual evaluation of corpus-based speech synthesis techniques in under-resourced environments

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Niekerk, DR

2009-11-01

Full Text Available With the increasing prominence and maturity of corpus-based techniques for speech synthesis, the process of system development has in some ways been simplified considerably. However, the dependence on sufficient amounts of relevant speech data...

Understanding the role of speech production in reading: Evidence for a print-to-speech neural network using graphical analysis.

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Cummine, Jacqueline; Cribben, Ivor; Luu, Connie; Kim, Esther; Bahktiari, Reyhaneh; Georgiou, George; Boliek, Carol A

2016-05-01

The neural circuitry associated with language processing is complex and dynamic. Graphical models are useful for studying complex neural networks as this method provides information about unique connectivity between regions within the context of the entire network of interest. Here, the authors explored the neural networks during covert reading to determine the role of feedforward and feedback loops in covert speech production. Brain activity of skilled adult readers was assessed in real word and pseudoword reading tasks with functional MRI (fMRI). The authors provide evidence for activity coherence in the feedforward system (inferior frontal gyrus-supplementary motor area) during real word reading and in the feedback system (supramarginal gyrus-precentral gyrus) during pseudoword reading. Graphical models provided evidence of an extensive, highly connected, neural network when individuals read real words that relied on coordination of the feedforward system. In contrast, when individuals read pseudowords the authors found a limited/restricted network that relied on coordination of the feedback system. Together, these results underscore the importance of considering multiple pathways and articulatory loops during language tasks and provide evidence for a print-to-speech neural network. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Treatment for Apraxia of Speech in Nonfluent Variant Primary Progressive Aphasia

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M. L. Henry

2013-01-01

Full Text Available There is a growing body of literature examining the utility of behavioral treatment in primary progressive aphasia (PPA. There are, however, no studies exploring treatment approaches to improve speech production in individuals with apraxia of speech (AOS associated with the nonfluent variant of PPA. The purpose of this study was to examine a novel approach to treatment of AOS in nonfluent PPA. We implemented a treatment method using structured oral reading as a tool for improving production of multisyllabic words in an individual with mild AOS and nonfluent variant PPA. Our participant showed a reduction in speech errors during reading of novel text that was maintained at one year post-treatment. Generalization of improved speech production was observed on repetition of words and sentences and the participant showed stability of speech production over time in connected speech. Results suggest that oral reading treatment may offer an efficient and effective means of addressing multisyllabic word production in AOS associated with nonfluent PPA, with lasting and generalized treatment effects.

Gender and vocal production mode discrimination using the high frequencies for speech and singing

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Monson, Brian B.; Lotto, Andrew J.; Story, Brad H.

2014-01-01

Humans routinely produce acoustical energy at frequencies above 6 kHz during vocalization, but this frequency range is often not represented in communication devices and speech perception research. Recent advancements toward high-definition (HD) voice and extended bandwidth hearing aids have increased the interest in the high frequencies. The potential perceptual information provided by high-frequency energy (HFE) is not well characterized. We found that humans can accomplish tasks of gender discrimination and vocal production mode discrimination (speech vs. singing) when presented with acoustic stimuli containing only HFE at both amplified and normal levels. Performance in these tasks was robust in the presence of low-frequency masking noise. No substantial learning effect was observed. Listeners also were able to identify the sung and spoken text (excerpts from “The Star-Spangled Banner”) with very few exposures. These results add to the increasing evidence that the high frequencies provide at least redundant information about the vocal signal, suggesting that its representation in communication devices (e.g., cell phones, hearing aids, and cochlear implants) and speech/voice synthesizers could improve these devices and benefit normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. PMID:25400613

Stability and Composition of Functional Synergies for Speech Movements in Children with Developmental Speech Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Terband, H.; Maassen, B.; van Lieshout, P.; Nijland, L.

2011-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the consistency and composition of functional synergies for speech movements in children with developmental speech disorders. Kinematic data were collected on the reiterated productions of syllables spa(/spa[image omitted]/) and paas(/pa[image omitted]s/) by 10 6- to 9-year-olds with developmental speech…

Speech Motor Programming in Apraxia of Speech: Evidence from a Delayed Picture-Word Interference Task

Science.gov (United States)

Mailend, Marja-Liisa; Maas, Edwin

2013-01-01

Purpose: Apraxia of speech (AOS) is considered a speech motor programming impairment, but the specific nature of the impairment remains a matter of debate. This study investigated 2 hypotheses about the underlying impairment in AOS framed within the Directions Into Velocities of Articulators (DIVA; Guenther, Ghosh, & Tourville, 2006) model: The…

The functional anatomy of speech perception: Dorsal and ventral processing pathways

Science.gov (United States)

Hickok, Gregory

2003-04-01

Drawing on recent developments in the cortical organization of vision, and on data from a variety of sources, Hickok and Poeppel (2000) have proposed a new model of the functional anatomy of speech perception. The model posits that early cortical stages of speech perception involve auditory fields in the superior temporal gyrus bilaterally (although asymmetrically). This cortical processing system then diverges into two broad processing streams, a ventral stream, involved in mapping sound onto meaning, and a dorsal stream, involved in mapping sound onto articulatory-based representations. The ventral stream projects ventrolaterally toward inferior posterior temporal cortex which serves as an interface between sound and meaning. The dorsal stream projects dorsoposteriorly toward the parietal lobe and ultimately to frontal regions. This network provides a mechanism for the development and maintenance of ``parity'' between auditory and motor representations of speech. Although the dorsal stream represents a tight connection between speech perception and speech production, it is not a critical component of the speech perception process under ecologically natural listening conditions. Some degree of bi-directionality in both the dorsal and ventral pathways is also proposed. A variety of recent empirical tests of this model have provided further support for the proposal.

Commercial speech in crisis: Crisis Pregnancy Center regulations and definitions of commercial speech.

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Gilbert, Kathryn E

2013-02-01

Recent attempts to regulate Crisis Pregnancy Centers, pseudoclinics that surreptitiously aim to dissuade pregnant women from choosing abortion, have confronted the thorny problem of how to define commercial speech. The Supreme Court has offered three potential answers to this definitional quandary. This Note uses the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases to demonstrate that courts should use one of these solutions, the factor-based approach of Bolger v. Youngs Drugs Products Corp., to define commercial speech in the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases and elsewhere. In principle and in application, the Bolger factor-based approach succeeds in structuring commercial speech analysis at the margins of the doctrine.

Cross-Language Activation in Children's Speech Production: Evidence from Second Language Learners, Bilinguals, and Trilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Poarch, Gregory J.; van Hell, Janet G.

2012-01-01

In five experiments, we examined cross-language activation during speech production in various groups of bilinguals and trilinguals who differed in nonnative language proficiency, language learning background, and age. In Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 5, German 5- to 8-year-old second language learners of English, German-English bilinguals,…

From prosodic structure to acoustic saliency: A fMRI investigation of speech rate, clarity, and emphasis

Science.gov (United States)

Golfinopoulos, Elisa

Acoustic variability in fluent speech can arise at many stages in speech production planning and execution. For example, at the phonological encoding stage, the grouping of phonemes into syllables determines which segments are coarticulated and, by consequence, segment-level acoustic variation. Likewise phonetic encoding, which determines the spatiotemporal extent of articulatory gestures, will affect the acoustic detail of segments. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity of fluent adult speakers in four speaking conditions: fast, normal, clear, and emphatic (or stressed) speech. These speech manner changes typically result in acoustic variations that do not change the lexical or semantic identity of productions but do affect the acoustic saliency of phonemes, syllables and/or words. Acoustic responses recorded inside the scanner were assessed quantitatively using eight acoustic measures and sentence duration was used as a covariate of non-interest in the neuroimaging analysis. Compared to normal speech, emphatic speech was characterized acoustically by a greater difference between stressed and unstressed vowels in intensity, duration, and fundamental frequency, and neurally by increased activity in right middle premotor cortex and supplementary motor area, and bilateral primary sensorimotor cortex. These findings are consistent with right-lateralized motor planning of prosodic variation in emphatic speech. Clear speech involved an increase in average vowel and sentence durations and average vowel spacing, along with increased activity in left middle premotor cortex and bilateral primary sensorimotor cortex. These findings are consistent with an increased reliance on feedforward control, resulting in hyper-articulation, under clear as compared to normal speech. Fast speech was characterized acoustically by reduced sentence duration and average vowel spacing, and neurally by increased activity in left anterior frontal

[Hearing capacity and speech production in 417 children with facial cleft abnormalities].

Science.gov (United States)

Schönweiler, R; Schönweiler, B; Schmelzeisen, R

1994-11-01

Children with cleft palates often suffer from chronic conductive hearing losses, delayed language acquisition and speech disorders. This study presents results of speech and language outcomes in relation to hearing function and types of palatal malformations found. 417 children with cleft palates were examined during followup evaluations that extended over several years. Disorders were studied as they affected the ears, nose and throat, audiometry and speech and language pathology. Children with isolated cleft lips were excluded. Among the total group, 8% had normal speech and language development while 92% had speech or language disorders. 80% of these latter children had hearing problems that predominantly consisted of fluctuating conductive hearing losses caused by otitis media with effusion. 5% had sensorineural hearing losses. Fifty-eight children (14%) with rhinolalia aperta were not improved by speech therapy and required velopharyngoplasties, using a cranial-based pharyngeal flap. Language skills did not depend on the type of cleft palate presents but on the frequency and amount of hearing loss found. Otomicroscopy and audiometric follow-ups with insertions of ventilation tubes were considered to be most important for language development in those children with repeated middle ear infections. Speech or language therapy was necessary in 49% of the children.

The effect of filtered speech feedback on the frequency of stuttering

Science.gov (United States)

Rami, Manish Krishnakant

2000-10-01

This study investigated the effects of filtered components of speech and whispered speech on the frequency of stuttering. It is known that choral speech, shadowing, and altered auditory feedback are the only conditions which induce fluency without any additional effort than normally required to speak on the part of people who stutter. All these conditions use speech as a second signal. This experiment examined the role of components of speech signal as delineated by the source- filter theory of speech production. Three filtered speech signals, a whispered speech signal, and a choral speech signal formed the stimuli. It was postulated that if the speech signal in whole was necessary for producing fluency in people who stutter, then all other conditions except choral speech should fail to produce fluency enhancement. If the glottal source alone was adequate in restoring fluency, then only the conditions of NAF and whispered speech should fail in promoting fluency. In the event that full filter characteristics are necessary for the fluency creating effects, then all conditions except the choral speech and whispered speech should fail to produce fluency. If any part of the filter characteristics is sufficient in yielding fluency, then only the NAF and the approximate glottal source should fail to demonstrate an increase in the amount of fluency. Twelve adults who stuttered read passages under the six conditions while receiving auditory feedback consisting of one of the six experimental conditions: (a)NAF; (b)approximate glottal source; (c)glottal source and first formant; (d)glottal source and first two formants; and (e)whispered speech. Frequencies of stuttering were obtained for each condition and submitted to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Statistically significant differences in means were found within the choral feedback conditions. Specifically, the choral speech, the source and first formant, source and the first two formants, and the

Mechanisms underlying speech sound discrimination and categorization in humans and zebra finches

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Burgering, Merel A.; ten Cate, Carel; Vroomen, Jean

Speech sound categorization in birds seems in many ways comparable to that by humans, but it is unclear what mechanisms underlie such categorization. To examine this, we trained zebra finches and humans to discriminate two pairs of edited speech sounds that varied either along one dimension (vowel

Model-based inverse estimation for active contraction stresses of tongue muscles using 3D surface shape in speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Koike, Narihiko; Ii, Satoshi; Yoshinaga, Tsukasa; Nozaki, Kazunori; Wada, Shigeo

2017-11-07

This paper presents a novel inverse estimation approach for the active contraction stresses of tongue muscles during speech. The proposed method is based on variational data assimilation using a mechanical tongue model and 3D tongue surface shapes for speech production. The mechanical tongue model considers nonlinear hyperelasticity, finite deformation, actual geometry from computed tomography (CT) images, and anisotropic active contraction by muscle fibers, the orientations of which are ideally determined using anatomical drawings. The tongue deformation is obtained by solving a stationary force-equilibrium equation using a finite element method. An inverse problem is established to find the combination of muscle contraction stresses that minimizes the Euclidean distance of the tongue surfaces between the mechanical analysis and CT results of speech production, where a signed-distance function represents the tongue surface. Our approach is validated through an ideal numerical example and extended to the real-world case of two Japanese vowels, /ʉ/ and /ɯ/. The results capture the target shape completely and provide an excellent estimation of the active contraction stresses in the ideal case, and exhibit similar tendencies as in previous observations and simulations for the actual vowel cases. The present approach can reveal the relative relationship among the muscle contraction stresses in similar utterances with different tongue shapes, and enables the investigation of the coordination of tongue muscles during speech using only the deformed tongue shape obtained from medical images. This will enhance our understanding of speech motor control. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improved Methods for Pitch Synchronous Linear Prediction Analysis of Speech

OpenAIRE

劉, 麗清

2015-01-01

Linear prediction (LP) analysis has been applied to speech system over the last few decades. LP technique is well-suited for speech analysis due to its ability to model speech production process approximately. Hence LP analysis has been widely used for speech enhancement, low-bit-rate speech coding in cellular telephony, speech recognition, characteristic parameter extraction (vocal tract resonances frequencies, fundamental frequency called pitch) and so on. However, the performance of the co...

Portuguese Lexical Clusters and CVC Sequences in Speech Perception and Production.

Science.gov (United States)

Cunha, Conceição

2015-01-01

This paper investigates similarities between lexical consonant clusters and CVC sequences differing in the presence or absence of a lexical vowel in speech perception and production in two Portuguese varieties. The frequent high vowel deletion in the European variety (EP) and the realization of intervening vocalic elements between lexical clusters in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) may minimize the contrast between lexical clusters and CVC sequences in the two Portuguese varieties. In order to test this hypothesis we present a perception experiment with 72 participants and a physiological analysis of 3-dimensional movement data from 5 EP and 4 BP speakers. The perceptual results confirmed a gradual confusion of lexical clusters and CVC sequences in EP, which corresponded roughly to the gradient consonantal overlap found in production. © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Neural Entrainment to Speech Modulates Speech Intelligibility

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Riecke, Lars; Formisano, Elia; Sorger, Bettina; Baskent, Deniz; Gaudrain, Etienne

2018-01-01

Speech is crucial for communication in everyday life. Speech-brain entrainment, the alignment of neural activity to the slow temporal fluctuations (envelope) of acoustic speech input, is a ubiquitous element of current theories of speech processing. Associations between speech-brain entrainment and

Brain activity underlying the recovery of meaning from degraded speech: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wijayasiri, Pramudi; Hartley, Douglas E H; Wiggins, Ian M

2017-08-01

The purpose of this study was to establish whether functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), an emerging brain-imaging technique based on optical principles, is suitable for studying the brain activity that underlies effortful listening. In an event-related fNIRS experiment, normally-hearing adults listened to sentences that were either clear or degraded (noise vocoded). These sentences were presented simultaneously with a non-speech distractor, and on each trial participants were instructed to attend either to the speech or to the distractor. The primary region of interest for the fNIRS measurements was the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), a cortical region involved in higher-order language processing. The fNIRS results confirmed findings previously reported in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature. Firstly, the LIFG exhibited an elevated response to degraded versus clear speech, but only when attention was directed towards the speech. This attention-dependent increase in frontal brain activation may be a neural marker for effortful listening. Secondly, during attentive listening to degraded speech, the haemodynamic response peaked significantly later in the LIFG than in superior temporal cortex, possibly reflecting the engagement of working memory to help reconstruct the meaning of degraded sentences. The homologous region in the right hemisphere may play an equivalent role to the LIFG in some left-handed individuals. In conclusion, fNIRS holds promise as a flexible tool to examine the neural signature of effortful listening. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of hearing loss on speech recognition under distracting conditions and working memory in the elderly

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Na W

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Wondo Na,1 Gibbeum Kim,1 Gungu Kim,1 Woojae Han,2 Jinsook Kim2 1Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Graduate School, 2Division of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Research Institute of Audiology and Speech Pathology, College of Natural Sciences, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea Purpose: The current study aimed to evaluate hearing-related changes in terms of speech-in-noise processing, fast-rate speech processing, and working memory; and to identify which of these three factors is significantly affected by age-related hearing loss.Methods: One hundred subjects aged 65–84 years participated in the study. They were classified into four groups ranging from normal hearing to moderate-to-severe hearing loss. All the participants were tested for speech perception in quiet and noisy conditions and for speech perception with time alteration in quiet conditions. Forward- and backward-digit span tests were also conducted to measure the participants’ working memory.Results: 1 As the level of background noise increased, speech perception scores systematically decreased in all the groups. This pattern was more noticeable in the three hearing-impaired groups than in the normal hearing group. 2 As the speech rate increased faster, speech perception scores decreased. A significant interaction was found between speed of speech and hearing loss. In particular, 30% of compressed sentences revealed a clear differentiation between moderate hearing loss and moderate-to-severe hearing loss. 3 Although all the groups showed a longer span on the forward-digit span test than the backward-digit span test, there was no significant difference as a function of hearing loss.Conclusion: The degree of hearing loss strongly affects the speech recognition of babble-masked and time-compressed speech in the elderly but does not affect the working memory. We expect these results to be applied to appropriate rehabilitation strategies for hearing

Kinematic Analysis of Speech Sound Sequencing Errors Induced by Delayed Auditory Feedback.

Science.gov (United States)

Cler, Gabriel J; Lee, Jackson C; Mittelman, Talia; Stepp, Cara E; Bohland, Jason W

2017-06-22

Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) causes speakers to become disfluent and make phonological errors. Methods for assessing the kinematics of speech errors are lacking, with most DAF studies relying on auditory perceptual analyses, which may be problematic, as errors judged to be categorical may actually represent blends of sounds or articulatory errors. Eight typical speakers produced nonsense syllable sequences under normal and DAF (200 ms). Lip and tongue kinematics were captured with electromagnetic articulography. Time-locked acoustic recordings were transcribed, and the kinematics of utterances with and without perceived errors were analyzed with existing and novel quantitative methods. New multivariate measures showed that for 5 participants, kinematic variability for productions perceived to be error free was significantly increased under delay; these results were validated by using the spatiotemporal index measure. Analysis of error trials revealed both typical productions of a nontarget syllable and productions with articulatory kinematics that incorporated aspects of both the target and the perceived utterance. This study is among the first to characterize articulatory changes under DAF and provides evidence for different classes of speech errors, which may not be perceptually salient. New methods were developed that may aid visualization and analysis of large kinematic data sets. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5103067.

The Functional Connectome of Speech Control.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefan Fuertinger

2015-07-01

Full Text Available In the past few years, several studies have been directed to understanding the complexity of functional interactions between different brain regions during various human behaviors. Among these, neuroimaging research installed the notion that speech and language require an orchestration of brain regions for comprehension, planning, and integration of a heard sound with a spoken word. However, these studies have been largely limited to mapping the neural correlates of separate speech elements and examining distinct cortical or subcortical circuits involved in different aspects of speech control. As a result, the complexity of the brain network machinery controlling speech and language remained largely unknown. Using graph theoretical analysis of functional MRI (fMRI data in healthy subjects, we quantified the large-scale speech network topology by constructing functional brain networks of increasing hierarchy from the resting state to motor output of meaningless syllables to complex production of real-life speech as well as compared to non-speech-related sequential finger tapping and pure tone discrimination networks. We identified a segregated network of highly connected local neural communities (hubs in the primary sensorimotor and parietal regions, which formed a commonly shared core hub network across the examined conditions, with the left area 4p playing an important role in speech network organization. These sensorimotor core hubs exhibited features of flexible hubs based on their participation in several functional domains across different networks and ability to adaptively switch long-range functional connectivity depending on task content, resulting in a distinct community structure of each examined network. Specifically, compared to other tasks, speech production was characterized by the formation of six distinct neural communities with specialized recruitment of the prefrontal cortex, insula, putamen, and thalamus, which collectively

Research Paper: Production of A Protocol on Early Intervention for Speech and Language Delays in Early Childhood: An Novice Experience in Iran

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roshanak Vameghi

2016-01-01

Results The result of this study is presented as 7 intervention packages, including the following domains of disorders: prelingual lingual speech and language hearing impairment, speech sound, dysphagia, stuttering, and dysarthria  Conclusion Most studies have confirmed the effectiveness and need for early interventions for children with speech and language impairment. However, most do not explain the details of these interventions. Before the present study, no systematic and evidence-based protocol existed for early intervention in childhood speech and language impairments, in Iran; and due to language differences, as well as possible differences in the speech and language developmental process of children of different communities, making direct use of non-Persian references was not possible and effective. Thus, there was a clear demand for the production of such a protocol.

Impact of speech-generating devices on the language development of a child with childhood apraxia of speech: a case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Lüke, Carina

2016-01-01

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of speech-generating devices (SGDs) on the communication and language development of a 2-year-old boy with severe childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). An A-B design was used over a treatment period of 1 year, followed by three additional follow-up measurements, in order to evaluate the implementation of SGDs in the speech therapy of a 2;7-year-old boy with severe CAS. In total, 53 therapy sessions were videotaped and analyzed to better understand his communicative (operationalized as means of communication) and linguistic (operationalized as intelligibility and consistency of speech-productions, lexical and grammatical development) development. The trend-lines of baseline phase A and intervention phase B were compared and percentage of non-overlapping data points were calculated to verify the value of the intervention. The use of SGDs led to an immediate increase in the communicative development of the child. An increase in all linguistic variables was observed, with a latency effect of eight to nine treatment sessions. The implementation of SGDs in speech therapy has the potential to be highly effective in regards to both communicative and linguistic competencies in young children with severe CAS. Implications for Rehabilitation Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a neurological speech sound disorder which results in significant deficits in speech production and lead to a higher risk for language, reading and spelling difficulties. Speech-generating devices (SGD), as one method of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), can effectively enhance the communicative and linguistic development of children with severe CAS.

Situational influences on rhythmicity in speech, music, and their interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Hawkins, Sarah

2014-12-19

Brain processes underlying the production and perception of rhythm indicate considerable flexibility in how physical signals are interpreted. This paper explores how that flexibility might play out in rhythmicity in speech and music. There is much in common across the two domains, but there are also significant differences. Interpretations are explored that reconcile some of the differences, particularly with respect to how functional properties modify the rhythmicity of speech, within limits imposed by its structural constraints. Functional and structural differences mean that music is typically more rhythmic than speech, and that speech will be more rhythmic when the emotions are more strongly engaged, or intended to be engaged. The influence of rhythmicity on attention is acknowledged, and it is suggested that local increases in rhythmicity occur at times when attention is required to coordinate joint action, whether in talking or music-making. Evidence is presented which suggests that while these short phases of heightened rhythmical behaviour are crucial to the success of transitions in communicative interaction, their modality is immaterial: they all function to enhance precise temporal prediction and hence tightly coordinated joint action. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Situational influences on rhythmicity in speech, music, and their interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Hawkins, Sarah

2014-01-01

Brain processes underlying the production and perception of rhythm indicate considerable flexibility in how physical signals are interpreted. This paper explores how that flexibility might play out in rhythmicity in speech and music. There is much in common across the two domains, but there are also significant differences. Interpretations are explored that reconcile some of the differences, particularly with respect to how functional properties modify the rhythmicity of speech, within limits imposed by its structural constraints. Functional and structural differences mean that music is typically more rhythmic than speech, and that speech will be more rhythmic when the emotions are more strongly engaged, or intended to be engaged. The influence of rhythmicity on attention is acknowledged, and it is suggested that local increases in rhythmicity occur at times when attention is required to coordinate joint action, whether in talking or music-making. Evidence is presented which suggests that while these short phases of heightened rhythmical behaviour are crucial to the success of transitions in communicative interaction, their modality is immaterial: they all function to enhance precise temporal prediction and hence tightly coordinated joint action. PMID:25385776

Pragmatic Difficulties in the Production of the Speech Act of Apology by Iraqi EFL Learners

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehdi Falih Al-Ghazalli

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pragmatic difficulties encountered by Iraqi EFL university students in producing the speech act of apology. Although the act of apology is easy to recognize or use by native speakers of English, non-native speakers generally encounter difficulties in discriminating one speech act from another. The problem can be attributed to two factors: pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge. The aim of this study is(1to evaluate the socio-pragmatic level of interpreting apologies as understood and used by Iraqi EFL university learners, (2 find out the level of difficulty they experience in producing apologies and(3 detect the reasons behind such misinterpretations and misuses. It is hypothesized that the socio-pragmatic interpretation of apology tends to play a crucial role in comprehending what is intended by the speaker. However, cultural gaps can be the main reason behind the EFL learners' inaccurate production of the act of apology. To verify the aforementioned hypotheses, a test has been constructed and administered to a sample of 70 fourth-year Iraqi EFL university learners, morning classes. The subjects' responses have been collected and linguistically analyzed in the light of an eclectic model based on Deutschmann (2003 and Lazare (2004. It has been concluded that the misinterpretation or difficulty Iraqi EFL students have faced is mainly attributed to their lack of socio-pragmatic knowledge. The interference of the learnersʹ first language culture has led to non-native productions of speech act of apology.

Joint variable frame rate and length analysis for speech recognition under adverse conditions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tan, Zheng-Hua; Kraljevski, Ivan

2014-01-01

This paper presents a method that combines variable frame length and rate analysis for speech recognition in noisy environments, together with an investigation of the effect of different frame lengths on speech recognition performance. The method adopts frame selection using an a posteriori signal......-to-noise (SNR) ratio weighted energy distance and increases the length of the selected frames, according to the number of non-selected preceding frames. It assigns a higher frame rate and a normal frame length to a rapidly changing and high SNR region of a speech signal, and a lower frame rate and an increased...... frame length to a steady or low SNR region. The speech recognition results show that the proposed variable frame rate and length method outperforms fixed frame rate and length analysis, as well as standalone variable frame rate analysis in terms of noise-robustness....

The role of gestures in spatial working memory and speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Morsella, Ezequiel; Krauss, Robert M

2004-01-01

Co-speech gestures traditionally have been considered communicative, but they may also serve other functions. For example, hand-arm movements seem to facilitate both spatial working memory and speech production. It has been proposed that gestures facilitate speech indirectly by sustaining spatial representations in working memory. Alternatively, gestures may affect speech production directly by activating embodied semantic representations involved in lexical search. Consistent with the first hypothesis, we found participants gestured more when describing visual objects from memory and when describing objects that were difficult to remember and encode verbally. However, they also gestured when describing a visually accessible object, and gesture restriction produced dysfluent speech even when spatial memory was untaxed, suggesting that gestures can directly affect both spatial memory and lexical retrieval.

Specialization in audiovisual speech perception: a replication study

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eskelund, Kasper; Andersen, Tobias

Speech perception is audiovisual as evidenced by bimodal integration in the McGurk effect. This integration effect may be specific to speech or be applied to all stimuli in general. To investigate this, Tuomainen et al. (2005) used sine-wave speech, which naïve observers may perceive as non......-speech, but hear as speech once informed of the linguistic origin of the signal. Combinations of sine-wave speech and incongruent video of the talker elicited a McGurk effect only for informed observers. This indicates that the audiovisual integration effect is specific to speech perception. However, observers...... that observers did look near the mouth. We conclude that eye-movements did not influence the results of Tuomainen et al. and that their results thus can be taken as evidence of a speech specific mode of audiovisual integration underlying the McGurk illusion....

[Intermodal timing cues for audio-visual speech recognition].

Science.gov (United States)

Hashimoto, Masahiro; Kumashiro, Masaharu

2004-06-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the limitations of lip-reading advantages for Japanese young adults by desynchronizing visual and auditory information in speech. In the experiment, audio-visual speech stimuli were presented under the six test conditions: audio-alone, and audio-visually with either 0, 60, 120, 240 or 480 ms of audio delay. The stimuli were the video recordings of a face of a female Japanese speaking long and short Japanese sentences. The intelligibility of the audio-visual stimuli was measured as a function of audio delays in sixteen untrained young subjects. Speech intelligibility under the audio-delay condition of less than 120 ms was significantly better than that under the audio-alone condition. On the other hand, the delay of 120 ms corresponded to the mean mora duration measured for the audio stimuli. The results implied that audio delays of up to 120 ms would not disrupt lip-reading advantage, because visual and auditory information in speech seemed to be integrated on a syllabic time scale. Potential applications of this research include noisy workplace in which a worker must extract relevant speech from all the other competing noises.

Some factors underlying individual differences in speech recognition on PRESTO: a first report.

Science.gov (United States)

Tamati, Terrin N; Gilbert, Jaimie L; Pisoni, David B

2013-01-01

Previous studies investigating speech recognition in adverse listening conditions have found extensive variability among individual listeners. However, little is currently known about the core underlying factors that influence speech recognition abilities. To investigate sensory, perceptual, and neurocognitive differences between good and poor listeners on the Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set (PRESTO), a new high-variability sentence recognition test under adverse listening conditions. Participants who fell in the upper quartile (HiPRESTO listeners) or lower quartile (LoPRESTO listeners) on key word recognition on sentences from PRESTO in multitalker babble completed a battery of behavioral tasks and self-report questionnaires designed to investigate real-world hearing difficulties, indexical processing skills, and neurocognitive abilities. Young, normal-hearing adults (N = 40) from the Indiana University community participated in the current study. Participants' assessment of their own real-world hearing difficulties was measured with a self-report questionnaire on situational hearing and hearing health history. Indexical processing skills were assessed using a talker discrimination task, a gender discrimination task, and a forced-choice regional dialect categorization task. Neurocognitive abilities were measured with the Auditory Digit Span Forward (verbal short-term memory) and Digit Span Backward (verbal working memory) tests, the Stroop Color and Word Test (attention/inhibition), the WordFam word familiarity test (vocabulary size), the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Version (BRIEF-A) self-report questionnaire on executive function, and two performance subtests of the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) Performance Intelligence Quotient (IQ; nonverbal intelligence). Scores on self-report questionnaires and behavioral tasks were tallied and analyzed by listener group (HiPRESTO and LoPRESTO). The extreme

Speech and audio processing for coding, enhancement and recognition

CERN Document Server

Togneri, Roberto; Narasimha, Madihally

2015-01-01

This book describes the basic principles underlying the generation, coding, transmission and enhancement of speech and audio signals, including advanced statistical and machine learning techniques for speech and speaker recognition with an overview of the key innovations in these areas. Key research undertaken in speech coding, speech enhancement, speech recognition, emotion recognition and speaker diarization are also presented, along with recent advances and new paradigms in these areas. ·         Offers readers a single-source reference on the significant applications of speech and audio processing to speech coding, speech enhancement and speech/speaker recognition. Enables readers involved in algorithm development and implementation issues for speech coding to understand the historical development and future challenges in speech coding research; ·         Discusses speech coding methods yielding bit-streams that are multi-rate and scalable for Voice-over-IP (VoIP) Networks; ·     �...

How does cognitive load influence speech perception? An encoding hypothesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitterer, Holger; Mattys, Sven L

2017-01-01

Two experiments investigated the conditions under which cognitive load exerts an effect on the acuity of speech perception. These experiments extend earlier research by using a different speech perception task (four-interval oddity task) and by implementing cognitive load through a task often thought to be modular, namely, face processing. In the cognitive-load conditions, participants were required to remember two faces presented before the speech stimuli. In Experiment 1, performance in the speech-perception task under cognitive load was not impaired in comparison to a no-load baseline condition. In Experiment 2, we modified the load condition minimally such that it required encoding of the two faces simultaneously with the speech stimuli. As a reference condition, we also used a visual search task that in earlier experiments had led to poorer speech perception. Both concurrent tasks led to decrements in the speech task. The results suggest that speech perception is affected even by loads thought to be processed modularly, and that, critically, encoding in working memory might be the locus of interference.

The Interaction of Lexical Characteristics and Speech Production in Parkinson's Disease

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Yi-Fang; Forrest, Karen

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study sought to investigate the interaction of speech movement execution with higher order lexical parameters. The authors examined how lexical characteristics affect speech output in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and healthy control (HC) speakers. Method: Twenty speakers with PD and 12 healthy speakers read sentences…

Top-Down Modulation of Auditory-Motor Integration during Speech Production: The Role of Working Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Zhiqiang; Wu, Xiuqin; Li, Weifeng; Jones, Jeffery A; Yan, Nan; Sheft, Stanley; Liu, Peng; Liu, Hanjun

2017-10-25

Although working memory (WM) is considered as an emergent property of the speech perception and production systems, the role of WM in sensorimotor integration during speech processing is largely unknown. We conducted two event-related potential experiments with female and male young adults to investigate the contribution of WM to the neurobehavioural processing of altered auditory feedback during vocal production. A delayed match-to-sample task that required participants to indicate whether the pitch feedback perturbations they heard during vocalizations in test and sample sequences matched, elicited significantly larger vocal compensations, larger N1 responses in the left middle and superior temporal gyrus, and smaller P2 responses in the left middle and superior temporal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, somatosensory cortex, right inferior frontal gyrus, and insula compared with a control task that did not require memory retention of the sequence of pitch perturbations. On the other hand, participants who underwent extensive auditory WM training produced suppressed vocal compensations that were correlated with improved auditory WM capacity, and enhanced P2 responses in the left middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, right inferior frontal gyrus, and insula that were predicted by pretraining auditory WM capacity. These findings indicate that WM can enhance the perception of voice auditory feedback errors while inhibiting compensatory vocal behavior to prevent voice control from being excessively influenced by auditory feedback. This study provides the first evidence that auditory-motor integration for voice control can be modulated by top-down influences arising from WM, rather than modulated exclusively by bottom-up and automatic processes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT One outstanding question that remains unsolved in speech motor control is how the mismatch between predicted and actual voice auditory feedback is detected and corrected. The present study

Voice-associated static face image releases speech from informational masking.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yayue; Cao, Shuyang; Qu, Tianshu; Wu, Xihong; Li, Haifeng; Zhang, Jinsheng; Li, Liang

2014-06-01

In noisy, multipeople talking environments such as a cocktail party, listeners can use various perceptual and/or cognitive cues to improve recognition of target speech against masking, particularly informational masking. Previous studies have shown that temporally prepresented voice cues (voice primes) improve recognition of target speech against speech masking but not noise masking. This study investigated whether static face image primes that have become target-voice associated (i.e., facial images linked through associative learning with voices reciting the target speech) can be used by listeners to unmask speech. The results showed that in 32 normal-hearing younger adults, temporally prepresenting a voice-priming sentence with the same voice reciting the target sentence significantly improved the recognition of target speech that was masked by irrelevant two-talker speech. When a person's face photograph image became associated with the voice reciting the target speech by learning, temporally prepresenting the target-voice-associated face image significantly improved recognition of target speech against speech masking, particularly for the last two keywords in the target sentence. Moreover, speech-recognition performance under the voice-priming condition was significantly correlated to that under the face-priming condition. The results suggest that learned facial information on talker identity plays an important role in identifying the target-talker's voice and facilitating selective attention to the target-speech stream against the masking-speech stream. © 2014 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

The Influence of Visual and Auditory Information on the Perception of Speech and Non-Speech Oral Movements in Patients with Left Hemisphere Lesions

Science.gov (United States)

Schmid, Gabriele; Thielmann, Anke; Ziegler, Wolfram

2009-01-01

Patients with lesions of the left hemisphere often suffer from oral-facial apraxia, apraxia of speech, and aphasia. In these patients, visual features often play a critical role in speech and language therapy, when pictured lip shapes or the therapist's visible mouth movements are used to facilitate speech production and articulation. This demands…

Electrophysiological and Kinematic Correlates of Communicative Intent in the Planning and Production of Pointing Gestures and Speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Peeters, David; Chu, Mingyuan; Holler, Judith; Hagoort, Peter; Özyürek, Aslı

2015-12-01

In everyday human communication, we often express our communicative intentions by manually pointing out referents in the material world around us to an addressee, often in tight synchronization with referential speech. This study investigated whether and how the kinematic form of index finger pointing gestures is shaped by the gesturer's communicative intentions and how this is modulated by the presence of concurrently produced speech. Furthermore, we explored the neural mechanisms underpinning the planning of communicative pointing gestures and speech. Two experiments were carried out in which participants pointed at referents for an addressee while the informativeness of their gestures and speech was varied. Kinematic and electrophysiological data were recorded online. It was found that participants prolonged the duration of the stroke and poststroke hold phase of their gesture to be more communicative, in particular when the gesture was carrying the main informational burden in their multimodal utterance. Frontal and P300 effects in the ERPs suggested the importance of intentional and modality-independent attentional mechanisms during the planning phase of informative pointing gestures. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex interplay between action, attention, intention, and language in the production of pointing gestures, a communicative act core to human interaction.

Relationship between individual differences in speech processing and cognitive functions.

Science.gov (United States)

Ou, Jinghua; Law, Sam-Po; Fung, Roxana

2015-12-01

A growing body of research has suggested that cognitive abilities may play a role in individual differences in speech processing. The present study took advantage of a widespread linguistic phenomenon of sound change to systematically assess the relationships between speech processing and various components of attention and working memory in the auditory and visual modalities among typically developed Cantonese-speaking individuals. The individual variations in speech processing are captured in an ongoing sound change-tone merging in Hong Kong Cantonese, in which typically developed native speakers are reported to lose the distinctions between some tonal contrasts in perception and/or production. Three groups of participants were recruited, with a first group of good perception and production, a second group of good perception but poor production, and a third group of good production but poor perception. Our findings revealed that modality-independent abilities of attentional switching/control and working memory might contribute to individual differences in patterns of speech perception and production as well as discrimination latencies among typically developed speakers. The findings not only have the potential to generalize to speech processing in other languages, but also broaden our understanding of the omnipresent phenomenon of language change in all languages.

Does Speech Emerge From Earlier Appearing Oral Motor Behaviors?

OpenAIRE

Moore, Christopher A.; Ruark, Jacki L.

1996-01-01

This investigation was designed to quantify the coordinative organization of mandibular muscles in toddlers during speech and nonspeech behaviors. Seven 15-month-olds were observed during spontaneous production of chewing, sucking, babbling, and speech. Comparison of mandibular coordination across these behaviors revealed that, even for children in the earliest stages of true word production, coordination was quite different from that observed for other behaviors. Production of true words was...

Impairments of speech fluency in Lewy body spectrum disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Ash, Sharon; McMillan, Corey; Gross, Rachel G; Cook, Philip; Gunawardena, Delani; Morgan, Brianna; Boller, Ashley; Siderowf, Andrew; Grossman, Murray

2012-03-01

Few studies have examined connected speech in demented and non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). We assessed the speech production of 35 patients with Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including non-demented PD patients, patients with PD dementia (PDD), and patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), in a semi-structured narrative speech sample in order to characterize impairments of speech fluency and to determine the factors contributing to reduced speech fluency in these patients. Both demented and non-demented PD patients exhibited reduced speech fluency, characterized by reduced overall speech rate and long pauses between sentences. Reduced speech rate in LBSD correlated with measures of between-utterance pauses, executive functioning, and grammatical comprehension. Regression analyses related non-fluent speech, grammatical difficulty, and executive difficulty to atrophy in frontal brain regions. These findings indicate that multiple factors contribute to slowed speech in LBSD, and this is mediated in part by disease in frontal brain regions. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Musician advantage for speech-on-speech perception

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Başkent, Deniz; Gaudrain, Etienne

Evidence for transfer of musical training to better perception of speech in noise has been mixed. Unlike speech-in-noise, speech-on-speech perception utilizes many of the skills that musical training improves, such as better pitch perception and stream segregation, as well as use of higher-level

Individual differneces in degraded speech perception

Science.gov (United States)

Carbonell, Kathy M.

One of the lasting concerns in audiology is the unexplained individual differences in speech perception performance even for individuals with similar audiograms. One proposal is that there are cognitive/perceptual individual differences underlying this vulnerability and that these differences are present in normal hearing (NH) individuals but do not reveal themselves in studies that use clear speech produced in quiet (because of a ceiling effect). However, previous studies have failed to uncover cognitive/perceptual variables that explain much of the variance in NH performance on more challenging degraded speech tasks. This lack of strong correlations may be due to either examining the wrong measures (e.g., working memory capacity) or to there being no reliable differences in degraded speech performance in NH listeners (i.e., variability in performance is due to measurement noise). The proposed project has 3 aims; the first, is to establish whether there are reliable individual differences in degraded speech performance for NH listeners that are sustained both across degradation types (speech in noise, compressed speech, noise-vocoded speech) and across multiple testing sessions. The second aim is to establish whether there are reliable differences in NH listeners' ability to adapt their phonetic categories based on short-term statistics both across tasks and across sessions; and finally, to determine whether performance on degraded speech perception tasks are correlated with performance on phonetic adaptability tasks, thus establishing a possible explanatory variable for individual differences in speech perception for NH and hearing impaired listeners.

Timing Errors in Two Children with Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech (sCAS) during Speech and Music-Related Tasks

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Peter, Beate; Stoel-Gammon, Carol

2005-01-01

Impaired speech prosody has been identified as a critical feature of suspected childhood apraxia of speech (sCAS). Lexical stress productions of children with sCAS have been characterized as 'excessive/equal/misplaced'. This investigation examines two potential explanations of this particular deficit, articulatory difficulty and impaired intrinsic…

A music perception disorder (congenital amusia) influences speech comprehension.

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Liu, Fang; Jiang, Cunmei; Wang, Bei; Xu, Yi; Patel, Aniruddh D

2015-01-01

This study investigated the underlying link between speech and music by examining whether and to what extent congenital amusia, a musical disorder characterized by degraded pitch processing, would impact spoken sentence comprehension for speakers of Mandarin, a tone language. Sixteen Mandarin-speaking amusics and 16 matched controls were tested on the intelligibility of news-like Mandarin sentences with natural and flat fundamental frequency (F0) contours (created via speech resynthesis) under four signal-to-noise (SNR) conditions (no noise, +5, 0, and -5dB SNR). While speech intelligibility in quiet and extremely noisy conditions (SNR=-5dB) was not significantly compromised by flattened F0, both amusic and control groups achieved better performance with natural-F0 sentences than flat-F0 sentences under moderately noisy conditions (SNR=+5 and 0dB). Relative to normal listeners, amusics demonstrated reduced speech intelligibility in both quiet and noise, regardless of whether the F0 contours of the sentences were natural or flattened. This deficit in speech intelligibility was not associated with impaired pitch perception in amusia. These findings provide evidence for impaired speech comprehension in congenital amusia, suggesting that the deficit of amusics extends beyond pitch processing and includes segmental processing. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Speech misperception: speaking and seeing interfere differently with hearing.

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Takemi Mochida

Full Text Available Speech perception is thought to be linked to speech motor production. This linkage is considered to mediate multimodal aspects of speech perception, such as audio-visual and audio-tactile integration. However, direct coupling between articulatory movement and auditory perception has been little studied. The present study reveals a clear dissociation between the effects of a listener's own speech action and the effects of viewing another's speech movements on the perception of auditory phonemes. We assessed the intelligibility of the syllables [pa], [ta], and [ka] when listeners silently and simultaneously articulated syllables that were congruent/incongruent with the syllables they heard. The intelligibility was compared with a condition where the listeners simultaneously watched another's mouth producing congruent/incongruent syllables, but did not articulate. The intelligibility of [ta] and [ka] were degraded by articulating [ka] and [ta] respectively, which are associated with the same primary articulator (tongue as the heard syllables. But they were not affected by articulating [pa], which is associated with a different primary articulator (lips from the heard syllables. In contrast, the intelligibility of [ta] and [ka] was degraded by watching the production of [pa]. These results indicate that the articulatory-induced distortion of speech perception occurs in an articulator-specific manner while visually induced distortion does not. The articulator-specific nature of the auditory-motor interaction in speech perception suggests that speech motor processing directly contributes to our ability to hear speech.

Speech recognition using articulatory and excitation source features

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Rao, K Sreenivasa

2017-01-01

This book discusses the contribution of articulatory and excitation source information in discriminating sound units. The authors focus on excitation source component of speech -- and the dynamics of various articulators during speech production -- for enhancement of speech recognition (SR) performance. Speech recognition is analyzed for read, extempore, and conversation modes of speech. Five groups of articulatory features (AFs) are explored for speech recognition, in addition to conventional spectral features. Each chapter provides the motivation for exploring the specific feature for SR task, discusses the methods to extract those features, and finally suggests appropriate models to capture the sound unit specific knowledge from the proposed features. The authors close by discussing various combinations of spectral, articulatory and source features, and the desired models to enhance the performance of SR systems.

Effects of hearing loss on speech recognition under distracting conditions and working memory in the elderly.

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Na, Wondo; Kim, Gibbeum; Kim, Gungu; Han, Woojae; Kim, Jinsook

2017-01-01

The current study aimed to evaluate hearing-related changes in terms of speech-in-noise processing, fast-rate speech processing, and working memory; and to identify which of these three factors is significantly affected by age-related hearing loss. One hundred subjects aged 65-84 years participated in the study. They were classified into four groups ranging from normal hearing to moderate-to-severe hearing loss. All the participants were tested for speech perception in quiet and noisy conditions and for speech perception with time alteration in quiet conditions. Forward- and backward-digit span tests were also conducted to measure the participants' working memory. 1) As the level of background noise increased, speech perception scores systematically decreased in all the groups. This pattern was more noticeable in the three hearing-impaired groups than in the normal hearing group. 2) As the speech rate increased faster, speech perception scores decreased. A significant interaction was found between speed of speech and hearing loss. In particular, 30% of compressed sentences revealed a clear differentiation between moderate hearing loss and moderate-to-severe hearing loss. 3) Although all the groups showed a longer span on the forward-digit span test than the backward-digit span test, there was no significant difference as a function of hearing loss. The degree of hearing loss strongly affects the speech recognition of babble-masked and time-compressed speech in the elderly but does not affect the working memory. We expect these results to be applied to appropriate rehabilitation strategies for hearing-impaired elderly who experience difficulty in communication.

INTEGRATING MACHINE TRANSLATION AND SPEECH SYNTHESIS COMPONENT FOR ENGLISH TO DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGE SPEECH TO SPEECH TRANSLATION SYSTEM

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J. SANGEETHA

2015-02-01

Full Text Available This paper provides an interface between the machine translation and speech synthesis system for converting English speech to Tamil text in English to Tamil speech to speech translation system. The speech translation system consists of three modules: automatic speech recognition, machine translation and text to speech synthesis. Many procedures for incorporation of speech recognition and machine translation have been projected. Still speech synthesis system has not yet been measured. In this paper, we focus on integration of machine translation and speech synthesis, and report a subjective evaluation to investigate the impact of speech synthesis, machine translation and the integration of machine translation and speech synthesis components. Here we implement a hybrid machine translation (combination of rule based and statistical machine translation and concatenative syllable based speech synthesis technique. In order to retain the naturalness and intelligibility of synthesized speech Auto Associative Neural Network (AANN prosody prediction is used in this work. The results of this system investigation demonstrate that the naturalness and intelligibility of the synthesized speech are strongly influenced by the fluency and correctness of the translated text.

Robust signal selection for lineair prediction analysis of voiced speech

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Ma, C.; Kamp, Y.; Willems, L.F.

1993-01-01

This paper investigates a weighted LPC analysis of voiced speech. In view of the speech production model, the weighting function is either chosen to be the short-time energy function of the preemphasized speech sample sequence with certain delays or is obtained by thresholding the short-time energy

Imitation and speech: commonalities within Broca's area.

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Kühn, Simone; Brass, Marcel; Gallinat, Jürgen

2013-11-01

The so-called embodiment of communication has attracted considerable interest. Recently a growing number of studies have proposed a link between Broca's area's involvement in action processing and its involvement in speech. The present quantitative meta-analysis set out to test whether neuroimaging studies on imitation and overt speech show overlap within inferior frontal gyrus. By means of activation likelihood estimation (ALE), we investigated concurrence of brain regions activated by object-free hand imitation studies as well as overt speech studies including simple syllable and more complex word production. We found direct overlap between imitation and speech in bilateral pars opercularis (BA 44) within Broca's area. Subtraction analyses revealed no unique localization neither for speech nor for imitation. To verify the potential of ALE subtraction analysis to detect unique involvement within Broca's area, we contrasted the results of a meta-analysis on motor inhibition and imitation and found separable regions involved for imitation. This is the first meta-analysis to compare the neural correlates of imitation and overt speech. The results are in line with the proposed evolutionary roots of speech in imitation.

Tuning Neural Phase Entrainment to Speech.

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Falk, Simone; Lanzilotti, Cosima; Schön, Daniele

2017-08-01

Musical rhythm positively impacts on subsequent speech processing. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are so far unclear. We investigated whether carryover effects from a preceding musical cue to a speech stimulus result from a continuation of neural phase entrainment to periodicities that are present in both music and speech. Participants listened and memorized French metrical sentences that contained (quasi-)periodic recurrences of accents and syllables. Speech stimuli were preceded by a rhythmically regular or irregular musical cue. Our results show that the presence of a regular cue modulates neural response as estimated by EEG power spectral density, intertrial coherence, and source analyses at critical frequencies during speech processing compared with the irregular condition. Importantly, intertrial coherences for regular cues were indicative of the participants' success in memorizing the subsequent speech stimuli. These findings underscore the highly adaptive nature of neural phase entrainment across fundamentally different auditory stimuli. They also support current models of neural phase entrainment as a tool of predictive timing and attentional selection across cognitive domains.

Neurophysiological influence of musical training on speech perception.

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Shahin, Antoine J

2011-01-01

Does musical training affect our perception of speech? For example, does learning to play a musical instrument modify the neural circuitry for auditory processing in a way that improves one's ability to perceive speech more clearly in noisy environments? If so, can speech perception in individuals with hearing loss (HL), who struggle in noisy situations, benefit from musical training? While music and speech exhibit some specialization in neural processing, there is evidence suggesting that skills acquired through musical training for specific acoustical processes may transfer to, and thereby improve, speech perception. The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the influence of musical training on speech processing and the extent of this influence remains a rich area to be explored. A prerequisite for such transfer is the facilitation of greater neurophysiological overlap between speech and music processing following musical training. This review first establishes a neurophysiological link between musical training and speech perception, and subsequently provides further hypotheses on the neurophysiological implications of musical training on speech perception in adverse acoustical environments and in individuals with HL.

Speech endpoint detection with non-language speech sounds for generic speech processing applications

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McClain, Matthew; Romanowski, Brian

2009-05-01

Non-language speech sounds (NLSS) are sounds produced by humans that do not carry linguistic information. Examples of these sounds are coughs, clicks, breaths, and filled pauses such as "uh" and "um" in English. NLSS are prominent in conversational speech, but can be a significant source of errors in speech processing applications. Traditionally, these sounds are ignored by speech endpoint detection algorithms, where speech regions are identified in the audio signal prior to processing. The ability to filter NLSS as a pre-processing step can significantly enhance the performance of many speech processing applications, such as speaker identification, language identification, and automatic speech recognition. In order to be used in all such applications, NLSS detection must be performed without the use of language models that provide knowledge of the phonology and lexical structure of speech. This is especially relevant to situations where the languages used in the audio are not known apriori. We present the results of preliminary experiments using data from American and British English speakers, in which segments of audio are classified as language speech sounds (LSS) or NLSS using a set of acoustic features designed for language-agnostic NLSS detection and a hidden-Markov model (HMM) to model speech generation. The results of these experiments indicate that the features and model used are capable of detection certain types of NLSS, such as breaths and clicks, while detection of other types of NLSS such as filled pauses will require future research.

Temporal dynamics of sensorimotor integration in speech perception and production: Independent component analysis of EEG data

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David eJenson

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Activity in premotor and sensorimotor cortices is found in speech production and some perception tasks. Yet, how sensorimotor integration supports these functions is unclear due to a lack of data examining the timing of activity from these regions. Beta (~20Hz and alpha (~10Hz spectral power within the EEG µ rhythm are considered indices of motor and somatosensory activity, respectively. In the current study, perception conditions required discrimination (same/different of syllables pairs (/ba/ and /da/ in quiet and noisy conditions. Production conditions required covert and overt syllable productions and overt word production. Independent component analysis was performed on EEG data obtained during these conditions to 1 identify clusters of µ components common to all conditions and 2 examine real-time event-related spectral perturbations (ERSP within alpha and beta bands. 17 and 15 out of 20 participants produced left and right µ-components, respectively, localized to precentral gyri. Discrimination conditions were characterized by significant (pFDR<.05 early alpha event-related synchronization (ERS prior to and during stimulus presentation and later alpha event-related desynchronization (ERD following stimulus offset. Beta ERD began early and gained strength across time. Differences were found between quiet and noisy discrimination conditions. Both overt syllable and word productions yielded similar alpha/beta ERD that began prior to production and was strongest during muscle activity. Findings during covert production were weaker than during overt production. One explanation for these findings is that µ-beta ERD indexes early predictive coding (e.g., internal modeling and/or overt and covert attentional / motor processes. µ-alpha ERS may index inhibitory input to the premotor cortex from sensory regions prior to and during discrimination, while µ-alpha ERD may index re-afferent sensory feedback during speech rehearsal and production.

Hearing speech in music.

Science.gov (United States)

Ekström, Seth-Reino; Borg, Erik

2011-01-01

The masking effect of a piano composition, played at different speeds and in different octaves, on speech-perception thresholds was investigated in 15 normal-hearing and 14 moderately-hearing-impaired subjects. Running speech (just follow conversation, JFC) testing and use of hearing aids increased the everyday validity of the findings. A comparison was made with standard audiometric noises [International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA) noise and speech spectrum-filtered noise (SPN)]. All masking sounds, music or noise, were presented at the same equivalent sound level (50 dBA). The results showed a significant effect of piano performance speed and octave (Ptempo had the largest effect; and high octave and slow tempo, the smallest. Music had a lower masking effect than did ICRA noise with two or six speakers at normal vocal effort (Pmusic offers an interesting opportunity for studying masking under realistic conditions, where spectral and temporal features can be varied independently. The results have implications for composing music with vocal parts, designing acoustic environments and creating a balance between speech perception and privacy in social settings.

MUSES UNDER ARMS: AESTHETIZATION OF WAR IN THE SPEECHES OF MAVRO ŠPICER

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Kristian Novak

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a discourse analysis of the public speeches of Mavro Špicer (1862 – 1936, a distinguished Croatian esperantist, lexicographer, translator, literary anthologist and officer in the army of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In this survey a semiological analysis of the topics, motives and argumentation strategies was conducted in order to specify the fetaures of recontextualisation of two social practises – warfare and artistic creation. Analysis has shown that the contents of the speeches incorporate two levels: on the one hand, the speeches present art historical overwievs over major works and poetics of world literature, music and visual arts, respectively. On the other hand, there is a noticeable explicit persuasive intent to mediate several political concepts and opinions, such as the positive effects of military education and the need for recruitment and military buildup. The symbolic interface between these two levels is the leitmotif of all the analyzed speeches – the concept of an unbreakable and interactive connection between artistic creation and warfare throughout the history of mankind.

Atypical speech versus non-speech detection and discrimination in 4- to 6- yr old children with autism spectrum disorder: An ERP study.

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Alena Galilee

Full Text Available Previous event-related potential (ERP research utilizing oddball stimulus paradigms suggests diminished processing of speech versus non-speech sounds in children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD. However, brain mechanisms underlying these speech processing abnormalities, and to what extent they are related to poor language abilities in this population remain unknown. In the current study, we utilized a novel paired repetition paradigm in order to investigate ERP responses associated with the detection and discrimination of speech and non-speech sounds in 4- to 6-year old children with ASD, compared with gender and verbal age matched controls. ERPs were recorded while children passively listened to pairs of stimuli that were either both speech sounds, both non-speech sounds, speech followed by non-speech, or non-speech followed by speech. Control participants exhibited N330 match/mismatch responses measured from temporal electrodes, reflecting speech versus non-speech detection, bilaterally, whereas children with ASD exhibited this effect only over temporal electrodes in the left hemisphere. Furthermore, while the control groups exhibited match/mismatch effects at approximately 600 ms (central N600, temporal P600 when a non-speech sound was followed by a speech sound, these effects were absent in the ASD group. These findings suggest that children with ASD fail to activate right hemisphere mechanisms, likely associated with social or emotional aspects of speech detection, when distinguishing non-speech from speech stimuli. Together, these results demonstrate the presence of atypical speech versus non-speech processing in children with ASD when compared with typically developing children matched on verbal age.

Atypical speech versus non-speech detection and discrimination in 4- to 6- yr old children with autism spectrum disorder: An ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Galilee, Alena; Stefanidou, Chrysi; McCleery, Joseph P

2017-01-01

Previous event-related potential (ERP) research utilizing oddball stimulus paradigms suggests diminished processing of speech versus non-speech sounds in children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, brain mechanisms underlying these speech processing abnormalities, and to what extent they are related to poor language abilities in this population remain unknown. In the current study, we utilized a novel paired repetition paradigm in order to investigate ERP responses associated with the detection and discrimination of speech and non-speech sounds in 4- to 6-year old children with ASD, compared with gender and verbal age matched controls. ERPs were recorded while children passively listened to pairs of stimuli that were either both speech sounds, both non-speech sounds, speech followed by non-speech, or non-speech followed by speech. Control participants exhibited N330 match/mismatch responses measured from temporal electrodes, reflecting speech versus non-speech detection, bilaterally, whereas children with ASD exhibited this effect only over temporal electrodes in the left hemisphere. Furthermore, while the control groups exhibited match/mismatch effects at approximately 600 ms (central N600, temporal P600) when a non-speech sound was followed by a speech sound, these effects were absent in the ASD group. These findings suggest that children with ASD fail to activate right hemisphere mechanisms, likely associated with social or emotional aspects of speech detection, when distinguishing non-speech from speech stimuli. Together, these results demonstrate the presence of atypical speech versus non-speech processing in children with ASD when compared with typically developing children matched on verbal age.

[Prosody, speech input and language acquisition].

Science.gov (United States)

Jungheim, M; Miller, S; Kühn, D; Ptok, M

2014-04-01

In order to acquire language, children require speech input. The prosody of the speech input plays an important role. In most cultures adults modify their code when communicating with children. Compared to normal speech this code differs especially with regard to prosody. For this review a selective literature search in PubMed and Scopus was performed. Prosodic characteristics are a key feature of spoken language. By analysing prosodic features, children gain knowledge about underlying grammatical structures. Child-directed speech (CDS) is modified in a way that meaningful sequences are highlighted acoustically so that important information can be extracted from the continuous speech flow more easily. CDS is said to enhance the representation of linguistic signs. Taking into consideration what has previously been described in the literature regarding the perception of suprasegmentals, CDS seems to be able to support language acquisition due to the correspondence of prosodic and syntactic units. However, no findings have been reported, stating that the linguistically reduced CDS could hinder first language acquisition.

Childhood apraxia of speech and multiple phonological disorders in Cairo-Egyptian Arabic speaking children: language, speech, and oro-motor differences.

Science.gov (United States)

Aziz, Azza Adel; Shohdi, Sahar; Osman, Dalia Mostafa; Habib, Emad Iskander

2010-06-01

Childhood apraxia of speech is a neurological childhood speech-sound disorder in which the precision and consistency of movements underlying speech are impaired in the absence of neuromuscular deficits. Children with childhood apraxia of speech and those with multiple phonological disorder share some common phonological errors that can be misleading in diagnosis. This study posed a question about a possible significant difference in language, speech and non-speech oral performances between children with childhood apraxia of speech, multiple phonological disorder and normal children that can be used for a differential diagnostic purpose. 30 pre-school children between the ages of 4 and 6 years served as participants. Each of these children represented one of 3 possible subject-groups: Group 1: multiple phonological disorder; Group 2: suspected cases of childhood apraxia of speech; Group 3: control group with no communication disorder. Assessment procedures included: parent interviews; testing of non-speech oral motor skills and testing of speech skills. Data showed that children with suspected childhood apraxia of speech showed significantly lower language score only in their expressive abilities. Non-speech tasks did not identify significant differences between childhood apraxia of speech and multiple phonological disorder groups except for those which required two sequential motor performances. In speech tasks, both consonant and vowel accuracy were significantly lower and inconsistent in childhood apraxia of speech group than in the multiple phonological disorder group. Syllable number, shape and sequence accuracy differed significantly in the childhood apraxia of speech group than the other two groups. In addition, children with childhood apraxia of speech showed greater difficulty in processing prosodic features indicating a clear need to address these variables for differential diagnosis and treatment of children with childhood apraxia of speech. Copyright (c

The politeness prosody of the Javanese directive speech

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F.X. Rahyono

2009-10-01

Full Text Available This experimental phonetic research deals with the prosodies of directive speech in Javanese. The research procedures were: (1 speech production, (2 acoustic analysis, and (3 perception test. The data investigated are three directive utterances, in the form of statements, commands, and questions. The data were obtained by recording dialogues that present polite as well as impolite speech. Three acoustic experiments were conducted for statements, commands, and questions in directive speech: (1 modifications of duration, (2 modifications of contour, and (3 modifications of fundamental frequency. The result of the subsequent perception tests to 90 stimuli with 24 subjects were analysed statistically with ANOVA (Analysis of Variant. Based on this statistic analysis, the prosodic characteristics of polite and impolite speech were identified.

Subtyping Children with Speech Sound Disorders by Endophenotypes

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Lewis, Barbara A.; Avrich, Allison A.; Freebairn, Lisa A.; Taylor, H. Gerry; Iyengar, Sudha K.; Stein, Catherine M.

2011-01-01

Purpose: The present study examined associations of 5 endophenotypes (i.e., measurable skills that are closely associated with speech sound disorders and are useful in detecting genetic influences on speech sound production), oral motor skills, phonological memory, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and speeded naming, with 3 clinical criteria…

Vowel production, speech-motor control, and phonological encoding in people who are lesbian, bisexual, or gay, and people who are not

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Munson, Benjamin; Deboe, Nancy

2003-10-01

A recent study (Pierrehumbert, Bent, Munson, and Bailey, submitted) found differences in vowel production between people who are lesbian, bisexual, or gay (LBG) and people who are not. The specific differences (more fronted /u/ and /a/ in the non-LB women; an overall more-contracted vowel space in the non-gay men) were not amenable to an interpretation based on simple group differences in vocal-tract geometry. Rather, they suggested that differences were either due to group differences in some other skill, such as motor control or phonological encoding, or learned. This paper expands on this research by examining vowel production, speech-motor control (measured by diadochokinetic rates), and phonological encoding (measured by error rates in a tongue-twister task) in people who are LBG and people who are not. Analyses focus on whether the findings of Pierrehumbert et al. (submitted) are replicable, and whether group differences in vowel production are related to group differences in speech-motor control or phonological encoding. To date, 20 LB women, 20 non-LB women, 7 gay men, and 7 non-gay men have participated. Preliminary analyses suggest that there are no group differences in speech motor control or phonological encoding, suggesting that the earlier findings of Pierrehumbert et al. reflected learned behaviors.

Speech masking and cancelling and voice obscuration

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Holzrichter, John F.

2013-09-10

A non-acoustic sensor is used to measure a user's speech and then broadcasts an obscuring acoustic signal diminishing the user's vocal acoustic output intensity and/or distorting the voice sounds making them unintelligible to persons nearby. The non-acoustic sensor is positioned proximate or contacting a user's neck or head skin tissue for sensing speech production information.

Philosophy of Research in Motor Speech Disorders

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Weismer, Gary

2006-01-01

The primary objective of this position paper is to assess the theoretical and empirical support that exists for the Mayo Clinic view of motor speech disorders in general, and for oromotor, nonverbal tasks as a window to speech production processes in particular. Literature both in support of and against the Mayo clinic view and the associated use…

Speech Emotion Recognition Based on Power Normalized Cepstral Coefficients in Noisy Conditions

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M. Bashirpour

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Automatic recognition of speech emotional states in noisy conditions has become an important research topic in the emotional speech recognition area, in recent years. This paper considers the recognition of emotional states via speech in real environments. For this task, we employ the power normalized cepstral coefficients (PNCC in a speech emotion recognition system. We investigate its performance in emotion recognition using clean and noisy speech materials and compare it with the performances of the well-known MFCC, LPCC, RASTA-PLP, and also TEMFCC features. Speech samples are extracted from the Berlin emotional speech database (Emo DB and Persian emotional speech database (Persian ESD which are corrupted with 4 different noise types under various SNR levels. The experiments are conducted in clean train/noisy test scenarios to simulate practical conditions with noise sources. Simulation results show that higher recognition rates are achieved for PNCC as compared with the conventional features under noisy conditions.

The Frame Constraint on Experimentally Elicited Speech Errors in Japanese

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Saito, Akie; Inoue, Tomoyoshi

2017-01-01

The so-called syllable position effect in speech errors has been interpreted as reflecting constraints posed by the frame structure of a given language, which is separately operating from linguistic content during speech production. The effect refers to the phenomenon that when a speech error occurs, replaced and replacing sounds tend to be in the…

A Lag in Speech Motor Coordination during Sentence Production Is Associated with Stuttering Persistence in Young Children

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Usler, Evan; Smith, Anne; Weber, Christine

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if indices of speech motor coordination during the production of sentences varying in sentence length and syntactic complexity were associated with stuttering persistence versus recovery in 5- to 7-year-old children. Methods: We compared children with persistent stuttering (CWS-Per) with children…

Music and Speech Perception in Children Using Sung Speech.

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Nie, Yingjiu; Galvin, John J; Morikawa, Michael; André, Victoria; Wheeler, Harley; Fu, Qian-Jie

2018-01-01

This study examined music and speech perception in normal-hearing children with some or no musical training. Thirty children (mean age = 11.3 years), 15 with and 15 without formal music training participated in the study. Music perception was measured using a melodic contour identification (MCI) task; stimuli were a piano sample or sung speech with a fixed timbre (same word for each note) or a mixed timbre (different words for each note). Speech perception was measured in quiet and in steady noise using a matrix-styled sentence recognition task; stimuli were naturally intonated speech or sung speech with a fixed pitch (same note for each word) or a mixed pitch (different notes for each word). Significant musician advantages were observed for MCI and speech in noise but not for speech in quiet. MCI performance was significantly poorer with the mixed timbre stimuli. Speech performance in noise was significantly poorer with the fixed or mixed pitch stimuli than with spoken speech. Across all subjects, age at testing and MCI performance were significantly correlated with speech performance in noise. MCI and speech performance in quiet was significantly poorer for children than for adults from a related study using the same stimuli and tasks; speech performance in noise was significantly poorer for young than for older children. Long-term music training appeared to benefit melodic pitch perception and speech understanding in noise in these pediatric listeners.

Model based Binaural Enhancement of Voiced and Unvoiced Speech

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kavalekalam, Mathew Shaji; Christensen, Mads Græsbøll; Boldt, Jesper B.

2017-01-01

This paper deals with the enhancement of speech in presence of non-stationary babble noise. A binaural speech enhancement framework is proposed which takes into account both the voiced and unvoiced speech production model. The usage of this model in enhancement requires the Short term predictor...... (STP) parameters and the pitch information to be estimated. This paper uses a codebook based approach for estimating the STP parameters and a parametric binaural method is proposed for estimating the pitch parameters. Improvements in objective score are shown when using the voicedunvoiced speech model...

Prediction and imitation in speech

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Chiara eGambi

2013-06-01

Full Text Available It has been suggested that intra- and inter-speaker variability in speech are correlated. Interlocutors have been shown to converge on various phonetic dimensions. In addition, speakers imitate the phonetic properties of voices they are exposed to in shadowing, repetition, and even passive listening tasks. We review three theoretical accounts of speech imitation and convergence phenomena: (i the Episodic Theory (ET of speech perception and production (Goldinger, 1998; (ii the Motor Theory (MT of speech perception (Liberman and Whalen, 2000;Galantucci et al., 2006 ; (iii Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT; Giles et al., 1991;Giles and Coupland, 1991. We argue that no account is able to explain all the available evidence. In particular, there is a need to integrate low-level, mechanistic accounts (like ET and MT and higher-level accounts (like CAT. We propose that this is possible within the framework of an integrated theory of production and comprehension (Pickering & Garrod, in press. Similarly to both ET and MT, this theory assumes parity between production and perception. Uniquely, however, it posits that listeners simulate speakers’ utterances by computing forward-model predictions at many different levels, which are then compared to the incoming phonetic input. In our account phonetic imitation can be achieved via the same mechanism that is responsible for sensorimotor adaptation; i.e. the correction of prediction errors. In addition, the model assumes that the degree to which sensory prediction errors lead to motor adjustments is context-dependent. The notion of context subsumes both the preceding linguistic input and non-linguistic attributes of the situation (e.g., the speaker’s and listener’s social identities, their conversational roles, the listener’s intention to imitate.

Selection of gender marked morphemes in speech production

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schriefers, H.J.; Jescheniak, J.D.; Hantsch, A.

2005-01-01

N.O. Schiller and A. Caramazza (2003) and A. Costa, D. Kovacic, E. Fedorenko, and A. Caramazza (2003) have argued that the processing of freestanding gender-marked morphemes (e.g., determiners) and bound gender-marked morphemes (e.g., adjective suffixes) during syntactic encoding in speech

Multi-thread Parallel Speech Recognition for Mobile Applications

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LOJKA Martin

2014-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the server based solution of the multi-thread large vocabulary automatic speech recognition engine is described along with the Android OS and HTML5 practical application examples. The basic idea was to bring speech recognition available for full variety of applications for computers and especially for mobile devices. The speech recognition engine should be independent of commercial products and services (where the dictionary could not be modified. Using of third-party services could be also a security and privacy problem in specific applications, when the unsecured audio data could not be sent to uncontrolled environments (voice data transferred to servers around the globe. Using our experience with speech recognition applications, we have been able to construct a multi-thread speech recognition serverbased solution designed for simple applications interface (API to speech recognition engine modified to specific needs of particular application.

Temporal factors affecting somatosensory-auditory interactions in speech processing

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Takayuki eIto

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Speech perception is known to rely on both auditory and visual information. However, sound specific somatosensory input has been shown also to influence speech perceptual processing (Ito et al., 2009. In the present study we addressed further the relationship between somatosensory information and speech perceptual processing by addressing the hypothesis that the temporal relationship between orofacial movement and sound processing contributes to somatosensory-auditory interaction in speech perception. We examined the changes in event-related potentials in response to multisensory synchronous (simultaneous and asynchronous (90 ms lag and lead somatosensory and auditory stimulation compared to individual unisensory auditory and somatosensory stimulation alone. We used a robotic device to apply facial skin somatosensory deformations that were similar in timing and duration to those experienced in speech production. Following synchronous multisensory stimulation the amplitude of the event-related potential was reliably different from the two unisensory potentials. More importantly, the magnitude of the event-related potential difference varied as a function of the relative timing of the somatosensory-auditory stimulation. Event-related activity change due to stimulus timing was seen between 160-220 ms following somatosensory onset, mostly around the parietal area. The results demonstrate a dynamic modulation of somatosensory-auditory convergence and suggest the contribution of somatosensory information for speech processing process is dependent on the specific temporal order of sensory inputs in speech production.

Sparsity in Linear Predictive Coding of Speech

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Giacobello, Daniele

of the effectiveness of their application in audio processing. The second part of the thesis deals with introducing sparsity directly in the linear prediction analysis-by-synthesis (LPAS) speech coding paradigm. We first propose a novel near-optimal method to look for a sparse approximate excitation using a compressed...... one with direct applications to coding but also consistent with the speech production model of voiced speech, where the excitation of the all-pole filter can be modeled as an impulse train, i.e., a sparse sequence. Introducing sparsity in the LP framework will also bring to de- velop the concept...... sensing formulation. Furthermore, we define a novel re-estimation procedure to adapt the predictor coefficients to the given sparse excitation, balancing the two representations in the context of speech coding. Finally, the advantages of the compact parametric representation of a segment of speech, given...

Apraxia of Speech

Science.gov (United States)

... Health Info » Voice, Speech, and Language Apraxia of Speech On this page: What is apraxia of speech? ... about apraxia of speech? What is apraxia of speech? Apraxia of speech (AOS)—also known as acquired ...

Levodopa effects on hand and speech movements in patients with Parkinson's disease: a FMRI study.

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Audrey Maillet

Full Text Available Levodopa (L-dopa effects on the cardinal and axial symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD differ greatly, leading to therapeutic challenges for managing the disabilities in this patient's population. In this context, we studied the cerebral networks associated with the production of a unilateral hand movement, speech production, and a task combining both tasks in 12 individuals with PD, both off and on levodopa (L-dopa. Unilateral hand movements in the off medication state elicited brain activations in motor regions (primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area, premotor cortex, cerebellum, as well as additional areas (anterior cingulate, putamen, associative parietal areas; following L-dopa administration, the brain activation profile was globally reduced, highlighting activations in the parietal and posterior cingulate cortices. For the speech production task, brain activation patterns were similar with and without medication, including the orofacial primary motor cortex (M1, the primary somatosensory cortex and the cerebellar hemispheres bilaterally, as well as the left- premotor, anterior cingulate and supramarginal cortices. For the combined task off L-dopa, the cerebral activation profile was restricted to the right cerebellum (hand movement, reflecting the difficulty in performing two movements simultaneously in PD. Under L-dopa, the brain activation profile of the combined task involved a larger pattern, including additional fronto-parietal activations, without reaching the sum of the areas activated during the simple hand and speech tasks separately. Our results question both the role of the basal ganglia system in speech production and the modulation of task-dependent cerebral networks by dopaminergic treatment.

Cortical oscillations and entrainment in speech processing during working memory load.

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Hjortkjaer, Jens; Märcher-Rørsted, Jonatan; Fuglsang, Søren A; Dau, Torsten

2018-02-02

Neuronal oscillations are thought to play an important role in working memory (WM) and speech processing. Listening to speech in real-life situations is often cognitively demanding but it is unknown whether WM load influences how auditory cortical activity synchronizes to speech features. Here, we developed an auditory n-back paradigm to investigate cortical entrainment to speech envelope fluctuations under different degrees of WM load. We measured the electroencephalogram, pupil dilations and behavioural performance from 22 subjects listening to continuous speech with an embedded n-back task. The speech stimuli consisted of long spoken number sequences created to match natural speech in terms of sentence intonation, syllabic rate and phonetic content. To burden different WM functions during speech processing, listeners performed an n-back task on the speech sequences in different levels of background noise. Increasing WM load at higher n-back levels was associated with a decrease in posterior alpha power as well as increased pupil dilations. Frontal theta power increased at the start of the trial and increased additionally with higher n-back level. The observed alpha-theta power changes are consistent with visual n-back paradigms suggesting general oscillatory correlates of WM processing load. Speech entrainment was measured as a linear mapping between the envelope of the speech signal and low-frequency cortical activity (level) decreased cortical speech envelope entrainment. Although entrainment persisted under high load, our results suggest a top-down influence of WM processing on cortical speech entrainment. © 2018 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A characterization of verb use in Turkish agrammatic narrative speech.

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Arslan, Seçkin; Bamyacı, Elif; Bastiaanse, Roelien

2016-01-01

This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large and regular verb inflection paradigm where verbs are inflected for evidentiality (i.e. direct versus indirect evidence available to the speaker). Particularly, we explored the general characteristics of the speech samples (e.g. utterance length) and the uses of lexical, finite and non-finite verbs and direct and indirect evidentials. The results show that speech rate is slow, verbs per utterance are lower than normal and the verb diversity is reduced in the agrammatic speakers. Verb inflection is relatively intact; however, a trade-off pattern between inflection for direct evidentials and verb diversity is found. The implications of the data are discussed in connection with narrative-speech production studies on other languages.

Inducing Speech Errors in Dysarthria Using Tongue Twisters

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Kember, Heather; Connaghan, Kathryn; Patel, Rupal

2017-01-01

Although tongue twisters have been widely use to study speech production in healthy speakers, few studies have employed this methodology for individuals with speech impairment. The present study compared tongue twister errors produced by adults with dysarthria and age-matched healthy controls. Eight speakers (four female, four male; mean age =…

Sound production treatment for acquired apraxia of speech: Effects of blocked and random practice on multisyllabic word production.

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Wambaugh, Julie; Nessler, Christina; Wright, Sandra; Mauszycki, Shannon; DeLong, Catharine

2016-10-01

This study was designed to examine the effects of practice schedule, blocked vs random, on outcomes of a behavioural treatment for acquired apraxia of speech (AOS), Sound Production Treatment (SPT). SPT was administered to four speakers with chronic AOS and aphasia in the context of multiple baseline designs across behaviours and participants. Treatment was applied to multiple sound errors within three-to-five syllable words. All participants received both practice schedules: SPT-Random (SPT-R) and SPT-Blocked (SPT-B). Improvements in accuracy of word production for trained items were found for both treatment conditions for all participants. One participant demonstrated better maintenance effects associated with SPT-R. Response generalisation to untreated words varied across participants, but was generally modest and unstable. Stimulus generalisation to production of words in sentence completion was positive for three of the participants. Stimulus generalisation to production of phrases was positive for two of the participants. Findings provide additional efficacy data regarding SPT's effects on articulation of treated items and extend knowledge of the treatment's effects when applied to multiple targets within multisyllabic words.

Production Variability and Single Word Intelligibility in Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech

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Haley, Katarina L.; Martin, Gwenyth

2011-01-01

This study was designed to estimate test-retest reliability of orthographic speech intelligibility testing in speakers with aphasia and AOS and to examine its relationship to the consistency of speaker and listener responses. Monosyllabic single word speech samples were recorded from 13 speakers with coexisting aphasia and AOS. These words were…

Reality Monitoring and Feedback Control of Speech Production Are Related Through Self-Agency.

Science.gov (United States)

Subramaniam, Karuna; Kothare, Hardik; Mizuiri, Danielle; Nagarajan, Srikantan S; Houde, John F

2018-01-01

Self-agency is the experience of being the agent of one's own thoughts and motor actions. The intact experience of self-agency is necessary for successful interactions with the outside world (i.e., reality monitoring) and for responding to sensory feedback of our motor actions (e.g., speech feedback control). Reality monitoring is the ability to distinguish internally self-generated information from outside reality (externally-derived information). In the present study, we examined the relationship of self-agency between lower-level speech feedback monitoring (i.e., monitoring what we hear ourselves say) and a higher-level cognitive reality monitoring task. In particular, we examined whether speech feedback monitoring and reality monitoring were driven by the capacity to experience self-agency-the ability to make reliable predictions about the outcomes of self-generated actions. During the reality monitoring task, subjects made judgments as to whether information was previously self-generated (self-agency judgments) or externally derived (external-agency judgments). During speech feedback monitoring, we assessed self-agency by altering environmental auditory feedback so that subjects listened to a perturbed version of their own speech. When subjects heard minimal perturbations in their auditory feedback while speaking, they made corrective responses, indicating that they judged the perturbations as errors in their speech output. We found that self-agency judgments in the reality-monitoring task were higher in people who had smaller corrective responses ( p = 0.05) and smaller inter-trial variability ( p = 0.03) during minimal pitch perturbations of their auditory feedback. These results provide support for a unitary process for the experience of self-agency governing low-level speech control and higher level reality monitoring.

Speech recognition systems on the Cell Broadband Engine

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Liu, Y; Jones, H; Vaidya, S; Perrone, M; Tydlitat, B; Nanda, A

2007-04-20

In this paper we describe our design, implementation, and first results of a prototype connected-phoneme-based speech recognition system on the Cell Broadband Engine{trademark} (Cell/B.E.). Automatic speech recognition decodes speech samples into plain text (other representations are possible) and must process samples at real-time rates. Fortunately, the computational tasks involved in this pipeline are highly data-parallel and can receive significant hardware acceleration from vector-streaming architectures such as the Cell/B.E. Identifying and exploiting these parallelism opportunities is challenging, but also critical to improving system performance. We observed, from our initial performance timings, that a single Cell/B.E. processor can recognize speech from thousands of simultaneous voice channels in real time--a channel density that is orders-of-magnitude greater than the capacity of existing software speech recognizers based on CPUs (central processing units). This result emphasizes the potential for Cell/B.E.-based speech recognition and will likely lead to the future development of production speech systems using Cell/B.E. clusters.

Speech, language and swallowing in Huntington’ Disease

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Maryluz Camargo-Mendoza

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Huntington’s disease (HD has been described as a genetic condition caused by a mutation in the CAG (cytosine-adenine-guanine nucleotide sequence. Depending on the stage of the disease, people may have difficulties in speech, language and swallowing. The purpose of this paper is to describe these difficulties in detail, as well as to provide an account on speech and language therapy approach to this condition. Regarding speech, it is worth noticing that characteristics typical of hyperkinetic dysarthria can be found due to underlying choreic movements. The speech of people with HD tends to show shorter sentences, with much simpler syntactic structures, and difficulties in tasks that require complex cognitive processing. Moreover, swallowing may present dysphagia that progresses as the disease develops. A timely, comprehensive and effective speech-language intervention is essential to improve the quality of life of people and contribute to their communicative welfare.

Vowel Acoustics in Adults with Apraxia of Speech

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Jacks, Adam; Mathes, Katey A.; Marquardt, Thomas P.

2010-01-01

Purpose: To investigate the hypothesis that vowel production is more variable in adults with acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) relative to healthy individuals with unimpaired speech. Vowel formant frequency measures were selected as the specific target of focus. Method: Seven adults with AOS and aphasia produced 15 repetitions of 6 American English…

Speech Research: A Report on the Status and Progress of Studies on the Nature of Speech , Instrumentation for Its Investigation, and Practical Applications, 1 October-31 December 1971.

Science.gov (United States)

Turney, Michael T.; And Others

This report on speech research contains papers describing experiments involving both information processing and speech production. The papers concerned with information processing cover such topics as peripheral and central processes in vision, separate speech and nonspeech processing in dichotic listening, and dichotic fusion along an acoustic…

Utility of TMS to understand the neurobiology of speech

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Takenobu eMurakami

2013-07-01

Full Text Available According to a traditional view, speech perception and production are processed largely separately in sensory and motor brain areas. Recent psycholinguistic and neuroimaging studies provide novel evidence that the sensory and motor systems dynamically interact in speech processing, by demonstrating that speech perception and imitation share regional brain activations. However, the exact nature and mechanisms of these sensorimotor interactions are not completely understood yet.Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS has often been used in the cognitive neurosciences, including speech research, as a complementary technique to behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Here we provide an up-to-date review focusing on TMS studies that explored speech perception and imitation.Single-pulse TMS of the primary motor cortex (M1 demonstrated a speech specific and somatotopically specific increase of excitability of the M1 lip area during speech perception (listening to speech or lip reading. A paired-coil TMS approach showed increases in effective connectivity from brain regions that are involved in speech processing to the M1 lip area when listening to speech. TMS in virtual lesion mode applied to speech processing areas modulated performance of phonological recognition and imitation of perceived speech.In summary, TMS is an innovative tool to investigate processing of speech perception and imitation. TMS studies have provided strong evidence that the sensory system is critically involved in mapping sensory input onto motor output and that the motor system plays an important role in speech perception.

Intervention for Childhood Apraxia of Speech: A Single-Case Study

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Martikainen, Anna-Leena; Korpilahti, Pirjo

2011-01-01

The underlying nature and diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) still requires clarification. However, the label "CAS" or "suspected CAS" continues to be assigned to a group of children with speech problems, and speech and language therapists need to be aware of effective treatment for these children. The aim of this study was to assess…

Effects of human fatigue on speech signals

Science.gov (United States)

Stamoulis, Catherine

2004-05-01

Cognitive performance may be significantly affected by fatigue. In the case of critical personnel, such as pilots, monitoring human fatigue is essential to ensure safety and success of a given operation. One of the modalities that may be used for this purpose is speech, which is sensitive to respiratory changes and increased muscle tension of vocal cords, induced by fatigue. Age, gender, vocal tract length, physical and emotional state may significantly alter speech intensity, duration, rhythm, and spectral characteristics. In addition to changes in speech rhythm, fatigue may also affect the quality of speech, such as articulation. In a noisy environment, detecting fatigue-related changes in speech signals, particularly subtle changes at the onset of fatigue, may be difficult. Therefore, in a performance-monitoring system, speech parameters which are significantly affected by fatigue need to be identified and extracted from input signals. For this purpose, a series of experiments was performed under slowly varying cognitive load conditions and at different times of the day. The results of the data analysis are presented here.

Acquired Apraxia of Speech: The Effects of Repeated Practice and Rate/Rhythm Control Treatments on Sound Production Accuracy

Science.gov (United States)

Wambaugh, Julie L.; Nessler, Christina; Cameron, Rosalea; Mauszycki, Shannon C.

2012-01-01

Purpose: This investigation was designed to elucidate the effects of repeated practice treatment on sound production accuracy in individuals with apraxia of speech (AOS) and aphasia. A secondary purpose was to determine if the addition of rate/rhythm control to treatment provided further benefits beyond those achieved with repeated practice.…

The Neurobiology of Speech Perception and Production-Can Functional Imaging Tell Us Anything We Did Not Already Know?

Science.gov (United States)

Scott, Sophie K.

2012-01-01

Our understanding of the neurobiological basis for human speech production and perception has benefited from insights from psychology, neuropsychology and neurology. In this overview, I outline some of the ways that functional imaging has added to this knowledge and argue that, as a neuroanatomical tool, functional imaging has led to some…

Application of Concepts from Cross-Recurrence Analysis in Speech Production: An Overview and Comparison with Other Nonlinear Methods

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Lancia, Leonardo; Fuchs, Susanne; Tiede, Mark

2014-01-01

Purpose: The aim of this article was to introduce an important tool, cross-recurrence analysis, to speech production applications by showing how it can be adapted to evaluate the similarity of multivariate patterns of articulatory motion. The method differs from classical applications of cross-recurrence analysis because no phase space…

Speech perception and production in children with inner ear malformations after cochlear implantation.

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Rachovitsas, Dimitrios; Psillas, George; Chatzigiannakidou, Vasiliki; Triaridis, Stefanos; Constantinidis, Jiannis; Vital, Victor

2012-09-01

The aim of this study was to assess the speech perception and speech intelligibility outcome after cochlear implantation in children with malformed inner ear and to compare them with a group of congenitally deaf children implantees without inner ear malformation. Six deaf children (five boys and one girl) with inner ear malformations who were implanted and followed in our clinic were included. These children were matched with six implanted children with normal cochlea for age at implantation and duration of cochlear implant use. All subjects were tested with the internationally used battery tests of listening progress profile (LiP), capacity of auditory performance (CAP), and speech intelligibility rating (SIR). A closed and open set word perception test adapted to the Modern Greek language was also used. In the dysplastic group, two children suffered from CHARGE syndrome, another two from mental retardation, and two children grew up in bilingual homes. At least two years after switch-on, the dysplastic group scored mean LiP 62%, CAP 3.8, SIR 2.1, closed-set 61%, and open-set 49%. The children without inner ear dysplasia achieved significantly better scores, except for CAP which this difference was marginally statistically significant (p=0.009 for LiP, p=0.080 for CAP, p=0.041 for SIR, p=0.011 for closed-set, and p=0.006 for open-set tests). All of the implanted children with malformed inner ear showed benefit of auditory perception and speech production. However, the children with inner ear malformation performed less well compared with the children without inner ear dysplasia. This was possibly due to the high proportion of disabilities detected in the dysplastic group, such as CHARGE syndrome and mental retardation. Bilingualism could also be considered as a factor which possibly affects the outcome of implanted children. Therefore, children with malformed inner ear should be preoperatively evaluated for cognitive and developmental delay. In this case

Cortical oscillations and entrainment in speech processing during working memory load

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hjortkjær, Jens; Märcher-Rørsted, Jonatan; Fuglsang, Søren A

2018-01-01

Neuronal oscillations are thought to play an important role in working memory (WM) and speech processing. Listening to speech in real-life situations is often cognitively demanding but it is unknown whether WM load influences how auditory cortical activity synchronizes to speech features. Here, we...... developed an auditory n-back paradigm to investigate cortical entrainment to speech envelope fluctuations under different degrees of WM load. We measured the electroencephalogram, pupil dilations and behavioural performance from 22 subjects listening to continuous speech with an embedded n-back task....... The speech stimuli consisted of long spoken number sequences created to match natural speech in terms of sentence intonation, syllabic rate and phonetic content. To burden different WM functions during speech processing, listeners performed an n-back task on the speech sequences in different levels...

Infants' brain responses to speech suggest analysis by synthesis.

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Kuhl, Patricia K; Ramírez, Rey R; Bosseler, Alexis; Lin, Jo-Fu Lotus; Imada, Toshiaki

2014-08-05

Historic theories of speech perception (Motor Theory and Analysis by Synthesis) invoked listeners' knowledge of speech production to explain speech perception. Neuroimaging data show that adult listeners activate motor brain areas during speech perception. In two experiments using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated motor brain activation, as well as auditory brain activation, during discrimination of native and nonnative syllables in infants at two ages that straddle the developmental transition from language-universal to language-specific speech perception. Adults are also tested in Exp. 1. MEG data revealed that 7-mo-old infants activate auditory (superior temporal) as well as motor brain areas (Broca's area, cerebellum) in response to speech, and equivalently for native and nonnative syllables. However, in 11- and 12-mo-old infants, native speech activates auditory brain areas to a greater degree than nonnative, whereas nonnative speech activates motor brain areas to a greater degree than native speech. This double dissociation in 11- to 12-mo-old infants matches the pattern of results obtained in adult listeners. Our infant data are consistent with Analysis by Synthesis: auditory analysis of speech is coupled with synthesis of the motor plans necessary to produce the speech signal. The findings have implications for: (i) perception-action theories of speech perception, (ii) the impact of "motherese" on early language learning, and (iii) the "social-gating" hypothesis and humans' development of social understanding.

EFL Speech Production: Exploring the relationship between working memory capacity and proficiency level

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Gicele Vergine Vieira PREBIANCA

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The present study explores the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC and proficiency level in EFL1 speech production. Forty-one participants performed two WMC tests – the Speaking Span Test in L1 and in L2. The statistical analysis indicated both a variation on WMC scores in L2 as a function of proficiency as well as a difference between WMC scores in L1 and in L2. Findings are explained mainly in respect to the interplay between automatic and controlled processes on memory retrieval and on the development of L2 proficiency.

Deep neural network and noise classification-based speech enhancement

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Shi, Wenhua; Zhang, Xiongwei; Zou, Xia; Han, Wei

2017-07-01

In this paper, a speech enhancement method using noise classification and Deep Neural Network (DNN) was proposed. Gaussian mixture model (GMM) was employed to determine the noise type in speech-absent frames. DNN was used to model the relationship between noisy observation and clean speech. Once the noise type was determined, the corresponding DNN model was applied to enhance the noisy speech. GMM was trained with mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC) and the parameters were estimated with an iterative expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Noise type was updated by spectrum entropy-based voice activity detection (VAD). Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method could achieve better objective speech quality and smaller distortion under stationary and non-stationary conditions.

The role of human parietal area 7A as a link between sequencing in hand actions and in overt speech production

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Stefan eHeim

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Research on the evolutionary basis of the human language faculty has proposed the mirror neuron system as a link between motor processing and speech development. Consequently, most work has focussed on the left inferior frontal cortex, in particular Broca's region, and the left inferior parietal cortex. However, the direct link between planning of hand motor and speech actions remains to be elucidated. Thus, the present study investigated whether sequencing of hand motor actions vs. speech motor actions has a common neural denominator. For the hand motor task, 25 subjects performed single, repeated, or sequenced button presses with either the left or right hand. The speech task was in analogy; the same subjects produced the syllable "po" once or repeatedly, or a sequence of different syllables (po-pi-po. Speech motor vs. hand motor effectors resulted in increased perisylvian activation including Broca's region (left area 44 and areas medially adjacent to left area 45. In contrast, common activation for sequenced vs. repeated production of button presses and syllables revealed the effector-independent involvement of left area 7A in the superior parietal lobule (SPL in sequencing. These data demonstrate that sequencing of vocal gestures, an important precondition for ordered utterances and ultimately human speech, shares area 7A, rather than inferior parietal regions, as a common cortical module with hand motor sequencing. Interestingly, area 7A has previously also been shown to be involved in the observation of hand and non-hand actions. In combination with the literature, the present data thus suggest a distinction between area 44, which is specifically recruited for (cognitive aspects of speech, and SPL area 7A for general aspects of motor sequencing. In sum, the study demonstrates a yet little considered role of the superior parietal lobule in the origins of speech, and may be discussed in the light of embodiment of speech and language in the

Attention mechanisms and the mosaic evolution of speech

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Pedro Tiago Martins

2014-12-01

Full Text Available There is still no categorical answer for why humans, and no other species, have speech, or why speech is the way it is. Several purely anatomical arguments have been put forward, but they have been shown to be false, biologically implausible, or of limited scope. This perspective paper supports the idea that evolutionary theories of speech could benefit from a focus on the cognitive mechanisms that make speech possible, for which antecedents in evolutionary history and brain correlates can be found. This type of approach is part of a very recent, but rapidly growing tradition, which has provided crucial insights on the nature of human speech by focusing on the biological bases of vocal learning. Here, we call attention to what might be an important ingredient for speech. We contend that a general mechanism of attention, which manifests itself not only in visual but also auditory (and possibly other modalities, might be one of the key pieces of human speech, in addition to the mechanisms underlying vocal learning, and the pairing of facial gestures with vocalic units.

On the context-dependent nature of the contribution of the ventral premotor cortex to speech perception

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Tremblay, Pascale; Small, Steven L.

2011-01-01

What is the nature of the interface between speech perception and production, where auditory and motor representations converge? One set of explanations suggests that during perception, the motor circuits involved in producing a perceived action are in some way enacting the action without actually causing movement (covert simulation) or sending along the motor information to be used to predict its sensory consequences (i.e., efference copy). Other accounts either reject entirely the involvement of motor representations in perception, or explain their role as being more supportive than integral, and not employing the identical circuits used in production. Using fMRI, we investigated whether there are brain regions that are conjointly active for both speech perception and production, and whether these regions are sensitive to articulatory (syllabic) complexity during both processes, which is predicted by a covert simulation account. A group of healthy young adults (1) observed a female speaker produce a set of familiar words (perception), and (2) observed and then repeated the words (production). There were two types of words, varying in articulatory complexity, as measured by the presence or absence of consonant clusters. The simple words contained no consonant cluster (e.g. “palace”), while the complex words contained one to three consonant clusters (e.g. “planet”). Results indicate that the left ventral premotor cortex (PMv) was significantly active during speech perception and speech production but that activation in this region was scaled to articulatory complexity only during speech production, revealing an incompletely specified efferent motor signal during speech perception. The right planum temporal (PT) was also active during speech perception and speech production, and activation in this region was scaled to articulatory complexity during both production and perception. These findings are discussed in the context of current theories theory of

Treating speech subsystems in childhood apraxia of speech with tactual input: the PROMPT approach.

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Dale, Philip S; Hayden, Deborah A

2013-11-01

Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT; Hayden, 2004; Hayden, Eigen, Walker, & Olsen, 2010)-a treatment approach for the improvement of speech sound disorders in children-uses tactile-kinesthetic- proprioceptive (TKP) cues to support and shape movements of the oral articulators. No research to date has systematically examined the efficacy of PROMPT for children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Four children (ages 3;6 [years;months] to 4;8), all meeting the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2007) criteria for CAS, were treated using PROMPT. All children received 8 weeks of 2 × per week treatment, including at least 4 weeks of full PROMPT treatment that included TKP cues. During the first 4 weeks, 2 of the 4 children received treatment that included all PROMPT components except TKP cues. This design permitted both between-subjects and within-subjects comparisons to evaluate the effect of TKP cues. Gains in treatment were measured by standardized tests and by criterion-referenced measures based on the production of untreated probe words, reflecting change in speech movements and auditory perceptual accuracy. All 4 children made significant gains during treatment, but measures of motor speech control and untreated word probes provided evidence for more gain when TKP cues were included. PROMPT as a whole appears to be effective for treating children with CAS, and the inclusion of TKP cues appears to facilitate greater effect.

Commencement Speech as a Hybrid Polydiscursive Practice

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Светлана Викторовна Иванова

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Discourse and media communication researchers pay attention to the fact that popular discursive and communicative practices have a tendency to hybridization and convergence. Discourse which is understood as language in use is flexible. Consequently, it turns out that one and the same text can represent several types of discourses. A vivid example of this tendency is revealed in American commencement speech / commencement address / graduation speech. A commencement speech is a speech university graduates are addressed with which in compliance with the modern trend is delivered by outstanding media personalities (politicians, athletes, actors, etc.. The objective of this study is to define the specificity of the realization of polydiscursive practices within commencement speech. The research involves discursive, contextual, stylistic and definitive analyses. Methodologically the study is based on the discourse analysis theory, in particular the notion of a discursive practice as a verbalized social practice makes up the conceptual basis of the research. This research draws upon a hundred commencement speeches delivered by prominent representatives of American society since 1980s till now. In brief, commencement speech belongs to institutional discourse public speech embodies. Commencement speech institutional parameters are well represented in speeches delivered by people in power like American and university presidents. Nevertheless, as the results of the research indicate commencement speech institutional character is not its only feature. Conceptual information analysis enables to refer commencement speech to didactic discourse as it is aimed at teaching university graduates how to deal with challenges life is rich in. Discursive practices of personal discourse are also actively integrated into the commencement speech discourse. More than that, existential discursive practices also find their way into the discourse under study. Commencement

A Procedure for the Computerized Analysis of Cleft Palate Speech Transcription

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Fitzsimons, David A.; Jones, David L.; Barton, Belinda; North, Kathryn N.

2012-01-01

The phonetic symbols used by speech-language pathologists to transcribe speech contain underlying hexadecimal values used by computers to correctly display and process transcription data. This study aimed to develop a procedure to utilise these values as the basis for subsequent computerized analysis of cleft palate speech. A computer keyboard…

Reconciling phonological neighborhood effects in speech production through single trial analysis.

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Sadat, Jasmin; Martin, Clara D; Costa, Albert; Alario, F-Xavier

2014-02-01

A crucial step for understanding how lexical knowledge is represented is to describe the relative similarity of lexical items, and how it influences language processing. Previous studies of the effects of form similarity on word production have reported conflicting results, notably within and across languages. The aim of the present study was to clarify this empirical issue to provide specific constraints for theoretical models of language production. We investigated the role of phonological neighborhood density in a large-scale picture naming experiment using fine-grained statistical models. The results showed that increasing phonological neighborhood density has a detrimental effect on naming latencies, and re-analyses of independently obtained data sets provide supplementary evidence for this effect. Finally, we reviewed a large body of evidence concerning phonological neighborhood density effects in word production, and discussed the occurrence of facilitatory and inhibitory effects in accuracy measures. The overall pattern shows that phonological neighborhood generates two opposite forces, one facilitatory and one inhibitory. In cases where speech production is disrupted (e.g. certain aphasic symptoms), the facilitatory component may emerge, but inhibitory processes dominate in efficient naming by healthy speakers. These findings are difficult to accommodate in terms of monitoring processes, but can be explained within interactive activation accounts combining phonological facilitation and lexical competition. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Speech perception as an active cognitive process

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Shannon eHeald

2014-03-01

Full Text Available One view of speech perception is that acoustic signals are transformed into representations for pattern matching to determine linguistic structure. This process can be taken as a statistical pattern-matching problem, assuming realtively stable linguistic categories are characterized by neural representations related to auditory properties of speech that can be compared to speech input. This kind of pattern matching can be termed a passive process which implies rigidity of processingd with few demands on cognitive processing. An alternative view is that speech recognition, even in early stages, is an active process in which speech analysis is attentionally guided. Note that this does not mean consciously guided but that information-contingent changes in early auditory encoding can occur as a function of context and experience. Active processing assumes that attention, plasticity, and listening goals are important in considering how listeners cope with adverse circumstances that impair hearing by masking noise in the environment or hearing loss. Although theories of speech perception have begun to incorporate some active processing, they seldom treat early speech encoding as plastic and attentionally guided. Recent research has suggested that speech perception is the product of both feedforward and feedback interactions between a number of brain regions that include descending projections perhaps as far downstream as the cochlea. It is important to understand how the ambiguity of the speech signal and constraints of context dynamically determine cognitive resources recruited during perception including focused attention, learning, and working memory. Theories of speech perception need to go beyond the current corticocentric approach in order to account for the intrinsic dynamics of the auditory encoding of speech. In doing so, this may provide new insights into ways in which hearing disorders and loss may be treated either through augementation or

A multimodal spectral approach to characterize rhythm in natural speech.

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Alexandrou, Anna Maria; Saarinen, Timo; Kujala, Jan; Salmelin, Riitta

2016-01-01

Human utterances demonstrate temporal patterning, also referred to as rhythm. While simple oromotor behaviors (e.g., chewing) feature a salient periodical structure, conversational speech displays a time-varying quasi-rhythmic pattern. Quantification of periodicity in speech is challenging. Unimodal spectral approaches have highlighted rhythmic aspects of speech. However, speech is a complex multimodal phenomenon that arises from the interplay of articulatory, respiratory, and vocal systems. The present study addressed the question of whether a multimodal spectral approach, in the form of coherence analysis between electromyographic (EMG) and acoustic signals, would allow one to characterize rhythm in natural speech more efficiently than a unimodal analysis. The main experimental task consisted of speech production at three speaking rates; a simple oromotor task served as control. The EMG-acoustic coherence emerged as a sensitive means of tracking speech rhythm, whereas spectral analysis of either EMG or acoustic amplitude envelope alone was less informative. Coherence metrics seem to distinguish and highlight rhythmic structure in natural speech.

Comprehension of synthetic speech and digitized natural speech by adults with aphasia.

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Hux, Karen; Knollman-Porter, Kelly; Brown, Jessica; Wallace, Sarah E

2017-09-01

Using text-to-speech technology to provide simultaneous written and auditory content presentation may help compensate for chronic reading challenges if people with aphasia can understand synthetic speech output; however, inherent auditory comprehension challenges experienced by people with aphasia may make understanding synthetic speech difficult. This study's purpose was to compare the preferences and auditory comprehension accuracy of people with aphasia when listening to sentences generated with digitized natural speech, Alex synthetic speech (i.e., Macintosh platform), or David synthetic speech (i.e., Windows platform). The methodology required each of 20 participants with aphasia to select one of four images corresponding in meaning to each of 60 sentences comprising three stimulus sets. Results revealed significantly better accuracy given digitized natural speech than either synthetic speech option; however, individual participant performance analyses revealed three patterns: (a) comparable accuracy regardless of speech condition for 30% of participants, (b) comparable accuracy between digitized natural speech and one, but not both, synthetic speech option for 45% of participants, and (c) greater accuracy with digitized natural speech than with either synthetic speech option for remaining participants. Ranking and Likert-scale rating data revealed a preference for digitized natural speech and David synthetic speech over Alex synthetic speech. Results suggest many individuals with aphasia can comprehend synthetic speech options available on popular operating systems. Further examination of synthetic speech use to support reading comprehension through text-to-speech technology is thus warranted. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Modifying Speech to Children based on their Perceived Phonetic Accuracy

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Julien, Hannah M.; Munson, Benjamin

2014-01-01

Purpose We examined the relationship between adults' perception of the accuracy of children's speech, and acoustic detail in their subsequent productions to children. Methods Twenty-two adults participated in a task in which they rated the accuracy of 2- and 3-year-old children's word-initial /s/and /∫/ using a visual analog scale (VAS), then produced a token of the same word as if they were responding to the child whose speech they had just rated. Result The duration of adults' fricatives varied as a function of their perception of the accuracy of children's speech: longer fricatives were produced following productions that they rated as inaccurate. This tendency to modify duration in response to perceived inaccurate tokens was mediated by measures of self-reported experience interacting with children. However, speakers did not increase the spectral distinctiveness of their fricatives following the perception of inaccurate tokens. Conclusion These results suggest that adults modify temporal features of their speech in response to perceiving children's inaccurate productions. These longer fricatives are potentially both enhanced input to children, and an error-corrective signal. PMID:22744140

Speech rate in Parkinson's disease: A controlled study.

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Martínez-Sánchez, F; Meilán, J J G; Carro, J; Gómez Íñiguez, C; Millian-Morell, L; Pujante Valverde, I M; López-Alburquerque, T; López, D E

2016-09-01

Speech disturbances will affect most patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) over the course of the disease. The origin and severity of these symptoms are of clinical and diagnostic interest. To evaluate the clinical pattern of speech impairment in PD patients and identify significant differences in speech rate and articulation compared to control subjects. Speech rate and articulation in a reading task were measured using an automatic analytical method. A total of 39 PD patients in the 'on' state and 45 age-and sex-matched asymptomatic controls participated in the study. None of the patients experienced dyskinesias or motor fluctuations during the test. The patients with PD displayed a significant reduction in speech and articulation rates; there were no significant correlations between the studied speech parameters and patient characteristics such as L-dopa dose, duration of the disorder, age, and UPDRS III scores and Hoehn & Yahr scales. Patients with PD show a characteristic pattern of declining speech rate. These results suggest that in PD, disfluencies are the result of the movement disorder affecting the physiology of speech production systems. Copyright © 2014 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Introductory speeches

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-01-01

This CD is multimedia presentation of programme safety upgrading of Bohunice V1 NPP. This chapter consist of introductory commentary and 4 introductory speeches (video records): (1) Introductory speech of Vincent Pillar, Board chairman and director general of Slovak electric, Plc. (SE); (2) Introductory speech of Stefan Schmidt, director of SE - Bohunice Nuclear power plants; (3) Introductory speech of Jan Korec, Board chairman and director general of VUJE Trnava, Inc. - Engineering, Design and Research Organisation, Trnava; Introductory speech of Dietrich Kuschel, Senior vice-president of FRAMATOME ANP Project and Engineering

Speech comprehension difficulties in chronic tinnitus and its relation to hyperacusis

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Veronika Vielsmeier

2016-12-01

Full Text Available AbstractObjectiveMany tinnitus patients complain about difficulties regarding speech comprehension. In spite of the high clinical relevance little is known about underlying mechanisms and predisposing factors. Here, we performed an exploratory investigation in a large sample of tinnitus patients to (1 estimate the prevalence of speech comprehension difficulties among tinnitus patients, to (2 compare subjective reports of speech comprehension difficulties with objective measurements in a standardized speech comprehension test and to (3 explore underlying mechanisms by analyzing the relationship between speech comprehension difficulties and peripheral hearing function (pure tone audiogram, as well as with co-morbid hyperacusis as a central auditory processing disorder. Subjects and MethodsSpeech comprehension was assessed in 361 tinnitus patients presenting between 07/2012 and 08/2014 at the Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Clinic at the University of Regensburg. The assessment included standard audiological assessment (pure tone audiometry, tinnitus pitch and loudness matching, the Goettingen sentence test (in quiet for speech audiometric evaluation, two questions about hyperacusis, and two questions about speech comprehension in quiet and noisy environments (How would you rate your ability to understand speech?; How would you rate your ability to follow a conversation when multiple people are speaking simultaneously?. Results Subjectively reported speech comprehension deficits are frequent among tinnitus patients, especially in noisy environments (cocktail party situation. 74.2% of all investigated patients showed disturbed speech comprehension (indicated by values above 21.5 dB SPL in the Goettingen sentence test. Subjective speech comprehension complaints (both in general and in noisy environment were correlated with hearing level and with audiologically-assessed speech comprehension ability. In contrast, co-morbid hyperacusis was only correlated

Predicting speech intelligibility in conditions with nonlinearly processed noisy speech

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Søren; Dau, Torsten

2013-01-01

The speech-based envelope power spectrum model (sEPSM; [1]) was proposed in order to overcome the limitations of the classical speech transmission index (STI) and speech intelligibility index (SII). The sEPSM applies the signal-tonoise ratio in the envelope domain (SNRenv), which was demonstrated...... to successfully predict speech intelligibility in conditions with nonlinearly processed noisy speech, such as processing with spectral subtraction. Moreover, a multiresolution version (mr-sEPSM) was demonstrated to account for speech intelligibility in various conditions with stationary and fluctuating...

Classifying laughter and speech using audio-visual feature prediction

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Petridis, Stavros; Asghar, Ali; Pantic, Maja

2010-01-01

In this study, a system that discriminates laughter from speech by modelling the relationship between audio and visual features is presented. The underlying assumption is that this relationship is different between speech and laughter. Neural networks are trained which learn the audio-to-visual and

Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech?

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Kavé, Gitit; Goral, Mira

2017-09-01

We conducted a comprehensive literature review of studies of word retrieval in connected speech in healthy aging and reviewed relevant aphasia research that could shed light on the aging literature. Four main hypotheses guided the review: (1) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to reduced output in connected speech. (2) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to a more limited lexical variety in connected speech. (3) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to an increase in word substitution errors and in pronoun use as well as to greater dysfluency and hesitation in connected speech. (4) Retrieval difficulties on tests of single-word production would be associated with measures of word retrieval in connected speech. Studies on aging did not confirm these four hypotheses, unlike studies on aphasia that generally did. The review suggests that future research should investigate how context facilitates word production in old age.

Automatic Speech Recognition from Neural Signals: A Focused Review

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Christian Herff

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Speech interfaces have become widely accepted and are nowadays integrated in various real-life applications and devices. They have become a part of our daily life. However, speech interfaces presume the ability to produce intelligible speech, which might be impossible due to either loud environments, bothering bystanders or incapabilities to produce speech (i.e.~patients suffering from locked-in syndrome. For these reasons it would be highly desirable to not speak but to simply envision oneself to say words or sentences. Interfaces based on imagined speech would enable fast and natural communication without the need for audible speech and would give a voice to otherwise mute people.This focused review analyzes the potential of different brain imaging techniques to recognize speech from neural signals by applying Automatic Speech Recognition technology. We argue that modalities based on metabolic processes, such as functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, are less suited for Automatic Speech Recognition from neural signals due to low temporal resolution but are very useful for the investigation of the underlying neural mechanisms involved in speech processes. In contrast, electrophysiologic activity is fast enough to capture speech processes and is therefor better suited for ASR. Our experimental results indicate the potential of these signals for speech recognition from neural data with a focus on invasively measured brain activity (electrocorticography. As a first example of Automatic Speech Recognition techniques used from neural signals, we discuss the emph{Brain-to-text} system.

Predicting Prosody from Text for Text-to-Speech Synthesis

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Rao, K Sreenivasa

2012-01-01

Predicting Prosody from Text for Text-to-Speech Synthesis covers the specific aspects of prosody, mainly focusing on how to predict the prosodic information from linguistic text, and then how to exploit the predicted prosodic knowledge for various speech applications. Author K. Sreenivasa Rao discusses proposed methods along with state-of-the-art techniques for the acquisition and incorporation of prosodic knowledge for developing speech systems. Positional, contextual and phonological features are proposed for representing the linguistic and production constraints of the sound units present in the text. This book is intended for graduate students and researchers working in the area of speech processing.

Exploring Australian speech-language pathologists' use and perceptions ofnon-speech oral motor exercises.

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Rumbach, Anna F; Rose, Tanya A; Cheah, Mynn

2018-01-29

To explore Australian speech-language pathologists' use of non-speech oral motor exercises, and rationales for using/not using non-speech oral motor exercises in clinical practice. A total of 124 speech-language pathologists practising in Australia, working with paediatric and/or adult clients with speech sound difficulties, completed an online survey. The majority of speech-language pathologists reported that they did not use non-speech oral motor exercises when working with paediatric or adult clients with speech sound difficulties. However, more than half of the speech-language pathologists working with adult clients who have dysarthria reported using non-speech oral motor exercises with this population. The most frequently reported rationale for using non-speech oral motor exercises in speech sound difficulty management was to improve awareness/placement of articulators. The majority of speech-language pathologists agreed there is no clear clinical or research evidence base to support non-speech oral motor exercise use with clients who have speech sound difficulties. This study provides an overview of Australian speech-language pathologists' reported use and perceptions of non-speech oral motor exercises' applicability and efficacy in treating paediatric and adult clients who have speech sound difficulties. The research findings provide speech-language pathologists with insight into how and why non-speech oral motor exercises are currently used, and adds to the knowledge base regarding Australian speech-language pathology practice of non-speech oral motor exercises in the treatment of speech sound difficulties. Implications for Rehabilitation Non-speech oral motor exercises refer to oral motor activities which do not involve speech, but involve the manipulation or stimulation of oral structures including the lips, tongue, jaw, and soft palate. Non-speech oral motor exercises are intended to improve the function (e.g., movement, strength) of oral structures. The

Internet Video Telephony Allows Speech Reading by Deaf Individuals and Improves Speech Perception by Cochlear Implant Users

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Mantokoudis, Georgios; Dähler, Claudia; Dubach, Patrick; Kompis, Martin; Caversaccio, Marco D.; Senn, Pascal

2013-01-01

Objective To analyze speech reading through Internet video calls by profoundly hearing-impaired individuals and cochlear implant (CI) users. Methods Speech reading skills of 14 deaf adults and 21 CI users were assessed using the Hochmair Schulz Moser (HSM) sentence test. We presented video simulations using different video resolutions (1280×720, 640×480, 320×240, 160×120 px), frame rates (30, 20, 10, 7, 5 frames per second (fps)), speech velocities (three different speakers), webcameras (Logitech Pro9000, C600 and C500) and image/sound delays (0–500 ms). All video simulations were presented with and without sound and in two screen sizes. Additionally, scores for live Skype™ video connection and live face-to-face communication were assessed. Results Higher frame rate (>7 fps), higher camera resolution (>640×480 px) and shorter picture/sound delay (<100 ms) were associated with increased speech perception scores. Scores were strongly dependent on the speaker but were not influenced by physical properties of the camera optics or the full screen mode. There is a significant median gain of +8.5%pts (p = 0.009) in speech perception for all 21 CI-users if visual cues are additionally shown. CI users with poor open set speech perception scores (n = 11) showed the greatest benefit under combined audio-visual presentation (median speech perception +11.8%pts, p = 0.032). Conclusion Webcameras have the potential to improve telecommunication of hearing-impaired individuals. PMID:23359119

Internet video telephony allows speech reading by deaf individuals and improves speech perception by cochlear implant users.

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Georgios Mantokoudis

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To analyze speech reading through Internet video calls by profoundly hearing-impaired individuals and cochlear implant (CI users. METHODS: Speech reading skills of 14 deaf adults and 21 CI users were assessed using the Hochmair Schulz Moser (HSM sentence test. We presented video simulations using different video resolutions (1280 × 720, 640 × 480, 320 × 240, 160 × 120 px, frame rates (30, 20, 10, 7, 5 frames per second (fps, speech velocities (three different speakers, webcameras (Logitech Pro9000, C600 and C500 and image/sound delays (0-500 ms. All video simulations were presented with and without sound and in two screen sizes. Additionally, scores for live Skype™ video connection and live face-to-face communication were assessed. RESULTS: Higher frame rate (>7 fps, higher camera resolution (>640 × 480 px and shorter picture/sound delay (<100 ms were associated with increased speech perception scores. Scores were strongly dependent on the speaker but were not influenced by physical properties of the camera optics or the full screen mode. There is a significant median gain of +8.5%pts (p = 0.009 in speech perception for all 21 CI-users if visual cues are additionally shown. CI users with poor open set speech perception scores (n = 11 showed the greatest benefit under combined audio-visual presentation (median speech perception +11.8%pts, p = 0.032. CONCLUSION: Webcameras have the potential to improve telecommunication of hearing-impaired individuals.

Sensorimotor oscillations prior to speech onset reflect altered motor networks in adults who stutter

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Anna-Maria Mersov

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Adults who stutter (AWS have demonstrated atypical coordination of motor and sensory regions during speech production. Yet little is known of the speech-motor network in AWS in the brief time window preceding audible speech onset. The purpose of the current study was to characterize neural oscillations in the speech-motor network during preparation for and execution of overt speech production in AWS using magnetoencephalography (MEG. Twelve AWS and twelve age-matched controls were presented with 220 words, each word embedded in a carrier phrase. Controls were presented with the same word list as their matched AWS participant. Neural oscillatory activity was localized using minimum-variance beamforming during two time periods of interest: speech preparation (prior to speech onset and speech execution (following speech onset. Compared to controls, AWS showed stronger beta (15-25Hz suppression in the speech preparation stage, followed by stronger beta synchronization in the bilateral mouth motor cortex. AWS also recruited the right mouth motor cortex significantly earlier in the speech preparation stage compared to controls. Exaggerated motor preparation is discussed in the context of reduced coordination in the speech-motor network of AWS. It is further proposed that exaggerated beta synchronization may reflect a more strongly inhibited motor system that requires a stronger beta suppression to disengage prior to speech initiation. These novel findings highlight critical differences in the speech-motor network of AWS that occur prior to speech onset and emphasize the need to investigate further the speech-motor assembly in the stuttering population.

[Improving speech comprehension using a new cochlear implant speech processor].

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Müller-Deile, J; Kortmann, T; Hoppe, U; Hessel, H; Morsnowski, A

2009-06-01

The aim of this multicenter clinical field study was to assess the benefits of the new Freedom 24 sound processor for cochlear implant (CI) users implanted with the Nucleus 24 cochlear implant system. The study included 48 postlingually profoundly deaf experienced CI users who demonstrated speech comprehension performance with their current speech processor on the Oldenburg sentence test (OLSA) in quiet conditions of at least 80% correct scores and who were able to perform adaptive speech threshold testing using the OLSA in noisy conditions. Following baseline measures of speech comprehension performance with their current speech processor, subjects were upgraded to the Freedom 24 speech processor. After a take-home trial period of at least 2 weeks, subject performance was evaluated by measuring the speech reception threshold with the Freiburg multisyllabic word test and speech intelligibility with the Freiburg monosyllabic word test at 50 dB and 70 dB in the sound field. The results demonstrated highly significant benefits for speech comprehension with the new speech processor. Significant benefits for speech comprehension were also demonstrated with the new speech processor when tested in competing background noise.In contrast, use of the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) did not prove to be a suitably sensitive assessment tool for comparative subjective self-assessment of hearing benefits with each processor. Use of the preprocessing algorithm known as adaptive dynamic range optimization (ADRO) in the Freedom 24 led to additional improvements over the standard upgrade map for speech comprehension in quiet and showed equivalent performance in noise. Through use of the preprocessing beam-forming algorithm BEAM, subjects demonstrated a highly significant improved signal-to-noise ratio for speech comprehension thresholds (i.e., signal-to-noise ratio for 50% speech comprehension scores) when tested with an adaptive procedure using the Oldenburg

Speech coding

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ravishankar, C., Hughes Network Systems, Germantown, MD

1998-05-08

Speech is the predominant means of communication between human beings and since the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, speech services have remained to be the core service in almost all telecommunication systems. Original analog methods of telephony had the disadvantage of speech signal getting corrupted by noise, cross-talk and distortion Long haul transmissions which use repeaters to compensate for the loss in signal strength on transmission links also increase the associated noise and distortion. On the other hand digital transmission is relatively immune to noise, cross-talk and distortion primarily because of the capability to faithfully regenerate digital signal at each repeater purely based on a binary decision. Hence end-to-end performance of the digital link essentially becomes independent of the length and operating frequency bands of the link Hence from a transmission point of view digital transmission has been the preferred approach due to its higher immunity to noise. The need to carry digital speech became extremely important from a service provision point of view as well. Modem requirements have introduced the need for robust, flexible and secure services that can carry a multitude of signal types (such as voice, data and video) without a fundamental change in infrastructure. Such a requirement could not have been easily met without the advent of digital transmission systems, thereby requiring speech to be coded digitally. The term Speech Coding is often referred to techniques that represent or code speech signals either directly as a waveform or as a set of parameters by analyzing the speech signal. In either case, the codes are transmitted to the distant end where speech is reconstructed or synthesized using the received set of codes. A more generic term that is applicable to these techniques that is often interchangeably used with speech coding is the term voice coding. This term is more generic in the sense that the

Head movements encode emotions during speech and song.

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Livingstone, Steven R; Palmer, Caroline

2016-04-01

When speaking or singing, vocalists often move their heads in an expressive fashion, yet the influence of emotion on vocalists' head motion is unknown. Using a comparative speech/song task, we examined whether vocalists' intended emotions influence head movements and whether those movements influence the perceived emotion. In Experiment 1, vocalists were recorded with motion capture while speaking and singing each statement with different emotional intentions (very happy, happy, neutral, sad, very sad). Functional data analyses showed that head movements differed in translational and rotational displacement across emotional intentions, yet were similar across speech and song, transcending differences in F0 (varied freely in speech, fixed in song) and lexical variability. Head motion specific to emotional state occurred before and after vocalizations, as well as during sound production, confirming that some aspects of movement were not simply a by-product of sound production. In Experiment 2, observers accurately identified vocalists' intended emotion on the basis of silent, face-occluded videos of head movements during speech and song. These results provide the first evidence that head movements encode a vocalist's emotional intent and that observers decode emotional information from these movements. We discuss implications for models of head motion during vocalizations and applied outcomes in social robotics and automated emotion recognition. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Least 1-Norm Pole-Zero Modeling with Sparse Deconvolution for Speech Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shi, Liming; Jensen, Jesper Rindom; Christensen, Mads Græsbøll

2017-01-01

In this paper, we present a speech analysis method based on sparse pole-zero modeling of speech. Instead of using the all-pole model to approximate the speech production filter, a pole-zero model is used for the combined effect of the vocal tract; radiation at the lips and the glottal pulse shape...

Neural dynamics of audiovisual speech integration under variable listening conditions: an individual participant analysis.

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Altieri, Nicholas; Wenger, Michael J

2013-01-01

Speech perception engages both auditory and visual modalities. Limitations of traditional accuracy-only approaches in the investigation of audiovisual speech perception have motivated the use of new methodologies. In an audiovisual speech identification task, we utilized capacity (Townsend and Nozawa, 1995), a dynamic measure of efficiency, to quantify audiovisual integration. Capacity was used to compare RT distributions from audiovisual trials to RT distributions from auditory-only and visual-only trials across three listening conditions: clear auditory signal, S/N ratio of -12 dB, and S/N ratio of -18 dB. The purpose was to obtain EEG recordings in conjunction with capacity to investigate how a late ERP co-varies with integration efficiency. Results showed efficient audiovisual integration for low auditory S/N ratios, but inefficient audiovisual integration when the auditory signal was clear. The ERP analyses showed evidence for greater audiovisual amplitude compared to the unisensory signals for lower auditory S/N ratios (higher capacity/efficiency) compared to the high S/N ratio (low capacity/inefficient integration). The data are consistent with an interactive framework of integration, where auditory recognition is influenced by speech-reading as a function of signal clarity.

Audiovisual Integration of Speech in a Patient with Broca’s Aphasia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Tobias; Starrfelt, Randi

2015-01-01

perception. While these studies have focused on auditory speech perception other studies have shown that Broca's area is activated by visual speech perception. Furthermore, one preliminary report found that a patient with Broca's aphasia did not experience the McGurk illusion suggesting that an intact Broca......Lesions to Broca's area cause aphasia characterized by a severe impairment of the ability to speak, with comparatively intact speech perception. However, some studies have found effects on speech perception under adverse listening conditions, indicating that Broca's area is also involved in speech......'s area is necessary for audiovisual integration of speech. Here we describe a patient with Broca's aphasia who experienced the McGurk illusion. This indicates that an intact Broca's area is not necessary for audiovisual integration of speech. The McGurk illusions this patient experienced were atypical...

Audio-Visual Speech Recognition Using MPEG-4 Compliant Visual Features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petar S. Aleksic

2002-11-01

Full Text Available We describe an audio-visual automatic continuous speech recognition system, which significantly improves speech recognition performance over a wide range of acoustic noise levels, as well as under clean audio conditions. The system utilizes facial animation parameters (FAPs supported by the MPEG-4 standard for the visual representation of speech. We also describe a robust and automatic algorithm we have developed to extract FAPs from visual data, which does not require hand labeling or extensive training procedures. The principal component analysis (PCA was performed on the FAPs in order to decrease the dimensionality of the visual feature vectors, and the derived projection weights were used as visual features in the audio-visual automatic speech recognition (ASR experiments. Both single-stream and multistream hidden Markov models (HMMs were used to model the ASR system, integrate audio and visual information, and perform a relatively large vocabulary (approximately 1000 words speech recognition experiments. The experiments performed use clean audio data and audio data corrupted by stationary white Gaussian noise at various SNRs. The proposed system reduces the word error rate (WER by 20% to 23% relatively to audio-only speech recognition WERs, at various SNRs (0–30 dB with additive white Gaussian noise, and by 19% relatively to audio-only speech recognition WER under clean audio conditions.

Speech Problems

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... Staying Safe Videos for Educators Search English Español Speech Problems KidsHealth / For Teens / Speech Problems What's in ... a person's ability to speak clearly. Some Common Speech and Language Disorders Stuttering is a problem that ...

The Effects of Macroglossia on Speech: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Mekonnen, Abebayehu Messele

2012-01-01

This article presents a case study of speech production in a 14-year-old Amharic-speaking boy. The boy had developed secondary macroglossia, related to a disturbance of growth hormones, following a history of normal speech development. Perceptual analysis combined with acoustic analysis and static palatography is used to investigate the specific…

Alternative Speech Communication System for Persons with Severe Speech Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Selouani, Sid-Ahmed; Sidi Yakoub, Mohammed; O'Shaughnessy, Douglas

2009-12-01

Assistive speech-enabled systems are proposed to help both French and English speaking persons with various speech disorders. The proposed assistive systems use automatic speech recognition (ASR) and speech synthesis in order to enhance the quality of communication. These systems aim at improving the intelligibility of pathologic speech making it as natural as possible and close to the original voice of the speaker. The resynthesized utterances use new basic units, a new concatenating algorithm and a grafting technique to correct the poorly pronounced phonemes. The ASR responses are uttered by the new speech synthesis system in order to convey an intelligible message to listeners. Experiments involving four American speakers with severe dysarthria and two Acadian French speakers with sound substitution disorders (SSDs) are carried out to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. An improvement of the Perceptual Evaluation of the Speech Quality (PESQ) value of 5% and more than 20% is achieved by the speech synthesis systems that deal with SSD and dysarthria, respectively.

Toward a Model of Pediatric Speech Sound Disorders (SSD) for Differential Diagnosis and Therapy Planning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Terband, Hayo; Maassen, Bernardus; Maas, Edwin; van Lieshout, Pascal; Maassen, Ben; Terband, Hayo

2016-01-01

The classification and differentiation of pediatric speech sound disorders (SSD) is one of the main questions in the field of speech- and language pathology. Terms for classifying childhood and SSD and motor speech disorders (MSD) refer to speech production processes, and a variety of methods of

A characterization of verb use in Turkish agrammatic narrative speech

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Arslan, Seçkin; Bamyacı, Elif; Bastiaanse, Roelien

2016-01-01

This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large

A Danish open-set speech corpus for competing-speech studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Jens Bo; Dau, Torsten; Neher, Tobias

2014-01-01

Studies investigating speech-on-speech masking effects commonly use closed-set speech materials such as the coordinate response measure [Bolia et al. (2000). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 107, 1065-1066]. However, these studies typically result in very low (i.e., negative) speech recognition thresholds (SRTs......) when the competing speech signals are spatially separated. To achieve higher SRTs that correspond more closely to natural communication situations, an open-set, low-context, multi-talker speech corpus was developed. Three sets of 268 unique Danish sentences were created, and each set was recorded...... with one of three professional female talkers. The intelligibility of each sentence in the presence of speech-shaped noise was measured. For each talker, 200 approximately equally intelligible sentences were then selected and systematically distributed into 10 test lists. Test list homogeneity was assessed...

Speech pathology in ancient India--a review of Sanskrit literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Savithri, S R

1987-12-01

This paper aims at highlighting the knowledge of the Sanskrit scholars of ancient times in the field of speech and language pathology. The information collected here is mainly from the Sanskrit texts written between 2000 B.C. and 1633 A.D. Some aspects of speech and language that have been dealt with in this review have been elaborately described in the original Sanskrit texts. The present paper, however, being limited in its scope, reviews only the essential facts, but not the details. The purpose is only to give a glimpse of the knowledge that the Sanskrit scholars of those times possessed. In brief, this paper is a review of Sanskrit literature for information on the origin and development of speech and language, speech production, normality of speech and language, and disorders of speech and language and their treatment.

Visual feedback of tongue movement for novel speech sound learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William F Katz

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Pronunciation training studies have yielded important information concerning the processing of audiovisual (AV information. Second language (L2 learners show increased reliance on bottom-up, multimodal input for speech perception (compared to monolingual individuals. However, little is known about the role of viewing one’s own speech articulation processes during speech training. The current study investigated whether real-time, visual feedback for tongue movement can improve a speaker’s learning of non-native speech sounds. An interactive 3D tongue visualization system based on electromagnetic articulography (EMA was used in a speech training experiment. Native speakers of American English produced a novel speech sound (/ɖ̠/; a voiced, coronal, palatal stop before, during, and after trials in which they viewed their own speech movements using the 3D model. Talkers’ productions were evaluated using kinematic (tongue-tip spatial positioning and acoustic (burst spectra measures. The results indicated a rapid gain in accuracy associated with visual feedback training. The findings are discussed with respect to neural models for multimodal speech processing.

Interfacing COTS Speech Recognition and Synthesis Software to a Lotus Notes Military Command and Control Database

Science.gov (United States)

Carr, Oliver

2002-10-01

Speech recognition and synthesis technologies have become commercially viable over recent years. Two current market leading products in speech recognition technology are Dragon NaturallySpeaking and IBM ViaVoice. This report describes the development of speech user interfaces incorporating these products with Lotus Notes and Java applications. These interfaces enable data entry using speech recognition and allow warnings and instructions to be issued via speech synthesis. The development of a military vocabulary to improve user interaction is discussed. The report also describes an evaluation in terms of speed of the various speech user interfaces developed using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and IBM ViaVoice with a Lotus Notes Command and Control Support System Log database.

On the facilitatory effects of cognate words in bilingual speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Albert; Santesteban, Mikel; Caño, Agnès

2005-07-01

There is a growing body of evidence showing that a word's cognate status is an important dimension affecting the naming performance of bilingual speakers. In a recent article, Kohnert extended this observation to the naming performance of an aphasic bilingual (DJ). DJ named pictures with cognate names more accurately than pictures with non-cognate names. Furthermore, having named the pictures in Spanish helped the subsequent retrieval (with a delay of one week between the two tests) of the same pictures' names in English, but only for pictures with cognate names. That is, there was a language transfer but only for those translation words that were phonologically similar. In this article we first evaluate the conclusions drawn from these results by Kohnert, and second we discuss the theoretical implications of the facilitatory effects of cognate words for models of speech production in bilingual speakers.

Individual differences in speech-in-noise perception parallel neural speech processing and attention in preschoolers

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Elaine C.; Carr, Kali Woodruff; White-Schwoch, Travis; Otto-Meyer, Sebastian; Kraus, Nina

2016-01-01

From bustling classrooms to unruly lunchrooms, school settings are noisy. To learn effectively in the unwelcome company of numerous distractions, children must clearly perceive speech in noise. In older children and adults, speech-in-noise perception is supported by sensory and cognitive processes, but the correlates underlying this critical listening skill in young children (3–5 year olds) remain undetermined. Employing a longitudinal design (two evaluations separated by ~12 months), we followed a cohort of 59 preschoolers, ages 3.0–4.9, assessing word-in-noise perception, cognitive abilities (intelligence, short-term memory, attention), and neural responses to speech. Results reveal changes in word-in-noise perception parallel changes in processing of the fundamental frequency (F0), an acoustic cue known for playing a role central to speaker identification and auditory scene analysis. Four unique developmental trajectories (speech-in-noise perception groups) confirm this relationship, in that improvements and declines in word-in-noise perception couple with enhancements and diminishments of F0 encoding, respectively. Improvements in word-in-noise perception also pair with gains in attention. Word-in-noise perception does not relate to strength of neural harmonic representation or short-term memory. These findings reinforce previously-reported roles of F0 and attention in hearing speech in noise in older children and adults, and extend this relationship to preschool children. PMID:27864051

Multimodal Speech Capture System for Speech Rehabilitation and Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Sebkhi, Nordine; Desai, Dhyey; Islam, Mohammad; Lu, Jun; Wilson, Kimberly; Ghovanloo, Maysam

2017-11-01

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are trained to correct articulation of people diagnosed with motor speech disorders by analyzing articulators' motion and assessing speech outcome while patients speak. To assist SLPs in this task, we are presenting the multimodal speech capture system (MSCS) that records and displays kinematics of key speech articulators, the tongue and lips, along with voice, using unobtrusive methods. Collected speech modalities, tongue motion, lips gestures, and voice are visualized not only in real-time to provide patients with instant feedback but also offline to allow SLPs to perform post-analysis of articulators' motion, particularly the tongue, with its prominent but hardly visible role in articulation. We describe the MSCS hardware and software components, and demonstrate its basic visualization capabilities by a healthy individual repeating the words "Hello World." A proof-of-concept prototype has been successfully developed for this purpose, and will be used in future clinical studies to evaluate its potential impact on accelerating speech rehabilitation by enabling patients to speak naturally. Pattern matching algorithms to be applied to the collected data can provide patients with quantitative and objective feedback on their speech performance, unlike current methods that are mostly subjective, and may vary from one SLP to another.

Perception of foreign-accented clear speech by younger and older English listeners

OpenAIRE

Li, Chi-Nin

2009-01-01

Naturally produced English clear speech has been shown to be more intelligible than English conversational speech. However, little is known about the extent of the clear speech effects in the production of nonnative English, and perception of foreign-accented English by younger and older listeners. The present study examined whether Cantonese speakers would employ the same strategies as those used by native English speakers in producing clear speech in their second language. Also, the clear s...

Auditory Peripheral Processing of Degraded Speech

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Ghitza, Oded

2003-01-01

...". The underlying thesis is that the auditory periphery contributes to the robust performance of humans in speech reception in noise through a concerted contribution of the efferent feedback system...

Articulatory Control in Childhood Apraxia of Speech in a Novel Word-Learning Task

Science.gov (United States)

Case, Julie; Grigos, Maria I.

2016-01-01

Purpose: Articulatory control and speech production accuracy were examined in children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and typically developing (TD) controls within a novel word-learning task to better understand the influence of planning and programming deficits in the production of unfamiliar words. Method: Participants included 16…

Engaged listeners: shared neural processing of powerful political speeches.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmälzle, Ralf; Häcker, Frank E K; Honey, Christopher J; Hasson, Uri

2015-08-01

Powerful speeches can captivate audiences, whereas weaker speeches fail to engage their listeners. What is happening in the brains of a captivated audience? Here, we assess audience-wide functional brain dynamics during listening to speeches of varying rhetorical quality. The speeches were given by German politicians and evaluated as rhetorically powerful or weak. Listening to each of the speeches induced similar neural response time courses, as measured by inter-subject correlation analysis, in widespread brain regions involved in spoken language processing. Crucially, alignment of the time course across listeners was stronger for rhetorically powerful speeches, especially for bilateral regions of the superior temporal gyri and medial prefrontal cortex. Thus, during powerful speeches, listeners as a group are more coupled to each other, suggesting that powerful speeches are more potent in taking control of the listeners' brain responses. Weaker speeches were processed more heterogeneously, although they still prompted substantially correlated responses. These patterns of coupled neural responses bear resemblance to metaphors of resonance, which are often invoked in discussions of speech impact, and contribute to the literature on auditory attention under natural circumstances. Overall, this approach opens up possibilities for research on the neural mechanisms mediating the reception of entertaining or persuasive messages. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

An EMA Analysis of the Effect of Increasing Word Length on Consonant Production in Apraxia of Speech: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Bartle, Carly J.; Goozee, Justine V.; Murdoch, Bruce E.

2007-01-01

The effect of increasing word length on the articulatory dynamics (i.e. duration, distance, maximum acceleration, maximum deceleration, and maximum velocity) of consonant production in acquired apraxia of speech was investigated using electromagnetic articulography (EMA). Tongue-tip and tongue-back movement of one apraxic patient was recorded…

Reliance on auditory feedback in children with childhood apraxia of speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Iuzzini-Seigel, Jenya; Hogan, Tiffany P; Guarino, Anthony J; Green, Jordan R

2015-01-01

Children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) have been hypothesized to continuously monitor their speech through auditory feedback to minimize speech errors. We used an auditory masking paradigm to determine the effect of attenuating auditory feedback on speech in 30 children: 9 with CAS, 10 with speech delay, and 11 with typical development. The masking only affected the speech of children with CAS as measured by voice onset time and vowel space area. These findings provide preliminary support for greater reliance on auditory feedback among children with CAS. Readers of this article should be able to (i) describe the motivation for investigating the role of auditory feedback in children with CAS; (ii) report the effects of feedback attenuation on speech production in children with CAS, speech delay, and typical development, and (iii) understand how the current findings may support a feedforward program deficit in children with CAS. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Prevalence of Speech Disorders in Arak Primary School Students, 2014-2015

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdoreza Yavari

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background: The speech disorders may produce irreparable damage to childs speech and language development in the psychosocial view. The voice, speech sound production and fluency disorders are speech disorders, that may result from delay or impairment in speech motor control mechanism, central neuron system disorders, improper language stimulation or voice abuse. Materials and Methods: This study examined the prevalence of speech disorders in 1393 Arakian students at 1 to 6th grades of primary school. After collecting continuous speech samples, picture description, passage reading and phonetic test, we recorded the pathological signs of stuttering, articulation disorder and voice disorders in a special sheet. Results: The prevalence of articulation, voice and stuttering disorders was 8%, 3.5% and%1 and the prevalence of speech disorders was 11.9%. The prevalence of speech disorders was decreasing with increasing of student’s grade. 12.2% of boy students and 11.7% of girl students of primary school in Arak had speech disorders. Conclusion: The prevalence of speech disorders of primary school students in Arak is similar to the prevalence of speech disorders in Kermanshah, but the prevalence of speech disorders in this research is smaller than many similar researches in Iran. It seems that racial and cultural diversity has some effect on increasing the prevalence of speech disorders in Arak city.

Speech-induced striatal dopamine release is left lateralized and coupled to functional striatal circuits in healthy humans: A combined PET, fMRI and DTI study

Science.gov (United States)

Simonyan, Kristina; Herscovitch, Peter; Horwitz, Barry

2013-01-01

Considerable progress has been recently made in understanding the brain mechanisms underlying speech and language control. However, the neurochemical underpinnings of normal speech production remain largely unknown. We investigated the extent of striatal endogenous dopamine release and its influences on the organization of functional striatal speech networks during production of meaningful English sentences using a combination of positron emission tomography (PET) with the dopamine D2/D3 receptor radioligand [11C]raclopride and functional MRI (fMRI). In addition, we used diffusion tensor tractography (DTI) to examine the extent of dopaminergic modulatory influences on striatal structural network organization. We found that, during sentence production, endogenous dopamine was released in the ventromedial portion of the dorsal striatum, in its both associative and sensorimotor functional divisions. In the associative striatum, speech-induced dopamine release established a significant relationship with neural activity and influenced the left-hemispheric lateralization of striatal functional networks. In contrast, there were no significant effects of endogenous dopamine release on the lateralization of striatal structural networks. Our data provide the first evidence for endogenous dopamine release in the dorsal striatum during normal speaking and point to the possible mechanisms behind the modulatory influences of dopamine on the organization of functional brain circuits controlling normal human speech. PMID:23277111

The integration of prosodic speech in high functioning autism: a preliminary FMRI study.

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Isabelle Hesling

2010-07-01

Full Text Available Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a specific triad of symptoms such as abnormalities in social interaction, abnormalities in communication and restricted activities and interests. While verbal autistic subjects may present a correct mastery of the formal aspects of speech, they have difficulties in prosody (music of speech, leading to communication disorders. Few behavioural studies have revealed a prosodic impairment in children with autism, and among the few fMRI studies aiming at assessing the neural network involved in language, none has specifically studied prosodic speech. The aim of the present study was to characterize specific prosodic components such as linguistic prosody (intonation, rhythm and emphasis and emotional prosody and to correlate them with the neural network underlying them.We used a behavioural test (Profiling Elements of the Prosodic System, PEPS and fMRI to characterize prosodic deficits and investigate the neural network underlying prosodic processing. Results revealed the existence of a link between perceptive and productive prosodic deficits for some prosodic components (rhythm, emphasis and affect in HFA and also revealed that the neural network involved in prosodic speech perception exhibits abnormal activation in the left SMG as compared to controls (activation positively correlated with intonation and emphasis and an absence of deactivation patterns in regions involved in the default mode.These prosodic impairments could not only result from activation patterns abnormalities but also from an inability to adequately use the strategy of the default network inhibition, both mechanisms that have to be considered for decreasing task performance in High Functioning Autism.

Aging and Spectro-Temporal Integration of Speech

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John H. Grose

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of age on the spectro-temporal integration of speech. The hypothesis was that the integration of speech fragments distributed over frequency, time, and ear of presentation is reduced in older listeners—even for those with good audiometric hearing. Younger, middle-aged, and older listeners (10 per group with good audiometric hearing participated. They were each tested under seven conditions that encompassed combinations of spectral, temporal, and binaural integration. Sentences were filtered into two bands centered at 500 Hz and 2500 Hz, with criterion bandwidth tailored for each participant. In some conditions, the speech bands were individually square wave interrupted at a rate of 10 Hz. Configurations of uninterrupted, synchronously interrupted, and asynchronously interrupted frequency bands were constructed that constituted speech fragments distributed across frequency, time, and ear of presentation. The over-arching finding was that, for most configurations, performance was not differentially affected by listener age. Although speech intelligibility varied across condition, there was no evidence of performance deficits in older listeners in any condition. This study indicates that age, per se, does not necessarily undermine the ability to integrate fragments of speech dispersed across frequency and time.

Hearing speech in music

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Seth-Reino Ekström

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The masking effect of a piano composition, played at different speeds and in different octaves, on speech-perception thresholds was investigated in 15 normal-hearing and 14 moderately-hearing-impaired subjects. Running speech (just follow conversation, JFC testing and use of hearing aids increased the everyday validity of the findings. A comparison was made with standard audiometric noises [International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA noise and speech spectrum-filtered noise (SPN]. All masking sounds, music or noise, were presented at the same equivalent sound level (50 dBA. The results showed a significant effect of piano performance speed and octave (P<.01. Low octave and fast tempo had the largest effect; and high octave and slow tempo, the smallest. Music had a lower masking effect than did ICRA noise with two or six speakers at normal vocal effort (P<.01 and SPN (P<.05. Subjects with hearing loss had higher masked thresholds than the normal-hearing subjects (P<.01, but there were smaller differences between masking conditions (P<.01. It is pointed out that music offers an interesting opportunity for studying masking under realistic conditions, where spectral and temporal features can be varied independently. The results have implications for composing music with vocal parts, designing acoustic environments and creating a balance between speech perception and privacy in social settings.

Audiovisual integration of speech in a patient with Broca's Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Andersen, Tobias S.; Starrfelt, Randi

2015-01-01

Lesions to Broca's area cause aphasia characterized by a severe impairment of the ability to speak, with comparatively intact speech perception. However, some studies have found effects on speech perception under adverse listening conditions, indicating that Broca's area is also involved in speech perception. While these studies have focused on auditory speech perception other studies have shown that Broca's area is activated by visual speech perception. Furthermore, one preliminary report found that a patient with Broca's aphasia did not experience the McGurk illusion suggesting that an intact Broca's area is necessary for audiovisual integration of speech. Here we describe a patient with Broca's aphasia who experienced the McGurk illusion. This indicates that an intact Broca's area is not necessary for audiovisual integration of speech. The McGurk illusions this patient experienced were atypical, which could be due to Broca's area having a more subtle role in audiovisual integration of speech. The McGurk illusions of a control subject with Wernicke's aphasia were, however, also atypical. This indicates that the atypical McGurk illusions were due to deficits in speech processing that are not specific to Broca's aphasia. PMID:25972819

Barista: A Framework for Concurrent Speech Processing by USC-SAIL.

Science.gov (United States)

Can, Doğan; Gibson, James; Vaz, Colin; Georgiou, Panayiotis G; Narayanan, Shrikanth S

2014-05-01

We present Barista, an open-source framework for concurrent speech processing based on the Kaldi speech recognition toolkit and the libcppa actor library. With Barista, we aim to provide an easy-to-use, extensible framework for constructing highly customizable concurrent (and/or distributed) networks for a variety of speech processing tasks. Each Barista network specifies a flow of data between simple actors, concurrent entities communicating by message passing, modeled after Kaldi tools. Leveraging the fast and reliable concurrency and distribution mechanisms provided by libcppa, Barista lets demanding speech processing tasks, such as real-time speech recognizers and complex training workflows, to be scheduled and executed on parallel (and/or distributed) hardware. Barista is released under the Apache License v2.0.

Talker Variability in Audiovisual Speech Perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shannon eHeald

2014-07-01

Full Text Available A change in talker is a change in the context for the phonetic interpretation of acoustic patterns of speech. Different talkers have different mappings between acoustic patterns and phonetic categories and listeners need to adapt to these differences. Despite this complexity, listeners are adept at comprehending speech in multiple-talker contexts, albeit at a slight but measurable performance cost (e.g., slower recognition. So far, this talker-variability cost has been demonstrated only in audio-only speech. Other research in single-talker contexts have shown, however, that when listeners are able to see a talker’s face, speech recognition is improved under adverse listening (e.g., noise or distortion conditions that can increase uncertainty in the mapping between acoustic patterns and phonetic categories. Does seeing a talker's face reduce the cost of word recognition in multiple-talker contexts? We used a speeded word-monitoring task in which listeners make quick judgments about target-word recognition in single- and multiple-talker contexts. Results show faster recognition performance in single-talker conditions compared to multiple-talker conditions for both audio-only and audio-visual speech. However, recognition time in a multiple-talker context was slower in the audio-visual condition compared to audio-only condition. These results suggest that seeing a talker’s face during speech perception may slow recognition by increasing the importance of talker identification, signaling to the listener a change in talker has occurred.

Enhancement of speech signals - with a focus on voiced speech models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørholm, Sidsel Marie

This thesis deals with speech enhancement, i.e., noise reduction in speech signals. This has applications in, e.g., hearing aids and teleconference systems. We consider a signal-driven approach to speech enhancement where a model of the speech is assumed and filters are generated based...... on this model. The basic model used in this thesis is the harmonic model which is a commonly used model for describing the voiced part of the speech signal. We show that it can be beneficial to extend the model to take inharmonicities or the non-stationarity of speech into account. Extending the model...

Phonological Awareness Intervention for Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Moriarty, Brigid C.; Gillon, Gail T.

2006-01-01

Aims: To investigate the effectiveness of an integrated phonological awareness intervention to improve the speech production, phonological awareness and printed word decoding skills for three children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) aged 7;3, 6;3 and 6;10. The three children presented with severely delayed phonological awareness skills…

Improved vocabulary production after naming therapy in aphasia: can gains in picture naming generalize to connected speech?

Science.gov (United States)

Conroy, Paul; Sage, Karen; Ralph, Matt Lambon

2009-01-01

Naming accuracy for nouns and verbs in aphasia can vary across different elicitation contexts, for example, simple picture naming, composite picture description, narratives, and conversation. For some people with aphasia, naming may be more accurate to simple pictures as opposed to naming in spontaneous, connected speech; for others, the opposite pattern may be evident. These differences have, in some instances, been related to word class (for example, noun or verb) as well as aphasia subtype. Given that the aim of picture-naming therapies is to improve word-finding in general, these differences in naming accuracy across contexts may have important implications for the potential functional benefits of picture-naming therapies. This study aimed to explore single-word therapy for both nouns and verbs, and to answer the following questions. (1) To what extent does an increase in naming accuracy after picture-naming therapy (for both nouns and verbs) predict accurate naming of the same items in less constrained spontaneous connected speech tasks such as composite picture description and retelling of a narrative? (2) Does the word class targeted in therapy (verb or noun) dictate whether there is 'carry-over' of the therapy item to connected speech tasks? (3) Does the speed at which the picture is named after therapy predict whether it will also be used appropriately in connected speech tasks? Seven participants with aphasia of varying degrees of severity and subtype took part in ten therapy sessions over five weeks. A set of potentially useful items was collected from control participant accounts of the Cookie Theft Picture Description and the Cinderella Story from the Quantitative Production Analysis. Twenty-four of these words (twelve verbs and twelve nouns) were collated for each participant, on the basis that they had failed to name them in either simple picture naming or connected speech tasks (picture-supported narrative and unsupported retelling of a narrative

Postlingual deaf speech and the role of audition in speech production: comments on Waldstein's paper [R.S. Waldstein, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, 2099-2114 (1990)].

Science.gov (United States)

Sapir, S; Canter, G J

1991-09-01

Using acoustic analysis techniques, Waldstein [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 88, 2099-2114 (1990] reported abnormal speech findings in postlingual deaf speakers. She interpreted her findings to suggest that auditory feedback is important in motor speech control. However, it is argued here that Waldstein's interpretation may be unwarranted without addressing the possibility of neurologic deficits (e.g., dysarthria) as confounding (or even primary) causes of the abnormal speech in her subjects.

Intelligibility for Binaural Speech with Discarded Low-SNR Speech Components.

Science.gov (United States)

Schoenmaker, Esther; van de Par, Steven

2016-01-01

Speech intelligibility in multitalker settings improves when the target speaker is spatially separated from the interfering speakers. A factor that may contribute to this improvement is the improved detectability of target-speech components due to binaural interaction in analogy to the Binaural Masking Level Difference (BMLD). This would allow listeners to hear target speech components within specific time-frequency intervals that have a negative SNR, similar to the improvement in the detectability of a tone in noise when these contain disparate interaural difference cues. To investigate whether these negative-SNR target-speech components indeed contribute to speech intelligibility, a stimulus manipulation was performed where all target components were removed when local SNRs were smaller than a certain criterion value. It can be expected that for sufficiently high criterion values target speech components will be removed that do contribute to speech intelligibility. For spatially separated speakers, assuming that a BMLD-like detection advantage contributes to intelligibility, degradation in intelligibility is expected already at criterion values below 0 dB SNR. However, for collocated speakers it is expected that higher criterion values can be applied without impairing speech intelligibility. Results show that degradation of intelligibility for separated speakers is only seen for criterion values of 0 dB and above, indicating a negligible contribution of a BMLD-like detection advantage in multitalker settings. These results show that the spatial benefit is related to a spatial separation of speech components at positive local SNRs rather than to a BMLD-like detection improvement for speech components at negative local SNRs.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN INDONESIAN PRESS: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE

OpenAIRE

Clara Staples

2016-01-01

This paper will firstly examine the International framework of human rights law and its guidelines for safeguarding the right to freedom of speech in the press. Secondly, it will describe the constitutional and other legal rights protecting freedom of speech in Indonesia and assess their compatibility with the right to freedom of speech under the International human rights law framework. Thirdly it will consider the impact of Indonesia's constitutional law and criminal and civil law, includin...

An experimental Dutch keyboard-to-speech system for the speech impaired

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Deliege, R.J.H.

1989-01-01

An experimental Dutch keyboard-to-speech system has been developed to explor the possibilities and limitations of Dutch speech synthesis in a communication aid for the speech impaired. The system uses diphones and a formant synthesizer chip for speech synthesis. Input to the system is in

Multivoxel Patterns Reveal Functionally Differentiated Networks Underlying Auditory Feedback Processing of Speech

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zheng, Zane Z.; Vicente-Grabovetsky, Alejandro; MacDonald, Ewen N.

2013-01-01

The everyday act of speaking involves the complex processes of speech motor control. An important component of control is monitoring, detection, and processing of errors when auditory feedback does not correspond to the intended motor gesture. Here we show, using fMRI and converging operations...... within a multivoxel pattern analysis framework, that this sensorimotor process is supported by functionally differentiated brain networks. During scanning, a real-time speech-tracking system was used to deliver two acoustically different types of distorted auditory feedback or unaltered feedback while...... human participants were vocalizing monosyllabic words, and to present the same auditory stimuli while participants were passively listening. Whole-brain analysis of neural-pattern similarity revealed three functional networks that were differentially sensitive to distorted auditory feedback during...

Out-of-synchrony speech entrainment in developmental dyslexia.

Science.gov (United States)

Molinaro, Nicola; Lizarazu, Mikel; Lallier, Marie; Bourguignon, Mathieu; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-08-01

Developmental dyslexia is a reading disorder often characterized by reduced awareness of speech units. Whether the neural source of this phonological disorder in dyslexic readers results from the malfunctioning of the primary auditory system or damaged feedback communication between higher-order phonological regions (i.e., left inferior frontal regions) and the auditory cortex is still under dispute. Here we recorded magnetoencephalographic (MEG) signals from 20 dyslexic readers and 20 age-matched controls while they were listening to ∼10-s-long spoken sentences. Compared to controls, dyslexic readers had (1) an impaired neural entrainment to speech in the delta band (0.5-1 Hz); (2) a reduced delta synchronization in both the right auditory cortex and the left inferior frontal gyrus; and (3) an impaired feedforward functional coupling between neural oscillations in the right auditory cortex and the left inferior frontal regions. This shows that during speech listening, individuals with developmental dyslexia present reduced neural synchrony to low-frequency speech oscillations in primary auditory regions that hinders higher-order speech processing steps. The present findings, thus, strengthen proposals assuming that improper low-frequency acoustic entrainment affects speech sampling. This low speech-brain synchronization has the strong potential to cause severe consequences for both phonological and reading skills. Interestingly, the reduced speech-brain synchronization in dyslexic readers compared to normal readers (and its higher-order consequences across the speech processing network) appears preserved through the development from childhood to adulthood. Thus, the evaluation of speech-brain synchronization could possibly serve as a diagnostic tool for early detection of children at risk of dyslexia. Hum Brain Mapp 37:2767-2783, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Speech Function and Speech Role in Carl Fredricksen's Dialogue on Up Movie

OpenAIRE

Rehana, Ridha; Silitonga, Sortha

2013-01-01

One aim of this article is to show through a concrete example how speech function and speech role used in movie. The illustrative example is taken from the dialogue of Up movie. Central to the analysis proper form of dialogue on Up movie that contain of speech function and speech role; i.e. statement, offer, question, command, giving, and demanding. 269 dialogue were interpreted by actor, and it was found that the use of speech function and speech role.

Analysis of glottal source parameters in Parkinsonian speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Hanratty, Jane; Deegan, Catherine; Walsh, Mary; Kirkpatrick, Barry

2016-08-01

Diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson's disease has a number of challenges as there is no definitive biomarker despite the broad range of symptoms. Research is ongoing to produce objective measures that can either diagnose Parkinson's or act as an objective decision support tool. Recent research on speech based measures have demonstrated promising results. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of the glottal source signal in Parkinsonian speech. An experiment is conducted in which a selection of glottal parameters are tested for their ability to discriminate between healthy and Parkinsonian speech. Results for each glottal parameter are presented for a database of 50 healthy speakers and a database of 16 speakers with Parkinsonian speech symptoms. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were employed to analyse the results and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were used to quantify the performance of each glottal parameter. The results indicate that glottal parameters can be used to discriminate between healthy and Parkinsonian speech, although results varied for each parameter tested. For the task of separating healthy and Parkinsonian speech, 2 out of the 7 glottal parameters tested produced AUC values of over 0.9.

Movement goals and feedback and feedforward control mechanisms in speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Perkell, Joseph S

2012-09-01

Studies of speech motor control are described that support a theoretical framework in which fundamental control variables for phonemic movements are multi-dimensional regions in auditory and somatosensory spaces. Auditory feedback is used to acquire and maintain auditory goals and in the development and function of feedback and feedforward control mechanisms. Several lines of evidence support the idea that speakers with more acute sensory discrimination acquire more distinct goal regions and therefore produce speech sounds with greater contrast. Feedback modification findings indicate that fluently produced sound sequences are encoded as feedforward commands, and feedback control serves to correct mismatches between expected and produced sensory consequences.

Experimental comparison between speech transmission index, rapid speech transmission index, and speech intelligibility index.

Science.gov (United States)

Larm, Petra; Hongisto, Valtteri

2006-02-01

During the acoustical design of, e.g., auditoria or open-plan offices, it is important to know how speech can be perceived in various parts of the room. Different objective methods have been developed to measure and predict speech intelligibility, and these have been extensively used in various spaces. In this study, two such methods were compared, the speech transmission index (STI) and the speech intelligibility index (SII). Also the simplification of the STI, the room acoustics speech transmission index (RASTI), was considered. These quantities are all based on determining an apparent speech-to-noise ratio on selected frequency bands and summing them using a specific weighting. For comparison, some data were needed on the possible differences of these methods resulting from the calculation scheme and also measuring equipment. Their prediction accuracy was also of interest. Measurements were made in a laboratory having adjustable noise level and absorption, and in a real auditorium. It was found that the measurement equipment, especially the selection of the loudspeaker, can greatly affect the accuracy of the results. The prediction accuracy of the RASTI was found acceptable, if the input values for the prediction are accurately known, even though the studied space was not ideally diffuse.

Auditory cortex processes variation in our own speech.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kevin R Sitek

Full Text Available As we talk, we unconsciously adjust our speech to ensure it sounds the way we intend it to sound. However, because speech production involves complex motor planning and execution, no two utterances of the same sound will be exactly the same. Here, we show that auditory cortex is sensitive to natural variations in self-produced speech from utterance to utterance. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs from ninety-nine subjects while they uttered "ah" and while they listened to those speech sounds played back. Subjects' utterances were sorted based on their formant deviations from the previous utterance. Typically, the N1 ERP component is suppressed during talking compared to listening. By comparing ERPs to the least and most variable utterances, we found that N1 was less suppressed to utterances that differed greatly from their preceding neighbors. In contrast, an utterance's difference from the median formant values did not affect N1. Trial-to-trial pitch (f0 deviation and pitch difference from the median similarly did not affect N1. We discuss mechanisms that may underlie the change in N1 suppression resulting from trial-to-trial formant change. Deviant utterances require additional auditory cortical processing, suggesting that speaking-induced suppression mechanisms are optimally tuned for a specific production.

Auditory Cortex Processes Variation in Our Own Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Sitek, Kevin R.; Mathalon, Daniel H.; Roach, Brian J.; Houde, John F.; Niziolek, Caroline A.; Ford, Judith M.

2013-01-01

As we talk, we unconsciously adjust our speech to ensure it sounds the way we intend it to sound. However, because speech production involves complex motor planning and execution, no two utterances of the same sound will be exactly the same. Here, we show that auditory cortex is sensitive to natural variations in self-produced speech from utterance to utterance. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from ninety-nine subjects while they uttered “ah” and while they listened to those speech sounds played back. Subjects' utterances were sorted based on their formant deviations from the previous utterance. Typically, the N1 ERP component is suppressed during talking compared to listening. By comparing ERPs to the least and most variable utterances, we found that N1 was less suppressed to utterances that differed greatly from their preceding neighbors. In contrast, an utterance's difference from the median formant values did not affect N1. Trial-to-trial pitch (f0) deviation and pitch difference from the median similarly did not affect N1. We discuss mechanisms that may underlie the change in N1 suppression resulting from trial-to-trial formant change. Deviant utterances require additional auditory cortical processing, suggesting that speaking-induced suppression mechanisms are optimally tuned for a specific production. PMID:24349399

Priorities of Dialogic Speech Teaching Methodology at Higher Non-Linguistic School

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Vida Asanavičienė

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The article deals with a number of relevant methodological issues. First of all, the author analyses psychological peculiarities of dialogic speech and states that the dialogue is the product of at least two persons. Therefore, in this view, dialogic speech, unlike monologic speech, happens impromptu and is not prepared in advance. Dialogic speech is mainly of situational character. The linguistic nature of dialogic speech, in the author’s opinion, lies in the process of exchanging replications, which are coherent in structural and functional character. The author classifies dialogue groups by the number of replications and communicative parameters. The basic goal of dialogic speech teaching is developing the abilities and skills which enable to exchange replications. The author distinguishes two basic stages of dialogic speech teaching: 1. Training of abilities to exchange replications during communicative exercises. 2. Development of skills by training the capability to perform exercises of creative nature during a group dialogue, conversation or debate.

Speech Evoked Auditory Brainstem Response in Stuttering

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Ali Akbar Tahaei

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Auditory processing deficits have been hypothesized as an underlying mechanism for stuttering. Previous studies have demonstrated abnormal responses in subjects with persistent developmental stuttering (PDS at the higher level of the central auditory system using speech stimuli. Recently, the potential usefulness of speech evoked auditory brainstem responses in central auditory processing disorders has been emphasized. The current study used the speech evoked ABR to investigate the hypothesis that subjects with PDS have specific auditory perceptual dysfunction. Objectives. To determine whether brainstem responses to speech stimuli differ between PDS subjects and normal fluent speakers. Methods. Twenty-five subjects with PDS participated in this study. The speech-ABRs were elicited by the 5-formant synthesized syllable/da/, with duration of 40 ms. Results. There were significant group differences for the onset and offset transient peaks. Subjects with PDS had longer latencies for the onset and offset peaks relative to the control group. Conclusions. Subjects with PDS showed a deficient neural timing in the early stages of the auditory pathway consistent with temporal processing deficits and their abnormal timing may underlie to their disfluency.

Robust Speech/Non-Speech Classification in Heterogeneous Multimedia Content

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huijbregts, M.A.H.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.

In this paper we present a speech/non-speech classification method that allows high quality classification without the need to know in advance what kinds of audible non-speech events are present in an audio recording and that does not require a single parameter to be tuned on in-domain data. Because

Results of the Sensory Profile in Children with Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Science.gov (United States)

Newmeyer Amy J.; Grether, Sandra; Aylward, Christa; deGrauw, Ton; Akers, Rachel; Grasha, Carol; Ishikawa, Keiko; White, Jaye

2009-01-01

Speech-sound disorders are common in preschool-age children, and are characterized by difficulty in the planning and production of speech sounds and their combination into words and sentences. The objective of this study was to review and compare the results of the "Sensory Profile" ([Dunn, 1999]) in children with a specific type of speech-sound…

The Speech Act Theory between Linguistics and Language Philosophy

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Liviu-Mihail MARINESCU

2006-10-01

Full Text Available Of all the issues in the general theory of language usage, speech act theory has probably aroused the widest interest. Psychologists, forexample, have suggested that the acquisition of the concepts underlying speech acts may be a prerequisite for the acquisition of language in general,literary critics have looked to speech act theory for an illumination of textual subtleties or for an understanding of the nature of literary genres,anthropologists have hoped to find in the theory some account of the nature of magical incantations, philosophers have seen potential applications to,amongst other things, the status of ethical statements, while linguists have seen the notions of speech act theory as variously applicable to problemsin syntax, semantics, second language learning, and elsewhere.

Physiological Indices of Bilingualism: Oral–Motor Coordination and Speech Rate in Bengali–English Speakers

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Chakraborty, Rahul; Goffman, Lisa; Smith, Anne

2009-01-01

Purpose To examine how age of immersion and proficiency in a 2nd language influence speech movement variability and speaking rate in both a 1st language and a 2nd language. Method A group of 21 Bengali–English bilingual speakers participated. Lip and jaw movements were recorded. For all 21 speakers, lip movement variability was assessed based on productions of Bengali (L1; 1st language) and English (L2; 2nd language) sentences. For analyses related to the influence of L2 proficiency on speech production processes, participants were sorted into low- (n = 7) and high-proficiency (n = 7) groups. Lip movement variability and speech rate were evaluated for both of these groups across L1 and L2 sentences. Results Surprisingly, adult bilingual speakers produced equally consistent speech movement patterns in their production of L1 and L2. When groups were sorted according to proficiency, highly proficient speakers were marginally more variable in their L1. In addition, there were some phoneme-specific effects, most markedly that segments not shared by both languages were treated differently in production. Consistent with previous studies, movement durations were longer for less proficient speakers in both L1 and L2. Interpretation In contrast to those of child learners, the speech motor systems of adult L2 speakers show a high degree of consistency. Such lack of variability presumably contributes to protracted difficulties with acquiring nativelike pronunciation in L2. The proficiency results suggest bidirectional interactions across L1 and L2, which is consistent with hypotheses regarding interference and the sharing of phonological space. A slower speech rate in less proficient speakers implies that there are increased task demands on speech production processes. PMID:18367680

Synergetic Organization in Speech Rhythm

Science.gov (United States)

Cummins, Fred

The Speech Cycling Task is a novel experimental paradigm developed together with Robert Port and Keiichi Tajima at Indiana University. In a task of this sort, subjects repeat a phrase containing multiple prominent, or stressed, syllables in time with an auditory metronome, which can be simple or complex. A phase-based collective variable is defined in the acoustic speech signal. This paper reports on two experiments using speech cycling which together reveal many of the hallmarks of hierarchically coupled oscillatory processes. The first experiment requires subjects to place the final stressed syllable of a small phrase at specified phases within the overall Phrase Repetition Cycle (PRC). It is clearly demonstrated that only three patterns, characterized by phases around 1/3, 1/2 or 2/3 are reliably produced, and these points are attractors for other target phases. The system is thus multistable, and the attractors correspond to stable couplings between the metrical foot and the PRC. A second experiment examines the behavior of these attractors at increased rates. Faster rates lead to mode jumps between attractors. Previous experiments have also illustrated hysteresis as the system moves from one mode to the next. The dynamical organization is particularly interesting from a modeling point of view, as there is no single part of the speech production system which cycles at the level of either the metrical foot or the phrase repetition cycle. That is, there is no continuous kinematic observable in the system. Nonetheless, there is strong evidence that the oscopic behavior of the entire production system is correctly described as hierarchically coupled oscillators. There are many parallels between this organization and the forms of inter-limb coupling observed in locomotion and rhythmic manual tasks.

Murder by YouTube - anti-Islamic speech and homicide liability.

OpenAIRE

Bohlander, Michael

2014-01-01

Usually, hate-speech and its criminalisation are looked at from the angle of a separate hate-speech offence, and often in the context of human rights law, especially freedom of speech and religion. In the Islamic world, such issues are treated under blasphemy laws and the availability of severe sanctions for that offence, not infrequently the death penalty, may make a separate recourse to homicide offences unnecessary. Yet, recent events in the Islamic world suggest that it would not be unima...

Tools for the assessment of childhood apraxia of speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Gubiani, Marileda Barichello; Pagliarin, Karina Carlesso; Keske-Soares, Marcia

2015-01-01

This study systematically reviews the literature on the main tools used to evaluate childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The search strategy includes Scopus, PubMed, and Embase databases. Empirical studies that used tools for assessing CAS were selected. Articles were selected by two independent researchers. The search retrieved 695 articles, out of which 12 were included in the study. Five tools were identified: Verbal Motor Production Assessment for Children, Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill, The Orofacial Praxis Test, Kaufman Speech Praxis Test for Children, and Madison Speech Assessment Protocol. There are few instruments available for CAS assessment and most of them are intended to assess praxis and/or orofacial movements, sequences of orofacial movements, articulation of syllables and phonemes, spontaneous speech, and prosody. There are some tests for assessment and diagnosis of CAS. However, few studies on this topic have been conducted at the national level, as well as protocols to assess and assist in an accurate diagnosis.

Intelligibility of speech of children with speech and sound disorders

OpenAIRE

Ivetac, Tina

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study is to examine speech intelligibility of children with primary speech and sound disorders aged 3 to 6 years in everyday life. The research problem is based on the degree to which parents or guardians, immediate family members (sister, brother, grandparents), extended family members (aunt, uncle, cousin), child's friends, other acquaintances, child's teachers and strangers understand the speech of children with speech sound disorders. We examined whether the level ...

A MATLAB toolbox for the analysis of articulatory data in the production of speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, N

2000-08-01

The goal of this paper is to present EMATOOLS, a set of scripts for displaying and annotating acoustic and articulatory data simultaneously in studies on speech production. These scripts were developed with the use of MATLAB, a multiplatform computing environment for numeric computation and visualization. The system is equipped with a mouse-driven graphical interface made up of a number of displays. This interface can be easily customized to speed up routine tasks. The scripts can also be used in a noninteractive way, as stand-alone MATLAB commands. Output data can be imported into any standard spreadsheet. EMATOOLS is freely available from www.lpl.univ-aix.fr/nguyen/ematools.html.

Sound frequency affects speech emotion perception: Results from congenital amusia

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Sydney eLolli

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Congenital amusics, or tone-deaf individuals, show difficulty in perceiving and producing small pitch differences. While amusia has marked effects on music perception, its impact on speech perception is less clear. Here we test the hypothesis that individual differences in pitch perception affect judgment of emotion in speech, by applying band-pass filters to spoken statements of emotional speech. A norming study was first conducted on Mechanical Turk to ensure that the intended emotions from the Macquarie Battery for Evaluation of Prosody (MBEP were reliably identifiable by US English speakers. The most reliably identified emotional speech samples were used in in Experiment 1, in which subjects performed a psychophysical pitch discrimination task, and an emotion identification task under band-pass and unfiltered speech conditions. Results showed a significant correlation between pitch discrimination threshold and emotion identification accuracy for band-pass filtered speech, with amusics (defined here as those with a pitch discrimination threshold > 16 Hz performing worse than controls. This relationship with pitch discrimination was not seen in unfiltered speech conditions. Given the dissociation between band-pass filtered and unfiltered speech conditions, we inferred that amusics may be compensating for poorer pitch perception by using speech cues that are filtered out in this manipulation.

Effect of Deep Brain Stimulation on Speech Performance in Parkinson's Disease

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Sabine Skodda

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Deep brain stimulation (DBS has been reported to be successful in relieving the core motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD and motor fluctuations in the more advanced stages of the disease. However, data on the effects of DBS on speech performance are inconsistent. While there are some series of patients documenting that speech function was relatively unaffected by DBS of the nucleus subthalamicus (STN, other investigators reported on improvements of distinct parameters of oral control and voice. Though, these ameliorations of single speech modalities were not always accompanied by an improvement of overall speech intelligibility. On the other hand, there are also indications for an induction of dysarthria as an adverse effect of STN-DBS occurring at least in some patients with PD. Since a deterioration of speech function has more often been observed under high stimulation amplitudes, this phenomenon has been ascribed to a spread of current-to-adjacent pathways which might also be the reason for the sporadic observation of an onset of dysarthria under DBS of other basal ganglia targets (e.g., globus pallidus internus/GPi or thalamus/Vim. The aim of this paper is to review and evaluate reports in the literature on the effects of DBS on speech function in PD.

Linguistic Processing of Accented Speech Across the Lifespan

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Alejandrina eCristia

2012-11-01

Full Text Available In most of the world, people have regular exposure to multiple accents. Therefore, learning to quickly process accented speech is a prerequisite to successful communication. In this paper, we examine work on the perception of accented speech across the lifespan, from early infancy to late adulthood. Unfamiliar accents initially impair linguistic processing by infants, children, younger adults, and older adults, but listeners of all ages come to adapt to accented speech. Emergent research also goes beyond these perceptual abilities, by assessing links with production and the relative contributions of linguistic knowledge and general cognitive skills. We conclude by underlining points of convergence across ages, and the gaps left to face in future work.

Speech disorders - children

Science.gov (United States)

... disorder; Voice disorders; Vocal disorders; Disfluency; Communication disorder - speech disorder; Speech disorder - stuttering ... evaluation tools that can help identify and diagnose speech disorders: Denver Articulation Screening Examination Goldman-Fristoe Test of ...

Characteristics of motor speech phenotypes in multiple sclerosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Rusz, Jan; Benova, Barbora; Ruzickova, Hana; Novotny, Michal; Tykalova, Tereza; Hlavnicka, Jan; Uher, Tomas; Vaneckova, Manuela; Andelova, Michaela; Novotna, Klara; Kadrnozkova, Lucie; Horakova, Dana

2018-01-01

Motor speech disorders in multiple sclerosis (MS) are poorly understood and their quantitative, objective acoustic characterization remains limited. Additionally, little data regarding relationships between the severity of speech disorders and neurological involvement in MS, as well as the contribution of pyramidal and cerebellar functional systems on speech phenotypes, is available. Speech data were acquired from 141 MS patients with Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) ranging from 1 to 6.5 and 70 matched healthy controls. Objective acoustic speech assessment including subtests on phonation, oral diadochokinesis, articulation and prosody was performed. The prevalence of dysarthria in our MS cohort was 56% while the severity was generally mild and primarily consisted of a combination of spastic and ataxic components. Prosodic-articulatory disorder presenting with monopitch, articulatory decay, excess loudness variations and slow rate was the most salient. Speech disorders reflected subclinical motor impairment with 78% accuracy in discriminating between a subgroup of asymptomatic MS (EDSS oral diadochokinesis and the 9-Hole Peg Test (r = - 0.65, p oral diadochokinesis and excess loudness variations significantly separated pure pyramidal and mixed pyramidal-cerebellar MS subgroups. Automated speech analyses may provide valuable biomarkers of disease progression in MS as dysarthria represents common and early manifestation that reflects disease disability and underlying pyramidal-cerebellar pathophysiology. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[Voice and vibration sensations in the speech forming organs: clinical and theoretical aspects of rare symptoms specific for schizophrenia].

Science.gov (United States)

Vilela, W; Lolas, F; Wolpert, E

1978-01-01

When studying 750 psychiatric in-patients with psychoses of various diagnostic groups, the symptoms of voice sensations and vibration feelings could only be found among patients with paranoid schizophrenia. In addition, these symptoms were located exclusively in body areas that are involved in the peripheral motor production of voice and speech (areas of head, throat, thorax). In 11 of 15 such cases that could be identified, the sensations of voices and vibrations occurred simultaneously and in identical body parts; in the remaining 4 cases only voices without vibration sensations were reported. Therefore these symptoms can be considered as highly specific for schizophrenia. According to the terminology of Bleuler these two symptoms are because of their rareness to be taken as accessoric symptoms; according to the terminology of Kurt Schneider they have the value of first rank symptoms because of their highly diagnostic specifity for schizophrenia. The pathogenesis of these symptoms is on the one hand discussed under the perspective of language development and the changing function of language for behaviour control; on the other hand, the pathogenesis of these symptoms is discussed from the viewpoint of cybernetic, or neurophysiological-neuroanatomical foundation of speech production and speech control. Both models of explanation have in common that the ideational component of speech is noticed as acustic halluzinations and the motor proprioceptive part of speech is noticed as sensation of vibrations, both in a typically schiphrenic manner, i.e. dissociated and ego-alienated.

Non linear analyses of speech and prosody in Asperger's syndrome

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fusaroli, Riccardo; Bang, Dan; Weed, Ethan

It is widely acknowledged that people on the ASD spectrum behave atypically in the way they modulate aspects of speech and voice, including pitch, fluency, and voice quality. ASD speech has been described at times as “odd”, “mechanical”, or “monotone”. However, it has proven difficult to quantify...... the results in a supervised machine-learning process to classify speech production as either belonging to the control or the AS group as well as to assess the severity of the disorder (as measured by Autism Spectrum Quotient), based solely on acoustic features....

Temporal Context in Speech Processing and Attentional Stream Selection: A Behavioral and Neural perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Zion Golumbic, Elana M.; Poeppel, David; Schroeder, Charles E.

2012-01-01

The human capacity for processing speech is remarkable, especially given that information in speech unfolds over multiple time scales concurrently. Similarly notable is our ability to filter out of extraneous sounds and focus our attention on one conversation, epitomized by the ‘Cocktail Party’ effect. Yet, the neural mechanisms underlying on-line speech decoding and attentional stream selection are not well understood. We review findings from behavioral and neurophysiological investigations that underscore the importance of the temporal structure of speech for achieving these perceptual feats. We discuss the hypothesis that entrainment of ambient neuronal oscillations to speech’s temporal structure, across multiple time-scales, serves to facilitate its decoding and underlies the selection of an attended speech stream over other competing input. In this regard, speech decoding and attentional stream selection are examples of ‘active sensing’, emphasizing an interaction between proactive and predictive top-down modulation of neuronal dynamics and bottom-up sensory input. PMID:22285024

Sound frequency affects speech emotion perception: results from congenital amusia.

Science.gov (United States)

Lolli, Sydney L; Lewenstein, Ari D; Basurto, Julian; Winnik, Sean; Loui, Psyche

2015-01-01

Congenital amusics, or "tone-deaf" individuals, show difficulty in perceiving and producing small pitch differences. While amusia has marked effects on music perception, its impact on speech perception is less clear. Here we test the hypothesis that individual differences in pitch perception affect judgment of emotion in speech, by applying low-pass filters to spoken statements of emotional speech. A norming study was first conducted on Mechanical Turk to ensure that the intended emotions from the Macquarie Battery for Evaluation of Prosody were reliably identifiable by US English speakers. The most reliably identified emotional speech samples were used in Experiment 1, in which subjects performed a psychophysical pitch discrimination task, and an emotion identification task under low-pass and unfiltered speech conditions. Results showed a significant correlation between pitch-discrimination threshold and emotion identification accuracy for low-pass filtered speech, with amusics (defined here as those with a pitch discrimination threshold >16 Hz) performing worse than controls. This relationship with pitch discrimination was not seen in unfiltered speech conditions. Given the dissociation between low-pass filtered and unfiltered speech conditions, we inferred that amusics may be compensating for poorer pitch perception by using speech cues that are filtered out in this manipulation. To assess this potential compensation, Experiment 2 was conducted using high-pass filtered speech samples intended to isolate non-pitch cues. No significant correlation was found between pitch discrimination and emotion identification accuracy for high-pass filtered speech. Results from these experiments suggest an influence of low frequency information in identifying emotional content of speech.

Surgical improvement of speech disorder caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Saigusa, Hideto; Yamaguchi, Satoshi; Nakamura, Tsuyoshi; Komachi, Taro; Kadosono, Osamu; Ito, Hiroyuki; Saigusa, Makoto; Niimi, Seiji

2012-12-01

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive debilitating neurological disease. ALS disturbs the quality of life by affecting speech, swallowing and free mobility of the arms without affecting intellectual function. It is therefore of significance to improve intelligibility and quality of speech sounds, especially for ALS patients with slowly progressive courses. Currently, however, there is no effective or established approach to improve speech disorder caused by ALS. We investigated a surgical procedure to improve speech disorder for some patients with neuromuscular diseases with velopharyngeal closure incompetence. In this study, we performed the surgical procedure for two patients suffering from severe speech disorder caused by slowly progressing ALS. The patients suffered from speech disorder with hypernasality and imprecise and weak articulation during a 6-year course (patient 1) and a 3-year course (patient 2) of slowly progressing ALS. We narrowed bilateral lateral palatopharyngeal wall at velopharyngeal port, and performed this surgery under general anesthesia without muscle relaxant for the two patients. Postoperatively, intelligibility and quality of their speech sounds were greatly improved within one month without any speech therapy. The patients were also able to generate longer speech phrases after the surgery. Importantly, there was no serious complication during or after the surgery. In summary, we performed bilateral narrowing of lateral palatopharyngeal wall as a speech surgery for two patients suffering from severe speech disorder associated with ALS. With this technique, improved intelligibility and quality of speech can be maintained for longer duration for the patients with slowly progressing ALS.

Developmental apraxia of speech : deficits in phonetic planning and motor programming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijland, Lian

2003-01-01

The speech of children with developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) is highly unintelligible due to many nonsystematic sound substitutions and distortions. There is ongoing debate about the underlying deficit of the disorder. The ultimate goal of this thesis was to answer this question within the

Cognitive Spare Capacity and Speech Communication: A Narrative Overview

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Mary Rudner

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background noise can make speech communication tiring and cognitively taxing, especially for individuals with hearing impairment. It is now well established that better working memory capacity is associated with better ability to understand speech under adverse conditions as well as better ability to benefit from the advanced signal processing in modern hearing aids. Recent work has shown that although such processing cannot overcome hearing handicap, it can increase cognitive spare capacity, that is, the ability to engage in higher level processing of speech. This paper surveys recent work on cognitive spare capacity and suggests new avenues of investigation.

Speech Errors in Progressive Non-Fluent Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Ash, Sharon; McMillan, Corey; Gunawardena, Delani; Avants, Brian; Morgan, Brianna; Khan, Alea; Moore, Peachie; Gee, James; Grossman, Murray

2010-01-01

The nature and frequency of speech production errors in neurodegenerative disease have not previously been precisely quantified. In the present study, 16 patients with a progressive form of non-fluent aphasia (PNFA) were asked to tell a story from a wordless children's picture book. Errors in production were classified as either phonemic,…

Lip movements affect infants' audiovisual speech perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeung, H Henny; Werker, Janet F

2013-05-01

Speech is robustly audiovisual from early in infancy. Here we show that audiovisual speech perception in 4.5-month-old infants is influenced by sensorimotor information related to the lip movements they make while chewing or sucking. Experiment 1 consisted of a classic audiovisual matching procedure, in which two simultaneously displayed talking faces (visual [i] and [u]) were presented with a synchronous vowel sound (audio /i/ or /u/). Infants' looking patterns were selectively biased away from the audiovisual matching face when the infants were producing lip movements similar to those needed to produce the heard vowel. Infants' looking patterns returned to those of a baseline condition (no lip movements, looking longer at the audiovisual matching face) when they were producing lip movements that did not match the heard vowel. Experiment 2 confirmed that these sensorimotor effects interacted with the heard vowel, as looking patterns differed when infants produced these same lip movements while seeing and hearing a talking face producing an unrelated vowel (audio /a/). These findings suggest that the development of speech perception and speech production may be mutually informative.

The feasibility of miniaturizing the versatile portable speech prosthesis: A market survey of commercial products

Science.gov (United States)

Walklet, T.

1981-01-01

The feasibility of a miniature versatile portable speech prosthesis (VPSP) was analyzed and information on its potential users and on other similar devices was collected. The VPSP is a device that incorporates speech synthesis technology. The objective is to provide sufficient information to decide whether there is valuable technology to contribute to the miniaturization of the VPSP. The needs of potential users are identified, the development status of technologies similar or related to those used in the VPSP are evaluated. The VPSP, a computer based speech synthesis system fits on a wheelchair. The purpose was to produce a device that provides communication assistance in educational, vocational, and social situations to speech impaired individuals. It is expected that the VPSP can be a valuable aid for persons who are also motor impaired, which explains the placement of the system on a wheelchair.

The neural processing of foreign-accented speech and its relationship to listener bias

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Han-Gyol eYi

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Foreign-accented speech often presents a challenging listening condition. In addition to deviations from the target speech norms related to the inexperience of the nonnative speaker, listener characteristics may play a role in determining intelligibility levels. We have previously shown that an implicit visual bias for associating East Asian faces and foreignness predicts the listeners’ perceptual ability to process Korean-accented English audiovisual speech (Yi et al., 2013. Here, we examine the neural mechanism underlying the influence of listener bias to foreign faces on speech perception. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI study, native English speakers listened to native- and Korean-accented English sentences, with or without faces. The participants’ Asian-foreign association was measured using an implicit association test (IAT, conducted outside the scanner. We found that foreign-accented speech evoked greater activity in the bilateral primary auditory cortices and the inferior frontal gyri, potentially reflecting greater computational demand. Higher IAT scores, indicating greater bias, were associated with increased BOLD response to foreign-accented speech with faces in the primary auditory cortex, the early node for spectrotemporal analysis. We conclude the following: (1 foreign-accented speech perception places greater demand on the neural systems underlying speech perception; (2 face of the talker can exaggerate the perceived foreignness of foreign-accented speech; (3 implicit Asian-foreign association is associated with decreased neural efficiency in early spectrotemporal processing.

Dynamic Assessment of Phonological Awareness for Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Gillam, Sandra Laing; Ford, Mikenzi Bentley

2012-01-01

The current study was designed to examine the relationships between performance on a nonverbal phoneme deletion task administered in a dynamic assessment format with performance on measures of phoneme deletion, word-level reading, and speech sound production that required verbal responses for school-age children with speech sound disorders (SSDs).…

A magnetic resonance imaging study on the articulatory and acoustic speech parameters of Malay vowels.

Science.gov (United States)

Zourmand, Alireza; Mirhassani, Seyed Mostafa; Ting, Hua-Nong; Bux, Shaik Ismail; Ng, Kwan Hoong; Bilgen, Mehmet; Jalaludin, Mohd Amin

2014-07-25

The phonetic properties of six Malay vowels are investigated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to visualize the vocal tract in order to obtain dynamic articulatory parameters during speech production. To resolve image blurring due to the tongue movement during the scanning process, a method based on active contour extraction is used to track tongue contours. The proposed method efficiently tracks tongue contours despite the partial blurring of MRI images. Consequently, the articulatory parameters that are effectively measured as tongue movement is observed, and the specific shape of the tongue and its position for all six uttered Malay vowels are determined.Speech rehabilitation procedure demands some kind of visual perceivable prototype of speech articulation. To investigate the validity of the measured articulatory parameters based on acoustic theory of speech production, an acoustic analysis based on the uttered vowels by subjects has been performed. As the acoustic speech and articulatory parameters of uttered speech were examined, a correlation between formant frequencies and articulatory parameters was observed. The experiments reported a positive correlation between the constriction location of the tongue body and the first formant frequency, as well as a negative correlation between the constriction location of the tongue tip and the second formant frequency. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is an effective tool for the dynamic study of speech production.

SPEECH ACT OF ILTIFAT AND ITS INDONESIAN TRANSLATION PROBLEMS

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Zaka Al Farisi

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract: Iltifat (shifting speech act is distinctive and considered unique style of Arabic. It has potential errors when it is translated into Indonesian. Therefore, translation of iltifat speech act into another language can be an important issue. The objective of the study is to know translation procedures/techniques and ideology required in dealing with iltifat speech act. This research is directed at translation as a cognitive product of a translator. The data used in the present study were the corpus of Koranic verses that contain iltifat speech act along with their translation. Data analysis typically used descriptive-evaluative method with content analysis model. The data source of this research consisted of the Koran and its translation. The purposive sampling technique was employed, with the sample of the iltifat speech act contained in the Koran. The results showed that more than 60% of iltifat speech act were translated by using literal procedure. The significant number of literal translation of the verses asserts that the Ministry of Religious Affairs tended to use literal method of translation. In other words, the Koran translation made by the Ministry of Religious Affairs tended to be oriented to the source language in dealing with iltifat speech act. The number of the literal procedure used shows a tendency of foreignization ideology. Transitional pronouns contained in the iltifat speech act can be clearly translated when thick translations were used in the form of description in parentheses. In this case, explanation can be a choice in translating iltifat speech act.

Marital conflict and adjustment: speech nonfluencies in intimate disclosure.

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Paul, E L; White, K M; Speisman, J C; Costos, D

1988-06-01

Speech nonfluency in response to questions about the marital relationship was used to assess anxiety. Subjects were 31 husbands and 31 wives, all white, college educated, from middle- to lower-middle-class families, and ranging from 20 to 30 years of age. Three types of nonfluencies were coded: filled pauses, unfilled pauses, and repetitions. Speech-disturbance ratios were computed by dividing the sum of speech nonfluencies by the total words spoken. The results support the notion that some issues within marriage are more sensitive and/or problematic than others, and that, in an interview situation, gender interacts with question content in the production of nonfluencies.

Neural Specialization for Speech in the First Months of Life

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Shultz, Sarah; Vouloumanos, Athena; Bennett, Randi H.; Pelphrey, Kevin

2014-01-01

How does the brain's response to speech change over the first months of life? Although behavioral findings indicate that neonates' listening biases are sharpened over the first months of life, with a species-specific preference for speech emerging by 3 months, the neural substrates underlying this developmental change are unknown. We…

Educators’ perspectives on facilitating computer-assisted speech intervention in early childhood settings

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Crowe, K.; Cumming, T.; McCormack, J.; McLeod, S.; Baker, E.; Wren, Y.; Roulstone, S.; Masso, S.

2017-01-01

Early childhood educators are frequently called on to support preschool-aged children with speech sound disorders and to engage these children in activities that target their speech production. This study explored factors that acted as facilitators and/or barriers to the provision of computer-based support for children with speech sound disorders (SSD) in early childhood centres. Participants were 23 early childhood educators at 13 centres who participated in the Sound Start Study, a randomiz...

Listeners Experience Linguistic Masking Release in Noise-Vocoded Speech-in-Speech Recognition

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Viswanathan, Navin; Kokkinakis, Kostas; Williams, Brittany T.

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether listeners with normal hearing perceiving noise-vocoded speech-in-speech demonstrate better intelligibility of target speech when the background speech was mismatched in language (linguistic release from masking [LRM]) and/or location (spatial release from masking [SRM]) relative to the…

Audiovisual Speech Perception in Infancy: The Influence of Vowel Identity and Infants' Productive Abilities on Sensitivity to (Mis)Matches between Auditory and Visual Speech Cues

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Altvater-Mackensen, Nicole; Mani, Nivedita; Grossmann, Tobias

2016-01-01

Recent studies suggest that infants' audiovisual speech perception is influenced by articulatory experience (Mugitani et al., 2008; Yeung & Werker, 2013). The current study extends these findings by testing if infants' emerging ability to produce native sounds in babbling impacts their audiovisual speech perception. We tested 44 6-month-olds…

Speech Perception and Short-Term Memory Deficits in Persistent Developmental Speech Disorder

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Kenney, Mary Kay; Barac-Cikoja, Dragana; Finnegan, Kimberly; Jeffries, Neal; Ludlow, Christy L.

2006-01-01

Children with developmental speech disorders may have additional deficits in speech perception and/or short-term memory. To determine whether these are only transient developmental delays that can accompany the disorder in childhood or persist as part of the speech disorder, adults with a persistent familial speech disorder were tested on speech…

Effect of subthalamic stimulation on voice and speech in Parkinson´s disease: for the better or worse ?

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Sabine eSkodda

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, although highly effective for the treatment of motor impairment in Parkinson´s disease, can induce speech deterioration in a subgroup of patients. The aim of the current study was to survey 1 if there are distinctive stimulation effects on the different parameters of voice and speech and 2 if there is a special pattern of preexisting speech abnormalities indicating a risk for further worsening under stimulation. Methods: N = 38 patients with Parkinson´s disease had to perform a speech test without medication with stimulation ON and OFF. Speech samples were analysed: 1 according to a four-dimensional perceptual speech score and 2 by acoustic analysis to obtain quantifiable measures of distinctive speech parameters.Results: Quality of voice was ameliorated with stimulation ON, and there were trends to increased loudness and better pitch variability. N = 8 patients featured a deterioration of speech with stimulation ON, caused by worsening of articulation or/and fluency. These patients had more severe overall speech impairment with characteristic features of articulatory slurring and articulatory acceleration already under StimOFF condition.Conclusion: The influence of subthalamic stimulation on Parkinsonian speech differs considerably between individual patients, however, there is a trend to amelioration of voice quality and prosody. Patients with stimulation-associated speech deterioration featured higher overall speech impairment and showed a distinctive pattern of articulatory abnormalities at baseline. Further investigations to confirm these preliminary findings are necessary to allow neurologists to pre-surgically estimate the individual risk of deterioration of speech under stimulation.

An introduction to silent speech interfaces

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Freitas, João; Dias, Miguel Sales; Silva, Samuel

2017-01-01

This book provides a broad and comprehensive overview of the existing technical approaches in the area of silent speech interfaces (SSI), both in theory and in application. Each technique is described in the context of the human speech production process, allowing the reader to clearly understand the principles behind SSI in general and across different methods. Additionally, the book explores the combined use of different data sources, collected from various sensors, in order to tackle the limitations of simpler SSI approaches, addressing current challenges of this field. The book also provides information about existing SSI applications, resources and a simple tutorial on how to build an SSI.

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) based approach for speech therapy of aphasic patients: A review

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Jamal, Norezmi; Shanta, Shahnoor; Mahmud, Farhanahani; Sha'abani, MNAH

2017-09-01

This paper reviews the state-of-the-art an automatic speech recognition (ASR) based approach for speech therapy of aphasic patients. Aphasia is a condition in which the affected person suffers from speech and language disorder resulting from a stroke or brain injury. Since there is a growing body of evidence indicating the possibility of improving the symptoms at an early stage, ASR based solutions are increasingly being researched for speech and language therapy. ASR is a technology that transfers human speech into transcript text by matching with the system's library. This is particularly useful in speech rehabilitation therapies as they provide accurate, real-time evaluation for speech input from an individual with speech disorder. ASR based approaches for speech therapy recognize the speech input from the aphasic patient and provide real-time feedback response to their mistakes. However, the accuracy of ASR is dependent on many factors such as, phoneme recognition, speech continuity, speaker and environmental differences as well as our depth of knowledge on human language understanding. Hence, the review examines recent development of ASR technologies and its performance for individuals with speech and language disorders.

Improvement of intelligibility of ideal binary-masked noisy speech by adding background noise.

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Cao, Shuyang; Li, Liang; Wu, Xihong

2011-04-01

When a target-speech/masker mixture is processed with the signal-separation technique, ideal binary mask (IBM), intelligibility of target speech is remarkably improved in both normal-hearing listeners and hearing-impaired listeners. Intelligibility of speech can also be improved by filling in speech gaps with un-modulated broadband noise. This study investigated whether intelligibility of target speech in the IBM-treated target-speech/masker mixture can be further improved by adding a broadband-noise background. The results of this study show that following the IBM manipulation, which remarkably released target speech from speech-spectrum noise, foreign-speech, or native-speech masking (experiment 1), adding a broadband-noise background with the signal-to-noise ratio no less than 4 dB significantly improved intelligibility of target speech when the masker was either noise (experiment 2) or speech (experiment 3). The results suggest that since adding the noise background shallows the areas of silence in the time-frequency domain of the IBM-treated target-speech/masker mixture, the abruption of transient changes in the mixture is smoothed and the perceived continuity of target-speech components becomes enhanced, leading to improved target-speech intelligibility. The findings are useful for advancing computational auditory scene analysis, hearing-aid/cochlear-implant designs, and understanding of speech perception under "cocktail-party" conditions.