Fundamental frequency change as a result of repeated corrections

Abstract

Articulatory and intonational patterns were studied, using a simulated discourse-like paradigm, in which subjects were asked to make repeated corrections of a three-digit sequence street address consisting of fives and nines and Pine. Articulatory and acoustic signals were collected using the x-ray microbeam system for four native American English speakers at the University of Wisconsin. Based on the C/D model, a linear pulse train representing the rhythmic organization of an utterance can be inferred by analyzing jaw movements as syllable magnitude over time. Fundamental frequency contours were examined to study the effects of phrasing as a result of contrastive emphasis (digit corrected is assumed to have contrastive emphasis) and repeated corrections in the three-digit sequence. These patterns were then studied in relation to the jaw movement patterns. The data show that subjects change speech strategies when they need to make a correction or repeated corrections [Erickson et al. (1992)]. The word in particular that is corrected is made prominent from the rest of the utterance, in all repeated corrections. Effects of speaker variability will also be discussed. [This work has been supported in part by NSF (BCS-9977018) and ATR/MIC, Japan.]