Intelligibility of stops and fricatives in tracheoesophageal speech

Abstract

Listener accuracy in identifying voiced and voiceless stops and fricatives in tracheoesophageal (TE) and laryngeal speech were compared. Sixteen TE and ten laryngeal speakers produced ten phonemes embedded in a nonsense word in a carrier phrase. Four experienced listeners phonetically transcribed the experimental phonemes. As expected, perceptual error rates were higher for the TE samples for all comparisons completed. The dominant error for laryngeal samples was a misperception of manner of production. The dominant error for TE samples was a perception of voiced for voiceless phonemes. Such voicing misperceptions occurred more frequently for fricatives than stops. Previous studies have implicated the vibratory characteristics of the pharyngoesophageal (PE) segment for the voicing errors in TE speech. However, PE features would not fully explain why stops were less affected than fricatives and why the expected error was reversed for two TE phonemes (perceptions of voiceless for voiced consonants). Learning outcomes: (1) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to identify the most common listener misperceptions of tracheoesophageal speech. (2) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to discuss possible reasons for the predominant error that occurs.