Grace Yeni-Komshian | University of Maryland, College Park (original) (raw)
Papers by Grace Yeni-Komshian
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 1994
This study makes use of a listening for mispronunciations (LM) task utilizing English sentences p... more This study makes use of a listening for mispronunciations (LM) task utilizing English sentences produced by native and nonnative speakers. The test sentences included high (H) and low (L) predictability target words containing mispronunciations (MPs) that were constructed by changing the initial segmental phoneme in the target words along the dimensions of voicing, place, and manner. Sentences not containing MPs were judged by native listeners for overall accent and the speakers were classified as native, having a mild-to-moderate accent or having a heavy accent. Another group of native listeners were presented the LM task. The results showed that the listeners were faster and more accurate in detecting MPs produced by the native than non-native speakers. They were more accurate, but not faster, in detecting MPs produced by non-native speakers with milder accents, as compared to heavier accents. The results also indicate that the listeners were faster and/or more accurate n detecting MP in the H sentences, and this was more pronounced with the sentences produced by the non-native speakers. The findings suggest that listeners are less accurate in detecting mispronunciations produced by non-native speakers and that the accuracy of their responses decreases as the degree of accent increases.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Nov 1, 1975
A closed two-choice Bayes maximum likelihood test based on these features resulted in correct ide... more A closed two-choice Bayes maximum likelihood test based on these features resulted in correct identification of 100% of the normal speakers and 95% of the pathologic speakers. Respective discrimination in an open two-choice test, where the speakers were divided into reference and test groups, was 72% and 91%. Results were tabulated for different pathologies, analysis conditions and data base sizes. These findings indicate the feasibility of using statistical methods to automatically discriminate between normal and pathologic voices. [This research supported by the National Institutes of Health under Grant No. NS01877. ] 9:40 BBB5. Vibration of the vocal cords in some pathological conditions.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Jul 1, 1969
Canadian journal of psychology, Mar 1, 1983
zu unterscheiden, stellt eine grundlegende Fähigkeit der auditiven Sprachverarbeitung dar (Yeni-K... more zu unterscheiden, stellt eine grundlegende Fähigkeit der auditiven Sprachverarbeitung dar (Yeni-Komshian & Lafontaine, 1983). Diese Diskriminierungsfähigkeit kann bei hirnorganisch bedingten Aphasien beeinträchtigt sein, wobei häufig eine signifikant bessere Diskriminationsleistung für Stimmhaftigkeit als für Artikulationsort bei behavioral erhobenen Daten beobachtet wird (u.a. Blumstein et al. 1977). Die auditive Diskriminationsfähigkeit kann ebenfalls mit Hilfe der Mismatch Negativity (MMN), einem Ereigniskorrelierten Potential untersucht werden (Näätänen et al. 1978). Eine MMN wird ausgelöst, wenn ein akustisch abweichender Stimulus ("Deviant") in einer Reihe von identischen Stimuli ("Standards") präsentiert wird. Die MMN wird als unabhängig von Instruktionen sowie von Willen und Aufmerksamkeit des Probanden betrachtet (Näätänen et al. 1978). Ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Fähigkeit auditiv präsentierte CV-Silben behavioral zu diskriminieren und dem Auftreten einer MMN konnte bislang für sprachgesunde Probanden gezeigt werden (Kraus et al. 1995, Tremblay et al. 1997). Für aphasische Patienten wurde ein solcher Zusammenhang lediglich für Stimmhaftigkeitskontraste nachgewiesen (Csépe et al. 2001). Ziel dieser empirischen Einzelfallstudie ist die Untersuchung der Frage, ob die MMN ein Korrelat der auditiven Diskriminationsfähigkeit bei einem aphasischen Probanden darstellt. Hiermit soll ein Beitrag zur Diskussion der Dissoziierbarkeit behavioraler Diskriminationsleistungen erbracht werden.
Journal of Phonetics, 1977
Elsevier eBooks, 1980
Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on speech production in the child. The use of language is ... more Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on speech production in the child. The use of language is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the human species. One part of human language behavior, which is to a considerable extent autonomous, is the pronunciation; the speech sounds themselves as articulated and perceived by human beings in their use of language. The phonological production research, concerned with the structure of whole phonological systems, falls into three fairly distinct phases, related to successive dominant phonological theories—structuralist, generative, and post-generative. Learnability by children is the basic determinant of phonological structure. Children do not have a system of their own, and their phonology can be analyzed usefully only in relation to the adult system. They have, at an early age, full perceptual mastery of the adult phonological oppositions and have lexical representations equivalent to the adult surface forms. Their pronunciation falls short of the adult's because of lack of mastery of the necessary articulatory processes. Their phonological system includes a set of ordered realization rules that apply to the underlying representations to yield the pronunciation.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Apr 1, 1991
The present study examined tongue shape during oral and pharyngeal consonants. A female speaker o... more The present study examined tongue shape during oral and pharyngeal consonants. A female speaker of Lebanese Arabic produced oral and pharyngealized versions of several consonants in the carrier phrase “Kataba CV al yom,” which means “He wrote CV today.” Ultrasound scans of the tongue were made in two planes, midsagittal and anterior coronal, during repetitions of the utterances. The [h] had the most interesting results. Pharyngealized [h] used a higher posterior tongue than oral [h]. In addition, a midsagittal humping was seen in the pharyngeal [h]. The oral [h] had a midsagittal groove as expected. Similar effects seen in other CV combinations will be discussed.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1973
The right ear advantage (REA) observed in dichotic tests was further investigated to examine the ... more The right ear advantage (REA) observed in dichotic tests was further investigated to examine the effects of memory load on the task. Memory load was operationally defined as the duration of time wherein subjects were asked to retain the stimuli, with no rehearsal, prior to recall. The delay periods interpolated between dichotic stimulation and recall were: no delay. 5, 10, and 15 set delay. There was a significant REA in the no delay condition. The conditions with interpolated delay periods showed a substantial loss in overall accuracy, and at 15 set delay showed a strong REA. The results offer suggestive evidence for a lateralized memory mechanism for storing speech sounds.
Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, Oct 1, 1996
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Oct 1, 1992
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 1995
Internal open juncture refers to a set of two or more phrases which contain the same sequence of ... more Internal open juncture refers to a set of two or more phrases which contain the same sequence of phonemes, but differ in their prosody, meaning, and orthography. In this study, ten adult native speakers of Mexican Spanish read three sets of phrases. Each set of phrases contained two words and three syllables with the sequence 〈la〉♯〈sa〉, 〈las〉♯〈a〉, and 〈las〉♯〈sa〉, as in the phrases la sabes ‘‘you know it,’’ las aves ‘‘the birds,’’ and las sabes ‘‘you know them.’’ The phrases were read both in isolation and embedded in sentences (initial, medial, and final positions). Acoustic phonetic measurements were made of: (1) the duration of pauses (when present) between the first orthographic word and the second, (2) the duration of 〈s〉 and 〈ss〉, and (3) the average duration, fundamental frequency, and amplitude of the first syllable versus the second. Preliminary results suggest that internal open juncture in Mexican Spanish is more salient in phrases read in isolation than embedded in sentence contexts and that pause duration is the most consistent indicator of internal open juncture.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1984
A study was conducted to determine whether five-year old children and adults modify the timing of... more A study was conducted to determine whether five-year old children and adults modify the timing of vowel and consonant production after a listener indicates that their word production is unclear. Subjects were asked to repeat words contrasting in initial or final consonant voicing (back, pack, cab, and cap), and to respond either to specific requests for revision focused on initial or final sound segments, or to a general revision request. Productions of target words were also obtained before any revision requests were posed. Results, based on oscillographic measurements, revealed that both groups of subjects: (a) preserved original work duration in all revision conditions, but altered temporal aspects of component phonemes; (b) generally shortened vowel duration but lengthened the duration of final consonant closure; and (c) maintained the same VOT distributions. Results indicate that young children are in fact responsive to adult requests for clarification, even at the phonetic lev...
Brain and Language, 1976
A patient with a rather pure word deafness showed extreme suppression of right ear signals under ... more A patient with a rather pure word deafness showed extreme suppression of right ear signals under dichotic conditions, suggesting that speech signals were being processed in the right hemisphere. Systematic errors in the identification and discrimination of natural and synthetic stop consonants further indicated that speech sounds were not being processed in the normal manner. Auditory comprehension improved considerably however, when the range of speech stimuli was limited by contextual constraints. Possible implications for the mechanism of word deafness are discussed. At some point in the processing of auditory speech signals, the operations performed by the two temporal lobes must begin to diverge. Evidence from dichotic listening experiments suggests that hemispheric specialization may begin with the extraction of phonetic information, and that this process is most likely lateralized on the left (Studdert-Kennedy & Shankweiler, 1970; Studdert-Kennedy, Shankweiler & Pisoni, 1973). We would therefore expect to find deficits of phonetic perception with injuries of the left temporal lobe, but in most of these cases any disturbances at the phonetic level are compounded by deficits at other levels of language function. The patient with "pure word deafness", or "auditory verbal agnosia," who is impaired only in the perception of speech sounds, is rare.' A dozen or so such cases have been reported in the literature, but the nature of the perceptual disturbance is not yet well understood. The disorder typically begins as (or progresses into) a Wernicke's aphasia, with difficulties in expressing as well as understanding both written and spoken language. As expressive functions recover, the We gratefully acknowledge the use of synthetic speech stimuli originally recorded at the Haskins Laboratories. We also thank Drs. Myrna Schwartz and Bruce Hamill for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1984
Using LPC analysis, an investigation of anticipatory vowel coarticulation was made of 100-ms segm... more Using LPC analysis, an investigation of anticipatory vowel coarticulation was made of 100-ms segments of Arabic voiceless fricatives (/h, x, ∫, and s/) spoken in isolation and in three prevocalic contexts (/ɑ, i, and u/) by three native speakers. The degree of coarticulation for each prevocalic fricative segment was determined by assessing both the amount of spectral change from the isolated production, and the relationship of prevocalic fricative peaks to vowel formats. Strong coarticulation was observed for all speakers in all three vowel contexts for the pharyngeal fricative /h/, while minimal coarticulatory effects were present for the dental fricative /s/. Vowel specific trends were evident for the palatal /∫/ and velar /x/ fricatives: strong coarticulation was seen for /xi/, /xu/, /∫i/ and/ ∫ɑ/ and not the remaining utterances. Individual differences were evident with respect to degree of coarticulation. The three speakers behaved similarly for only three of the 12 fricative-v...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1973
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022
This investigation examined age-related differences in auditory-visual (AV) integration as reflec... more This investigation examined age-related differences in auditory-visual (AV) integration as reflected on perceptual judgments of temporally misaligned AV English sentences spoken by native English and native Spanish talkers. In the detection task, it was expected that slowed auditory temporal processing of older participants, relative to younger participants, would be manifest as a shift in the range over which participants would judge asynchronous stimuli as synchronous (referred to as the “AV simultaneity window”). The older participants were also expected to exhibit greater declines in speech recognition for asynchronous AV stimuli than younger participants. Talker accent was hypothesized to influence listener performance, with older listeners exhibiting a greater narrowing of the AV simultaneity window and much poorer recognition of asynchronous AV foreign-accented speech compared to younger listeners. Participant groups included younger and older participants with normal hearing...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2021
Older adults often report difficulty understanding speech produced by non-native talkers. These l... more Older adults often report difficulty understanding speech produced by non-native talkers. These listeners can achieve rapid adaptation to non-native speech, but few studies have assessed auditory training protocols to improve non-native speech recognition in older adults. In this study, a word-level training paradigm was employed, targeting improved recognition of Spanish-accented English. Younger and older adults were trained on Spanish-accented monosyllabic word pairs containing four phonemic contrasts (initial s/z, initial f/v, final b/p, final d/t) produced in English by multiple male native Spanish speakers. Listeners completed pre-testing, training, and post-testing over two sessions. Statistical methods, such as growth curve modeling and generalized additive mixed models, were employed to describe the patterns of rapid adaptation and how they varied between listener groups and phonemic contrasts. While the training protocol failed to elicit post-test improvements for recognit...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1970
MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Amer. 41, 1585 (1967)] in the cat. Since, in the cat, the... more MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Amer. 41, 1585 (1967)] in the cat. Since, in the cat, the frequency region of greatest inhibition was also the region of greatest auditory sensitivity (MAF), were were prompted to compare audibility curves for the two species [Miller and Murray, J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 61, 227 (1966) and Miller, Watson, and Coyell, Acta Otolaryngol., Suppl. 176 (1963)], as well as their /Xu functions. The variation in magnitude of zXu suggests that the audibility curve for the guinea pig may actually be more sensitive in the 5-10 kHz region than previously thought. Our data at present suggest the hypothesis that the audibility curve for the guinea pig is similar in form to that for the cat but less sensitive. The effects of COCB stimulation on the tuning
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1967
MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA graphic x-ray techniques which produced a composite image... more MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA graphic x-ray techniques which produced a composite image of the vocal folds during their entire complex cycling. The experiment reported in this paper is a replication of the former studies, but utilizes STROL, a stroboscopic laminagraphy device which allows examination of the crosssectional area of the folds at 36 ø phase-shift intervals throughout the vibratory cycle. In addition, animation of the phase-shift pictures allows observation of the apparent motion of the vocal cords in cross section. In this study, subjects phonated at a constant intensity at three separate fundamental frequencies. The results support Hollien's earlier conclusions, in that, as fundamental frequency increased, the cross-sectional area and mean thickness of the folds decreased. SI5. Some Observations of Laryngeal Phenomena Derived from High-Speed Motion Pictures. HEr, R¾ I. SoRon, SHELDOl• B. MICHAELS (nonmember), AND PHILIP LIEdErman, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Bedford,
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 1994
This study makes use of a listening for mispronunciations (LM) task utilizing English sentences p... more This study makes use of a listening for mispronunciations (LM) task utilizing English sentences produced by native and nonnative speakers. The test sentences included high (H) and low (L) predictability target words containing mispronunciations (MPs) that were constructed by changing the initial segmental phoneme in the target words along the dimensions of voicing, place, and manner. Sentences not containing MPs were judged by native listeners for overall accent and the speakers were classified as native, having a mild-to-moderate accent or having a heavy accent. Another group of native listeners were presented the LM task. The results showed that the listeners were faster and more accurate in detecting MPs produced by the native than non-native speakers. They were more accurate, but not faster, in detecting MPs produced by non-native speakers with milder accents, as compared to heavier accents. The results also indicate that the listeners were faster and/or more accurate n detecting MP in the H sentences, and this was more pronounced with the sentences produced by the non-native speakers. The findings suggest that listeners are less accurate in detecting mispronunciations produced by non-native speakers and that the accuracy of their responses decreases as the degree of accent increases.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Nov 1, 1975
A closed two-choice Bayes maximum likelihood test based on these features resulted in correct ide... more A closed two-choice Bayes maximum likelihood test based on these features resulted in correct identification of 100% of the normal speakers and 95% of the pathologic speakers. Respective discrimination in an open two-choice test, where the speakers were divided into reference and test groups, was 72% and 91%. Results were tabulated for different pathologies, analysis conditions and data base sizes. These findings indicate the feasibility of using statistical methods to automatically discriminate between normal and pathologic voices. [This research supported by the National Institutes of Health under Grant No. NS01877. ] 9:40 BBB5. Vibration of the vocal cords in some pathological conditions.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Jul 1, 1969
Canadian journal of psychology, Mar 1, 1983
zu unterscheiden, stellt eine grundlegende Fähigkeit der auditiven Sprachverarbeitung dar (Yeni-K... more zu unterscheiden, stellt eine grundlegende Fähigkeit der auditiven Sprachverarbeitung dar (Yeni-Komshian & Lafontaine, 1983). Diese Diskriminierungsfähigkeit kann bei hirnorganisch bedingten Aphasien beeinträchtigt sein, wobei häufig eine signifikant bessere Diskriminationsleistung für Stimmhaftigkeit als für Artikulationsort bei behavioral erhobenen Daten beobachtet wird (u.a. Blumstein et al. 1977). Die auditive Diskriminationsfähigkeit kann ebenfalls mit Hilfe der Mismatch Negativity (MMN), einem Ereigniskorrelierten Potential untersucht werden (Näätänen et al. 1978). Eine MMN wird ausgelöst, wenn ein akustisch abweichender Stimulus ("Deviant") in einer Reihe von identischen Stimuli ("Standards") präsentiert wird. Die MMN wird als unabhängig von Instruktionen sowie von Willen und Aufmerksamkeit des Probanden betrachtet (Näätänen et al. 1978). Ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Fähigkeit auditiv präsentierte CV-Silben behavioral zu diskriminieren und dem Auftreten einer MMN konnte bislang für sprachgesunde Probanden gezeigt werden (Kraus et al. 1995, Tremblay et al. 1997). Für aphasische Patienten wurde ein solcher Zusammenhang lediglich für Stimmhaftigkeitskontraste nachgewiesen (Csépe et al. 2001). Ziel dieser empirischen Einzelfallstudie ist die Untersuchung der Frage, ob die MMN ein Korrelat der auditiven Diskriminationsfähigkeit bei einem aphasischen Probanden darstellt. Hiermit soll ein Beitrag zur Diskussion der Dissoziierbarkeit behavioraler Diskriminationsleistungen erbracht werden.
Journal of Phonetics, 1977
Elsevier eBooks, 1980
Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on speech production in the child. The use of language is ... more Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on speech production in the child. The use of language is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the human species. One part of human language behavior, which is to a considerable extent autonomous, is the pronunciation; the speech sounds themselves as articulated and perceived by human beings in their use of language. The phonological production research, concerned with the structure of whole phonological systems, falls into three fairly distinct phases, related to successive dominant phonological theories—structuralist, generative, and post-generative. Learnability by children is the basic determinant of phonological structure. Children do not have a system of their own, and their phonology can be analyzed usefully only in relation to the adult system. They have, at an early age, full perceptual mastery of the adult phonological oppositions and have lexical representations equivalent to the adult surface forms. Their pronunciation falls short of the adult's because of lack of mastery of the necessary articulatory processes. Their phonological system includes a set of ordered realization rules that apply to the underlying representations to yield the pronunciation.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Apr 1, 1991
The present study examined tongue shape during oral and pharyngeal consonants. A female speaker o... more The present study examined tongue shape during oral and pharyngeal consonants. A female speaker of Lebanese Arabic produced oral and pharyngealized versions of several consonants in the carrier phrase “Kataba CV al yom,” which means “He wrote CV today.” Ultrasound scans of the tongue were made in two planes, midsagittal and anterior coronal, during repetitions of the utterances. The [h] had the most interesting results. Pharyngealized [h] used a higher posterior tongue than oral [h]. In addition, a midsagittal humping was seen in the pharyngeal [h]. The oral [h] had a midsagittal groove as expected. Similar effects seen in other CV combinations will be discussed.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1973
The right ear advantage (REA) observed in dichotic tests was further investigated to examine the ... more The right ear advantage (REA) observed in dichotic tests was further investigated to examine the effects of memory load on the task. Memory load was operationally defined as the duration of time wherein subjects were asked to retain the stimuli, with no rehearsal, prior to recall. The delay periods interpolated between dichotic stimulation and recall were: no delay. 5, 10, and 15 set delay. There was a significant REA in the no delay condition. The conditions with interpolated delay periods showed a substantial loss in overall accuracy, and at 15 set delay showed a strong REA. The results offer suggestive evidence for a lateralized memory mechanism for storing speech sounds.
Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, Oct 1, 1996
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Oct 1, 1992
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, May 1, 1995
Internal open juncture refers to a set of two or more phrases which contain the same sequence of ... more Internal open juncture refers to a set of two or more phrases which contain the same sequence of phonemes, but differ in their prosody, meaning, and orthography. In this study, ten adult native speakers of Mexican Spanish read three sets of phrases. Each set of phrases contained two words and three syllables with the sequence 〈la〉♯〈sa〉, 〈las〉♯〈a〉, and 〈las〉♯〈sa〉, as in the phrases la sabes ‘‘you know it,’’ las aves ‘‘the birds,’’ and las sabes ‘‘you know them.’’ The phrases were read both in isolation and embedded in sentences (initial, medial, and final positions). Acoustic phonetic measurements were made of: (1) the duration of pauses (when present) between the first orthographic word and the second, (2) the duration of 〈s〉 and 〈ss〉, and (3) the average duration, fundamental frequency, and amplitude of the first syllable versus the second. Preliminary results suggest that internal open juncture in Mexican Spanish is more salient in phrases read in isolation than embedded in sentence contexts and that pause duration is the most consistent indicator of internal open juncture.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1984
A study was conducted to determine whether five-year old children and adults modify the timing of... more A study was conducted to determine whether five-year old children and adults modify the timing of vowel and consonant production after a listener indicates that their word production is unclear. Subjects were asked to repeat words contrasting in initial or final consonant voicing (back, pack, cab, and cap), and to respond either to specific requests for revision focused on initial or final sound segments, or to a general revision request. Productions of target words were also obtained before any revision requests were posed. Results, based on oscillographic measurements, revealed that both groups of subjects: (a) preserved original work duration in all revision conditions, but altered temporal aspects of component phonemes; (b) generally shortened vowel duration but lengthened the duration of final consonant closure; and (c) maintained the same VOT distributions. Results indicate that young children are in fact responsive to adult requests for clarification, even at the phonetic lev...
Brain and Language, 1976
A patient with a rather pure word deafness showed extreme suppression of right ear signals under ... more A patient with a rather pure word deafness showed extreme suppression of right ear signals under dichotic conditions, suggesting that speech signals were being processed in the right hemisphere. Systematic errors in the identification and discrimination of natural and synthetic stop consonants further indicated that speech sounds were not being processed in the normal manner. Auditory comprehension improved considerably however, when the range of speech stimuli was limited by contextual constraints. Possible implications for the mechanism of word deafness are discussed. At some point in the processing of auditory speech signals, the operations performed by the two temporal lobes must begin to diverge. Evidence from dichotic listening experiments suggests that hemispheric specialization may begin with the extraction of phonetic information, and that this process is most likely lateralized on the left (Studdert-Kennedy & Shankweiler, 1970; Studdert-Kennedy, Shankweiler & Pisoni, 1973). We would therefore expect to find deficits of phonetic perception with injuries of the left temporal lobe, but in most of these cases any disturbances at the phonetic level are compounded by deficits at other levels of language function. The patient with "pure word deafness", or "auditory verbal agnosia," who is impaired only in the perception of speech sounds, is rare.' A dozen or so such cases have been reported in the literature, but the nature of the perceptual disturbance is not yet well understood. The disorder typically begins as (or progresses into) a Wernicke's aphasia, with difficulties in expressing as well as understanding both written and spoken language. As expressive functions recover, the We gratefully acknowledge the use of synthetic speech stimuli originally recorded at the Haskins Laboratories. We also thank Drs. Myrna Schwartz and Bruce Hamill for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1984
Using LPC analysis, an investigation of anticipatory vowel coarticulation was made of 100-ms segm... more Using LPC analysis, an investigation of anticipatory vowel coarticulation was made of 100-ms segments of Arabic voiceless fricatives (/h, x, ∫, and s/) spoken in isolation and in three prevocalic contexts (/ɑ, i, and u/) by three native speakers. The degree of coarticulation for each prevocalic fricative segment was determined by assessing both the amount of spectral change from the isolated production, and the relationship of prevocalic fricative peaks to vowel formats. Strong coarticulation was observed for all speakers in all three vowel contexts for the pharyngeal fricative /h/, while minimal coarticulatory effects were present for the dental fricative /s/. Vowel specific trends were evident for the palatal /∫/ and velar /x/ fricatives: strong coarticulation was seen for /xi/, /xu/, /∫i/ and/ ∫ɑ/ and not the remaining utterances. Individual differences were evident with respect to degree of coarticulation. The three speakers behaved similarly for only three of the 12 fricative-v...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1973
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022
This investigation examined age-related differences in auditory-visual (AV) integration as reflec... more This investigation examined age-related differences in auditory-visual (AV) integration as reflected on perceptual judgments of temporally misaligned AV English sentences spoken by native English and native Spanish talkers. In the detection task, it was expected that slowed auditory temporal processing of older participants, relative to younger participants, would be manifest as a shift in the range over which participants would judge asynchronous stimuli as synchronous (referred to as the “AV simultaneity window”). The older participants were also expected to exhibit greater declines in speech recognition for asynchronous AV stimuli than younger participants. Talker accent was hypothesized to influence listener performance, with older listeners exhibiting a greater narrowing of the AV simultaneity window and much poorer recognition of asynchronous AV foreign-accented speech compared to younger listeners. Participant groups included younger and older participants with normal hearing...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2021
Older adults often report difficulty understanding speech produced by non-native talkers. These l... more Older adults often report difficulty understanding speech produced by non-native talkers. These listeners can achieve rapid adaptation to non-native speech, but few studies have assessed auditory training protocols to improve non-native speech recognition in older adults. In this study, a word-level training paradigm was employed, targeting improved recognition of Spanish-accented English. Younger and older adults were trained on Spanish-accented monosyllabic word pairs containing four phonemic contrasts (initial s/z, initial f/v, final b/p, final d/t) produced in English by multiple male native Spanish speakers. Listeners completed pre-testing, training, and post-testing over two sessions. Statistical methods, such as growth curve modeling and generalized additive mixed models, were employed to describe the patterns of rapid adaptation and how they varied between listener groups and phonemic contrasts. While the training protocol failed to elicit post-test improvements for recognit...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1970
MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Amer. 41, 1585 (1967)] in the cat. Since, in the cat, the... more MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Amer. 41, 1585 (1967)] in the cat. Since, in the cat, the frequency region of greatest inhibition was also the region of greatest auditory sensitivity (MAF), were were prompted to compare audibility curves for the two species [Miller and Murray, J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 61, 227 (1966) and Miller, Watson, and Coyell, Acta Otolaryngol., Suppl. 176 (1963)], as well as their /Xu functions. The variation in magnitude of zXu suggests that the audibility curve for the guinea pig may actually be more sensitive in the 5-10 kHz region than previously thought. Our data at present suggest the hypothesis that the audibility curve for the guinea pig is similar in form to that for the cat but less sensitive. The effects of COCB stimulation on the tuning
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1967
MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA graphic x-ray techniques which produced a composite image... more MEETING ß ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA graphic x-ray techniques which produced a composite image of the vocal folds during their entire complex cycling. The experiment reported in this paper is a replication of the former studies, but utilizes STROL, a stroboscopic laminagraphy device which allows examination of the crosssectional area of the folds at 36 ø phase-shift intervals throughout the vibratory cycle. In addition, animation of the phase-shift pictures allows observation of the apparent motion of the vocal cords in cross section. In this study, subjects phonated at a constant intensity at three separate fundamental frequencies. The results support Hollien's earlier conclusions, in that, as fundamental frequency increased, the cross-sectional area and mean thickness of the folds decreased. SI5. Some Observations of Laryngeal Phenomena Derived from High-Speed Motion Pictures. HEr, R¾ I. SoRon, SHELDOl• B. MICHAELS (nonmember), AND PHILIP LIEdErman, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Bedford,