Consonant Conditions Research Articles

Musical harmonies and its relationship with emotional processing: An ERP study in young adults

Music has been used to express and communicate emotional states through its different dimensions such as tone, rhythm, melody, and harmony. Consonant harmonies consistently are rated as pleasant whereas dissonant are considered unpleasant. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of consonant and dissonant musical harmonies used as prime on the emotional classification of images, as indexed by event-related potentials. Thirty volunteers (ages 21–27, 50 % women) were presented with a task consisting of 4 musical intervals in the C major scale, divided into consonant and dissonant harmonies, followed by 180 positive, negative, or neutral images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Participants had to rate the images as pleasant or unpleasant. We found a bias effect on negative images rated as positive when preceded by a consonant musical interval. A N200 component, non-sensible to the valence of the images, was found. On the other hand, a significant difference was found in the amplitude of the P300 component, with a greater amplitude in the consonant-positive images condition compared to the dissonant-positive images. Lastly, a late positivity component around 500–700 ms was found in both negative conditions dissonant and consonant, but with a larger amplitude for the consonant condition when followed by a negative image. These results indicate that additionally to the P300 processing the relevance of the stimulus there are processes like recognition memory involved. As part of the novelty effect this late positive activity may also be related to the emotional content integration of the relevant stimulus.

An auditory perspective on phonological development in infancy.

The auditory system encodes the phonetic features of languages by processing spectro-temporal modulations in speech, which can be described at two time scales: relatively slow amplitude variations over time (AM, further distinguished into the slowest <8-16 Hz and faster components 16-500 Hz), and frequency modulations (FM, oscillating at higher rates about 600-10 kHz). While adults require only the slowest AM cues to identify and discriminate speech sounds, infants have been shown to also require faster AM cues (>8-16 Hz) for similar tasks. Using an observer-based psychophysical method, this study measured the ability of typical-hearing 6-month-olds, 10-month-olds, and adults to detect a change in the vowel or consonant features of consonant-vowel syllables when temporal modulations are selectively degraded. Two acoustically degraded conditions were designed, replacing FM cues with pure tones in 32 frequency bands, and then extracting AM cues in each frequency band with two different low-pass cut- off frequencies: (1) half the bandwidth (Fast AM condition), (2) <8 Hz (Slow AM condition). In the Fast AM condition, results show that with reduced FM cues, 85% of 6-month-olds, 72.5% of 10-month-olds, and 100% of adults successfully categorize phonemes. Among participants who passed the Fast AM condition, 67% of 6-month-olds, 75% of 10-month-olds, and 95% of adults passed the Slow AM condition. Furthermore, across the three age groups, the proportion of participants able to detect phonetic category change did not differ between the vowel and consonant conditions. However, age-related differences were observed for vowel categorization: while the 6- and 10-month-old groups did not differ from one another, they both independently differed from adults. Moreover, for consonant categorization, 10-month-olds were more impacted by acoustic temporal degradation compared to 6-month-olds, and showed a greater decline in detection success rates between the Fast AM and Slow AM conditions. The degradation of FM and faster AM cues (>8 Hz) appears to strongly affect consonant processing at 10 months of age. These findings suggest that between 6 and 10 months, infants show different developmental trajectories in the perceptual weight of speech temporal acoustic cues for vowel and consonant processing, possibly linked to phonological attunement.

The event related potential profiling of consonants and vowels across rule learning task through auditory stimuli

The present study was aimed to investigate the hypothesis of differential use of consonants and vowels in rule learning tasks by analysing patterned Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in response to trisyllabic auditory non-sense word stimuli in an oddball paradigm. The study included standard stimuli of ABB rule, applicable to vowels in vowel conditions and consonants in consonant conditions, and two deviant stimulus types consisting of novel phonemes. The results showed that both phoneme and rule deviants exhibited significant changes in ERP profiling in amplitude and latency compared to standard stimuli in consonant conditions and only with rule deviant in vowel conditions. These findings suggest that vowels and consonants play a fundamental role in neurolinguistics, whereas, vowels are important for understanding the rules of language, while consonants commencing the process of lexicon access. Overall, the study provides important insights into the neural dynamics underlying the differential processing of consonants and vowels.

What the Eyes Hear: An Eye-Tracking Study on Phonological Awareness in Emirati Arabic.

Phonological awareness is the ability to perceive and manipulate the sounds of spoken words. It is considered a good predictor of reading and spelling abilities. In the current study, we used an eye-tracking procedure to measure fixation differences while adults completed three conditions of phonological awareness in Emirati Arabic (EA): (1) explicit instructions for onset consonant matching (OCM), (2) implicit instructions for segmentation of initial consonant (SIC), and (3) rhyme matching (RM). We hypothesized that fixation indices would vary according to the experimental conditions. We expected explicit instructions to facilitate task performance. Thus, eye movements should reflect more efficient fixation patterns in the explicit OCM condition in comparison to the implicit SIC condition. Moreover, since Arabic is consonant-based, we hypothesized that participants would perform better in the consonant conditions (i.e., OCM and SIC) than in the rhyme condition (i.e., RM). Finally, we expected that providing feedback during practice trials would facilitate participants’ performance overall. Response accuracy, expressed as a percentage of correct responses, was recorded alongside eye movement data. Results show that performance was significantly compromised in the RM condition, where targets received more fixations of longer average duration, and significantly longer gaze durations in comparison to the OCM and SIC conditions. Response accuracy was also significantly lower in the RM condition. Our results indicate that eye-tracking can be used as a tool to test phonological awareness skills and shows differences in performance between tasks containing a vowel or consonant manipulation.

Signal Interpretation Considerations When Estimating Subglottal Pressure From Oral Air Pressure.

Purpose Oral air pressure measurements during lip occlusion for /pVpV/ syllable strings are used to estimate subglottal pressure during the vowel. Accuracy of this method relies on smoothly produced syllable repetitions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the oral air pressure waveform during the /p/ lip occlusions and propose physiological explanations for nonflat shapes. Method Ten adult participants were trained to produce the "standard condition" and were instructed to produce nonstandard tasks. Results from 8 participants are included. The standard condition required participants to produce /pːiːpːiː.../ syllables smoothly at approximately 1.5 syllables/s. The nonstandard tasks included an air leak between the lips, faster syllable repetition rates, an initial voiced consonant, and 2-syllable word productions. Results Eleven oral air pressure waveform shapes were identified during the lip occlusions, and plausible physiological explanations for each shape are provided based on the tasks in which they occurred. Training the use of the standard condition, the initial voice consonant condition, and the 2-syllable word production increased the likelihood of rectangular oral air pressure waveform shapes. Increasing the rate beyond 1.5 syllables/s improved the probability of producing rectangular oral air pressure signal shapes in some participants. Conclusions Visual and verbal feedback improved the likelihood of producing rectangular oral air pressure signal shapes. The physiological explanations of variations in the oral air pressure waveform shape may provide direction to the clinician or researcher when providing feedback to increase the accuracy of estimating subglottal pressure from oral air pressure.

The consonant bias in word learning is not determined by position within the word: Evidence from vowel-initial words

The current study used an object manipulation task to explore whether infants rely more on consonant information than on vowel information when learning new words even when the words start with a vowel. Canadian French-learning 20-month-olds, who were taught pairs of new vowel-initial words contrasted either on their initial vowel (opsi/eupsi) or following consonant (oupsa/outsa), were found to have learned the words only in the consonant condition and performed significantly better in the consonant condition than in the vowel condition. These results extend to Canadian French-learning infants the consonant bias in word learning previously found in French-learning infants from France and, crucially, shows that vocalic information has less weight than consonant information in new word learning even when it is the initial sound of the target words, confirming the consonant bias at the lexical level postulated by Nespor et al. (2003). The current findings also suggest that French-learning infants are able to segment vowel-initial words as early as 20 months of age.

Long-Distance Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation in Arabic: Influences of Intervening Consonant Pharyngealization and Length.

This study investigates anticipatory vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in Arabic, and seeks to determine the degree to which it is affected by the pharyngealization and length of intervening consonants. Speakers of Egyptian Arabic were recorded saying sentences containing nonsense sequences of the form /baɁabaCV:/, where C was chosen from {/t/, /tˤ/, /t:/, /tˤ:/} and V was a long vowel /i:/, /a:/ or /u:/. Analysis of the first and second formants of the recorded vowels revealed that (a) vowel-to-vowel coarticulatory effects could sometimes extend to a distance of three vowels before the context vowel; (b) the consonant-to-vowel effects associated with pharyngealization were consistently seen at similar distances, while also decreasing in magnitude at greater distances from the triggering consonant; and (c) effects related to intervening consonant length were idiosyncratic, and in particular did not lead to consistent blocking of vowel-to-vowel effects. In contrast, one speaker showed significant vowel-to-vowel effects at all three measured distances that were effectively blocked in the pharyngealized consonant condition.

The influence of orthographic experience on the development of phonological preparation in spoken word production.

Three sets of experiments using the picture naming tasks with the form preparation paradigm investigated the influence of orthographic experience on the development of phonological preparation unit in spoken word production in native Mandarin-speaking children. Participants included kindergarten children who have not received formal literacy instruction, Grade 1 children who are comparatively more exposed to the alphabetic pinyin system and have very limited Chinese character knowledge, Grades 2 and 4 children who have better character knowledge and more exposure to characters, and skilled adult readers who have the most advanced character knowledge and most exposure to characters. Only Grade 1 children showed the form preparation effect in the same initial consonant condition (i.e., when a list of target words shared the initial consonant). Both Grade 4 children and adults showed the preparation effect when the initial syllable (but not tone) among target words was shared. Kindergartners and Grade 2 children only showed the preparation effect when the initial syllable including tonal information was shared. These developmental changes in phonological preparation could be interpreted as a joint function of the modification of phonological representation and attentional shift. Extensive pinyin experience encourages speakers to attend to and select onset phoneme in phonological preparation, whereas extensive character experience encourages speakers to prepare spoken words in syllables.

Different ERP profiles for learning rules over consonants and vowels

The Consonant-Vowel hypothesis suggests that consonants and vowels tend to be used differently during language processing. In this study we explored whether these functional differences trigger different neural responses in a rule learning task. We recorded ERPs while nonsense words were presented in an Oddball paradigm. An ABB rule was implemented either over the consonants (Consonant condition) or over the vowels (Vowel condition) composing standard words. Deviant stimuli were composed by novel phonemes. Deviants could either implement the same ABB rule as standards (Phoneme deviants) or implement a different ABA rule (Rule deviants). We observed shared early components (P1 and MMN) for both types of deviants across both conditions. We also observed differences across conditions around 400ms. In the Consonant condition, Phoneme deviants triggered a posterior negativity. In the Vowel condition, Rule deviants triggered an anterior negativity. Such responses demonstrate different neural responses after the violation of abstract rules over distinct phonetic categories.

Nouns and adjectives of the shape C1V́C2(ə)C3(-) in Jibbali (Śħri) and Mehri

Jibbali and Mehri nouns and adjectives of the form C1V́C2(ə)C3(-) exhibit various vowels in stressed V1 position, whereas it is not always clear whether a phonological /ə/ must be posited in post-tonic V2. This article investigates the patterns underlying such items. It appears that in both languages the presence of a /ə/ in V2 is fundamentally determined by the pattern (some patterns implying /ə/ and others ∅), although the presence of a sonorant as the third root consonant conditions the presence of a /ə/ in actual lexemes whatever the pattern. This together with other phonological processes creates, especially in Mehri, complicated cross-matches between the underlying patterns and the attested realisations. Their identification sheds light on the morphological correspondences between Mehri and Jibbali. It is finally argued that patterns of the C1V́C2C3 type go back to Proto-Semitic patterns in *C1VC2C3, whereas most patterns of the C1V́C2əC3 type go back to *C1ā̆C2ī̆C3.

Feature-specific transition from positive mismatch response to mismatch negativity in early infancy: Mismatch responses to vowels and initial consonants

This study investigated how phonological saliency, deviance size, and maturation affect mismatch responses (MMRs) in early infancy. MMRs to Mandarin vowels and initial consonants were measured using a multi-deviant oddball paradigm in adults, newborns, and 6-month-olds. The vowel condition consisted of Mandarin syllable da as the standard, du as the large deviant and di as small deviant. As for initial consonant condition, we took syllable ba as standard, ga as large deviant, and ba as small deviant. While adults showed typical mismatch negativities (MMNs), newborns demonstrated broad positive MMRs (P-MMRs) to both initial consonants and vowels. For 6-month-olds, deviance size affected the polarity of MMRs to vowels. The large deviant du/da contrast elicited an adult-like MMN, while the small deviant di/da contrast elicited a P-MMR. Initial consonant changes elicited only P-MMRs, regardless of deviance size. In summary, MMRs to vowels switched from P-MMR at birth to MMN at 6months. However, the polarity transition was not found for MMRs to initial consonants. The developmental trajectories of MMRs to vowels and initial consonants further support the phonological saliency hypothesis.

Tone as a primary perceptual cue in cross-linguistic speech perception: A comparison of Cantonese and Mandarin second-language speech of English clusters

The study examined the patterns of production and perception of L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers for English consonant-/l/ clusters in five consonant conditions (/ph, th, kh, f, s/) and three vowel conditions (/i, a, u/). Five Cantonese, 5 Mandarin, and 5 native English speakers were assigned to read aloud words in C[l]V and C[l]VC structure in carrier sentences. Results showed that Cantonese speakers’ /l/ was often reduced, indicated by a shorter average duration of the CV transition compared with native English speakers. However, Mandarin speakers showed a longer duration in the same measurement. Despite the identical segmental and syllable structures of these two languages in the involved words, realizations were different. Nevertheless, we found pitch patterns of Mandarin speech of L2 English featured falling tone, whereas Cantonese speakers utilized level tones. To further examine the tonal effect, we normalized the tone from the production results to a level tone at 200 Hz and presented them, together with productions with real inserted vowels in between C and /l/, to another group of Mandarin and Cantonese speakers to discriminate in an ABX paradigm. Mandarin speakers scored a significantly lower accuracy rate, indicating that their perception of duration was influenced by tone structure.

谐音与中国民俗

谐音就是利用汉字同音或近音的条件，用同音或近音字来代替本字。谐音是存在于各种语言中的共同现象，但在汉语中尤为突出。它存在于汉民族生活的方方面面，与汉民族的文化传统紧密相连，深深地烙上了悠久而又丰富多彩的文化印记。本文将谐音分为同音同形、同音异形、近音异形谐音三类。通过研究发现，谐音大量存在于民俗的衣食住行、节日、礼仪和婚丧嫁娶等诸多方面，它集中体现了中国人趋吉避讳的民族心理。Harmonics is using Chinese characters which are homophones or approximant consonant conditions, with homophones or approximant consonant words to replace the original words. Harmonics is a common phenomenon that exists in all languages, but more prominent in Chinese. It exists in every aspect of the han nationality lives. It is intimately combined with han nationality cultural tradition, and deeply branded with the long history and colorful cultural imprint. In this paper, harmonics is divided into three categories which are homonym, homophone and heterograph. Through the study, it is found that harmonics exists in the daily life of folk customs and festivals, etiquette and weddings and many other aspects, and it embodies a reflection of psychology of the Chinese “pursuing fortune and avoiding taboo”.

Investigating Unique Environmental Contributions to the Neural Representation of Written Words: A Monozygotic Twin Study

The visual word form area (VWFA) is a region of left inferior occipitotemporal cortex that is critically involved in visual word recognition. Previous studies have investigated whether and how experience shapes the functional characteristics of VWFA by comparing neural response magnitude in response to words and nonwords. Conflicting results have been obtained, however, perhaps because response magnitude can be influenced by other factors such as attention. In this study, we measured neural activity in monozygotic twins, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This allowed us to quantify differences in unique environmental contributions to neural activation evoked by words, pseudowords, consonant strings, and false fonts in the VWFA and striate cortex. The results demonstrate significantly greater effects of unique environment in the word and pseudoword conditions compared to the consonant string and false font conditions both in VWFA and in left striate cortex. These findings provide direct evidence for environmental contributions to the neural architecture for reading, and suggest that learning phonology and/or orthographic patterns plays the biggest role in shaping that architecture.

Temporal and spectral variability of vowels within and across languages with small vowel inventories: Russian, Japanese, and Spanish

Variability of vowels in three languages with small vowel inventories (Russian, Japanese, and Spanish) was explored. Three male speakers of each language produced vowels in two-syllable nonsense words (VCa) in isolation and three-syllable nonsense words (gaC1VC2a) embedded within carrier sentences in three contexts: bilabial stops in normal rate sentences and alveolar stops in both normal and rapid rate sentences. Dependent variables were syllable duration and formant frequency at syllable midpoint. Results showed very little variation across consonant and rate conditions in formants for /i/ in Russian and Japanese. Japanese short /u, o, a/ showed fronting (F2 increases) in alveolar context, which was more pronounced in rapid sentences. Fronting of Japanese long vowels was less pronounced. Japanese long/short vowel ratios varied with speaking style (isolation versus sentences) and speaking rate. All Russian vowels except /i/ were fronted in alveolar context, but showed little change in either spectrum or duration with speaking rate. Spanish showed a strong effect of consonantal context: front vowels were backed in bilabial context and back vowels were fronted in alveolar context, also more pronounced in rapid sentences. Results will be compared to female productions of the same languages, as well as American English production patterns.

Acoustic correlates of the question–statement contrast in children

The acoustics of prosodic control in children was studied in 4-, 7-, and 11-year olds using the question–statement contrast. Each child produced the utterances ‘‘Show Bob a bot’’ (voiced consonants) and ‘‘Show Pop a pot’’ (voiceless consonants) ten times each as a question and ten times each as a statement. A total of 40 utterances were analyzed per child. The following acoustic measures were obtained for each word within each utterance: average fundamental frequency (f0), peak f0, slope of f0, average intensity, peak intensity and duration. Preliminary results indicate no significant difference between questions and statements for 4-year olds in both the voiced and voiceless consonant conditions. In contrast, 7- and 11-year olds differentiated questions from statements by increasing average, peak, and slope of f0 as well as increasing the duration of the final syllable. Changes in syllable duration between questions and statements were more pronounced for the utterance with voiced consonants. These findings suggest that the acoustics of prosodic contrasts begins to differentiate somewhere between ages 4 and 7 and is influenced by developmental changes in physiological control and flexibility which may also affect segmental features.

The effect of distraction-conflict on task performance

According to distraction-conflict theory, the observer (distracter) can elevate the performer's drive by provoking attentional conflict. It is predicted that the observer who brings the dissonant information is more distractive for the performer than that of the consonant information. Self-esteem scale was administered to 179 undergraduates and 80 high-scored students were selected as subjects. The 2×2 factorial design (dissonant and consonant conditions by observed and unobserved situations) was used. Dissonance was manipulated by asking subject's defects, and putting him/her-self to write them down. The main effects of dissonance factor were found in correct response for both simple and comolex tasks. These results only confirmed the energizing effect of cognitive dissonance. On the contrary, the main effect of the observer was found in error response for complex task. This result slightly suggested the validity of distraction-conflict theory.

Context independence of F3 trajectories in American English /r/’s

In Boyce and Espy-Wilson [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 1916(A) (1991)] the coarticulatory effects of American English /r/ on surrounding segments were reviewed, and data were presented to suggest that the articulatory gesture for /r/ is relatively incompressible. Here, data are reported from a larger study that supports the previous claims. Comparing the trajectories through the intervocalic consonant of /wavam/ and /wawam/ with /waram/, we estimate the duration of the /r/ trajectory to be around 150 ms. Further, the trajectory appears to be symmetrical. In addition to /r/’s in clusters with labial consonants, we looked at /r/’s following voiced stops /g/, /b/, and /d/. Given the commonly cited coarticulation hypothesis that (1) articulation will be initiated as soon as possible, and (2) that coarticulation will be more extensive when neighboring segments contain no incompatible gestures [W. Henke, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT (1966)], it was expected that /r/ trajectories would start earlier in words with labial consonants. However, it was found instead that /r/ trajectories remained the same for each consonant condition. This finding was aided by the fact that for each speaker in every condition at least one token was found where the full symmetrical /r/ trajectory could be observed. Results from 4 male and 4 female speakers of American English will be presented. Implications for coarticulation and speech recognition will be discussed.

Modifiability of hemispheric imbalance: A speculative review

This study investigated how phonological saliency, deviance size, and maturation affect mismatch responses (MMRs) in early infancy. MMRs to Mandarin vowels and initial consonants were measured using a multi-deviant oddball paradigm in adults, newborns, and 6-month-olds. The vowel condition consisted of Mandarin syllable da as the standard, du as the large deviant and di as small deviant. As for initial consonant condition, we took syllable ba as standard, ga as large deviant, and ba as small deviant. While adults showed typical mismatch negativities (MMNs), newborns demonstrated broad positive MMRs (P-MMRs) to both initial consonants and vowels. For 6-month-olds, deviance size affected the polarity of MMRs to vowels. The large deviant du/da contrast elicited an adult-like MMN, while the small deviant di/da contrast elicited a P-MMR. Initial consonant changes elicited only P-MMRs, regardless of deviance size. In summary, MMRs to vowels switched from P-MMR at birth to MMN at 6 months. However, the polarity transition was not found for MMRs to initial consonants. The developmental trajectories of MMRs to vowels and initial consonants further support the phonological saliency hypothesis.