Abstract
This study investigated the effects of visual deprivation on the relationship between speech perception and production by examining compensatory responses to real-time perturbations in auditory feedback. Specifically, acoustic and articulatory data were recorded while sighted and congenitally blind French speakers produced several repetitions of the vowel /ø/. At the acoustic level, blind speakers produced larger compensatory responses to altered vowels than their sighted peers. At the articulatory level, blind speakers also produced larger displacements of the upper lip, the tongue tip, and the tongue dorsum in compensatory responses. These findings suggest that blind speakers tolerate less discrepancy between actual and expected auditory feedback than sighted speakers. The study also suggests that sighted speakers have acquired more constrained somatosensory goals through the influence of visual cues perceived in face-to-face conversation, leading them to tolerate less discrepancy between expected and altered articulatory positions compared to blind speakers and thus resulting in smaller observed compensatory responses.
Highlights
Speech production and perception in congenitally blind individuals In the past five decades, researchers have established that speech perception implies the existence of other sources of sensory information, especially auditory and visual sources [1,2,3]
In a study where congenitally blind and sighted French speakers were required to produce speech in a fast condition [12], we showed that blind speakers produce a larger number of vowels for which spectral components are within the acoustic areas that correspond to the canonical phonemic target
These results suggested that in order to maintain saliency, blind speakers focused on safeguarding their auditory distinctiveness, whereas sighted speakers, who know that intelligibility can be transmitted through visual cues, accorded less weight to auditory targets
Summary
Speech production and perception in congenitally blind individuals In the past five decades, researchers have established that speech perception implies the existence of other sources of sensory information, especially auditory and visual sources [1,2,3]. The McGurk effect [4], a perceptual illusion created by inconsistent auditory and visual information, clearly demonstrates the influence of vision on speech perception. In a series of studies that investigated the role of vision on the control of speech, it was previously established that congenitally blind speakers use acoustic and articulatory strategies that are significantly different from those of their sighted peers [5,6,7,8]. It has been shown that blind individuals produced significantly longer vowels than their sighted peers [6,7,9] and that sighted
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