Fundamental Frequency Contours Research Articles

Revisiting the nature and the context of T4 alternations: insights from disyllabic, trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic word/digit productions in Taiwan Mandarin.

The tone values of a Tone 4 (T4) syllable are conventionally assumed to change from '51' to '53' when the syllable is followed by another T4 syllable in Mandarin Chinese. Literature focusing on T4 alternation is still inconclusive regarding the contexts for the alternations and whether the phenomenon should be better categorized as tone sandhi (i.e.,represented as an abstract phonological rule in mental grammar) or tonal coarticulation (i.e.,a natural articulation phenomenon at the phonetic level). The current study probes into these issues by focusing on disyllabic pseudowords, right-branching trisyllabic words as well as unstructured trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic digits. Productions from a total of 148 participants were collected and fundamental frequency (f0) contours, vowel lengths and f0 slopes were included in the analysis. The results from the experiments supported the tonal coarticulation view and showed that the trigger for the alternations was the high-onset tones following T4. Implications to the phonological analysis on tonal alternations in Mandarin Chinese are discussed.

Acquisition of Mandarin tones by Canadian first graders: Effect of prior exposure to tonal and non-tonal languages.

This study examines the tone productions of school-aged children with and without a tonal language background who are learning Mandarin as a second language (L2) or heritage language in Mandarin-English bilingual schools in Western Canada. Tones are frequently identified as one of the most challenging aspects of phonology for Mandarin L2 learners to acquire. In this study, tone productions of bilingual children from three home language backgrounds, English, Cantonese, and Mandarin Chinese, were compared for transcribed accuracy using mixed effects logistic regression. In addition, the fundamental frequency contours of correct tone productions were fitted with generalized additive mixed models to analyse the acoustic differences between groups. Error patterns were also analysed for possible Cantonese substitutions. Our results suggest that children with a Cantonese background are more accurate in tone productions than children with an English language background, but they also made more errors than their peers with a Mandarin language background. These findings suggest that a tonal language background could result in positive transfer among school-age children who are in the early stages of learning Mandarin as an L2.

Lexical Stress Identification in Cochlear Implant-Simulated Speech by Non-Native Listeners.

This study investigates whether a presumed difference in the perceptibility of cues to lexical stress in spectro-temporally degraded simulated cochlear implant (CI) speech affects how listeners weight these cues during a lexical stress identification task, specifically in their non-native language. Previous research suggests that in English, listeners predominantly rely on a reduction in vowel quality as a cue to lexical stress. In Dutch, changes in the fundamental frequency (F0) contour seem to have a greater functional weight than the vowel quality contrast. Generally, non-native listeners use the cue-weighting strategies from their native language in the non-native language. Moreover, few studies have suggested that these cues to lexical stress are differently perceptible in spectro-temporally degraded electric hearing, as CI users appear to make more effective use of changes in vowel quality than of changes in the F0 contour as cues to linguistic phenomena. In this study, native Dutch learners of English identified stressed syllables in CI-simulated and non-CI-simulated Dutch and English words that contained changes in the F0 contour and vowel quality as cues to lexical stress. The results indicate that neither the cue-weighting strategies in the native language nor in the non-native language are influenced by the perceptibility of cues in the spectro-temporally degraded speech signal. These results are in contrast to our expectations based on previous research and support the idea that cue weighting is a flexible and transferable process.

On the nature of Tone 4 alternation in Taiwan Mandarin: Insights from acoustic analysis of trisyllabic right-branching word productions

Tone 4 (T4) alternations refer to the phenomenon where the tone values of a T4 syllable reduces from ‘51' to ‘53' when it is followed by another T4 syllable in Mandarin Chinese. It is inconclusive if the nature of T4 alternations is tone sandhi (an abstract phonological rule) (Chao, 1948; Jang, 2021) or tonal coarticulation (an articulatory phenomenon in speech production) (Lin, 20007; Shen, 1990). The current study invited 30 Taiwan Mandarin speakers to produce 10 pairs of right-branching trisyllabic words, including sequences of [T4[T4-T4]] (e.g., dà diàn shì 'big television') and [T4[T4-Tone1]] syllables (e.g., dà diàn jiā ‘big store'). The T4 sandhi view predicted that the surface tone values of the first syllables in these two sequences would differ (“51i” vs. “53”), while the T4 coarticulation view predicted that the tone values would be the same (“53”). Results from the acoustic analysis on fundamental frequency (f0) contour, f0 slope and vowel length of the first T4 syllables indicated that the differences were not statistically significant. These results supported the tonal coarticulation view. Discussions pertaining to the mental grammar for the tone value distances of two adjacent T4 syllables and the typology of tonal coarticulation in Mandarin Chinese are formulated.

Expanding research on ʔayʔaǰuθəm interrogative intonation

Relatively little research has been done on ʔayʔaǰuθəm prosody. This lack of research is due in part to the idea that stress and tone are not distinctive features in the language. However, recent studies have found evidence of suprasegmental features in ʔayʔaǰuθəm interrogatives. Additionally, previous work indicates that—as has been reported with other Salishan languages—there is no significant rise in fundamental frequency at the end of ʔayʔaǰuθəm interrogatives, though the mean vowel fundamental frequency is higher in interrogative than in declarative sentences. These findings are not unique to ʔayʔaǰuθəm, but they do contribute to growing evidence that a final rise in fundamental frequency in interrogative sentences is not universal. In the present study, we aim to address the limitations of our previous work by expanding on the amount of data used, incorporating methods for analyzing the entire fundamental frequency contour, and measuring the mean fundamental frequency of vowels from more balanced stimuli. Although we do not expect different results from the present study, it is our hope that the methodologies used will increase the validity of our findings on ʔayʔaǰuθəm interrogative intonation.

No Musician Advantage in the Perception of Degraded-Fundamental Frequency Speech in Noisy Environments.

Pitch variations of the fundamental frequency (fo) contour contribute to speech perception in noisy environments, but whether musicians confer an advantage in speech in noise (SIN) with altered fo information remains unclear. This study investigated the effects of different levels of degraded fo contour (i.e., conveying lexical tone or intonation information) on musician advantage in speech-in-noise perception. A cohort of native Mandarin Chinese speakers, comprising 30 trained musicians and 30 nonmusicians, were tested on the intelligibility of Mandarin Chinese sentences with natural, flattened-tone, flattened-intonation, and flattened-all fo contours embedded in background noise masked under three signal-to-noise ratios (0, -5, and -9 dB). Pitch difference thresholds and innate musical skills associated with speech-in-noise benefits were also assessed. Speech intelligibility score improved with increasing signal-to-noise level for both musicians and nonmusicians. However, no musician advantage was observed for identifying any type of flattened-fo contour SIN. Musicians exhibited smaller fo pitch discrimination limens than nonmusicians, which correlated with benefits for perceiving speech with intact tone-level fo information. Regardless of musician status, performance on the pitch and accent musical-skill subtests correlated with speech intelligibility score. Collectively, these results provide no evidence for a musician advantage for perceiving speech with distorted fo information in noisy environments. Results further show that perceptual musical skills on pitch and accent processing may benefit the perception of SIN, independent of formal musical training. Our findings suggest that the potential application of music training in speech perception in noisy backgrounds is not contingent on the ability to process fo pitch contours, at least for Mandarin Chinese speakers. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23706354.

Exploring Prosodic Features Modelling for Secondary Emotions Needed for Empathetic Speech Synthesis

A low-resource emotional speech synthesis system for empathetic speech synthesis based on modelling prosody features is presented here. Secondary emotions, identified to be needed for empathetic speech, are modelled and synthesised in this investigation. As secondary emotions are subtle in nature, they are difficult to model compared to primary emotions. This study is one of the few to model secondary emotions in speech as they have not been extensively studied so far. Current speech synthesis research uses large databases and deep learning techniques to develop emotion models. There are many secondary emotions, and hence, developing large databases for each of the secondary emotions is expensive. Hence, this research presents a proof of concept using handcrafted feature extraction and modelling of these features using a low-resource-intensive machine learning approach, thus creating synthetic speech with secondary emotions. Here, a quantitative-model-based transformation is used to shape the emotional speech's fundamental frequency contour. Speech rate and mean intensity are modelled via rule-based approaches. Using these models, an emotional text-to-speech synthesis system to synthesise five secondary emotions-anxious, apologetic, confident, enthusiastic and worried-is developed. A perception test to evaluate the synthesised emotional speech is also conducted. The participants could identify the correct emotion in a forced response test with a hit rate greater than 65%.

Effects of Target and Masker Fundamental Frequency Contour Depth on School-Age Children's Speech Recognition in a Two-Talker Masker.

Maturation of the ability to recognize target speech in the presence of a two-talker speech masker extends into early adolescence. This study evaluated whether children benefit from differences in fundamental frequency (f o) contour depth between the target and masker speech, a cue that has been shown to improve recognition in adults. Speech stimuli were recorded from talkers using three speaking styles, with f o contour depths that were Flat, Normal, or Exaggerated. Targets were open-set, declarative sentences produced by a female talker, and maskers were two streams of concatenated sentences produced by a second female talker. Listeners were children (ages 5-17 years) and adults (ages 18-24 years) with normal hearing. Each listener was tested in one of the three masker styles paired with all three target styles. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) corresponding to 50% correct were estimated by fitting psychometric functions to adaptive track data. For adults, performance did not differ significantly across conditions with matched speaking styles. A mismatch benefit was observed when combining Flat targets with the Exaggerated masker and Exaggerated targets with the Flat masker, and for both Flat and Exaggerated targets paired with the Normal masker. For children, there was a significant effect of age in all conditions. Flat targets in the Flat masker were associated with lower SRTs than the other two matched conditions, and a mismatch benefit was observed for young children only when the target f o contour was less variable than the masker f o contour. Whereas child-directed speech often has exaggerated pitch contours, young children were better able to recognize speech with less variable f o. Age effects were observed in the benefit of mismatched speaking styles for some conditions, which could be related to differences in baseline SRTs rather than differences in segregation abilities.

Fundamental Frequency Contour (Melody) of Infant Vocalizations across the First Year

Introduction: The fundamental frequency contour (melody) of cry and non-cry utterances becomes more complex with age. However, there is a lack of longitudinal analyses of melody development during the first year of life. Objective: The aim of the study was to longitudinally analyze melody development in typical vocalization types across the first 12 months of life. The aim was twofold: (1) to answer the question whether melody becomes more complex in all vocalization types with age and (2) to characterize complex patterns in more detail. Methods: Repeatedly recorded vocalizations (n = 10,988) of 10 healthy infants (6 female) over their first year of life were analyzed using frequency spectrograms and fundamental frequency (f0) analyses (PRAAT). Melody complexity analysis was performed using specific in-lab software (CDAP, pw-project) in a final subset of 9,237 utterances that contained noise-free, undisturbed contours. Generalized mixed linear models were used to analyze age and vocalization type effects on melody complexity. Results: The vocalization repertoire showed a higher proportion of complex melodies from the second month onward. The age effect was significant, but no difference was found in melody complexity between cry and non-cry vocalizations across the first 6 months. From month 7–12, there was a further significant increase in complex structures only in canonical babbling not in marginal babbling. Melody segmentations by laryngeal constrictions prevailed among complex shapes. Conclusion: The study demonstrated the regularity of melody development in different vocalization types throughout the first year of life. In terms of prosodic features of infant sounds, melody contour is of primary importance, and further studies are required that also include infants at risk for language development.

Glottalic and pitch features in Chepang and Bhujel

Abstract This paper looks at two closely related Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal, Chepang and Bhujel, in relation to certain supra-segmental features they possess which are involved in the distinction of minimal pairs. Since these features include pitch and glottalisation, the possible phonemic analyses of these in terms of either a supra-segmental solution (tone) or a segmental one (glottal plosive) are discussed. Given the latter, a non-tonal analysis for the present state of these languages, and the possibilities of one or both of these becoming tonal languages in the future, are considered. Also, Chepang is unusual in possessing a whistled form of speech and the relation of this to the spoken language is described. These features are exemplified in the Appendices by waveforms, fundamental frequency (F0) contours and spectrogram illustrations, and also by sound files.

Prediction of Voice Fundamental Frequency and Intensity from Surface Electromyographic Signals of the Face and Neck.

Silent speech interfaces (SSIs) enable speech recognition and synthesis in the absence of an acoustic signal. Yet, the archetypal SSI fails to convey the expressive attributes of prosody such as pitch and loudness, leading to lexical ambiguities. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of using surface electromyography (sEMG) as an approach for predicting continuous acoustic estimates of prosody. Ten participants performed a series of vocal tasks including sustained vowels, phrases, and monologues while acoustic data was recorded simultaneously with sEMG activity from muscles of the face and neck. A battery of time-, frequency-, and cepstral-domain features extracted from the sEMG signals were used to train deep regression neural networks to predict fundamental frequency and intensity contours from the acoustic signals. We achieved an average accuracy of 0.01 ST and precision of 0.56 ST for the estimation of fundamental frequency, and an average accuracy of 0.21 dB SPL and precision of 3.25 dB SPL for the estimation of intensity. This work highlights the importance of using sEMG as an alternative means of detecting prosody and shows promise for improving SSIs in future development.

Spectral Aggregate of the High-Passed Fundamental Frequency and Its Relationship to the Primary Acoustic Features of Adductor Laryngeal Dystonia.

Currently, no clinically feasible objective measures exist that are specific to the signs of adductor laryngeal dystonia (LD), deterring effective diagnosis and treatment. This project sought to establish concurrent validity of a new automated acoustic outcome measure, designed to be specific to adductor laryngeal dystonia (AdLD): the spectral aggregate of the high-passed fundamental frequency contour (SAHf o). Twenty speakers with AdLD read voiced phoneme-loaded (more symptomatic) and voiceless phoneme-loaded (less symptomatic) sentences. LD discontinuities (defined as phonatory breaks, frequency shifts, and creak), the acoustic ramifications of laryngeal spasms, were manually identified. The frequency content of the f o contour was examined as a function of time, and content above 1000 Hz was summed to automatically calculate SAHf o. Multiple linear regression analysis was applied to SAHf o based on LD discontinuities and sentence type (voiced or voiceless phoneme-loaded). The regression model accounted for 41.1% of the variance in SAHf o. Both the LD discontinuities and sentence type were statistically related to SAHf o. Results of this study provide evidence of concurrent validity. SAHf o is an automatic outcome measure specific to acoustic signs of AdLD that may be useful to track treatment progress.

Annotated-VocalSet: A Singing Voice Dataset

There are insufficient datasets of singing files that are adequately annotated. One of the available datasets that includes a variety of vocal techniques (n = 17) and several singers (m = 20) with several WAV files (p = 3560) is the VocalSet dataset. However, although several categories, including techniques, singers, tempo, and loudness, are in the dataset, they are not annotated. Therefore, this study aims to annotate VocalSet to make it a more powerful dataset for researchers. The annotations generated for the VocalSet audio files include fundamental frequency contour, note onset, note offset, the transition between notes, note F0, note duration, Midi pitch, and lyrics. This paper describes the generated dataset and explains our approaches to creating and testing the annotations. Moreover, four different methods to define the onset/offset are compared.

Adapted melodic intonation therapy can help raise trans women’s singing and speaking fundamental frequencies

Aim Voice interventions for transgender individuals can address several speech and voice parameters – fundamental frequency, resonance, intonation, rhythm, and intensity. In this study, we focus on fundamental voice frequency and build on existing research to test one technique that has been shown in a preliminary study to effectively adjust fundamental voice frequency in line with clients’ goals. Method More specifically, we employed an adaptation of melodic intonation therapy (MIT) to assess whether it can raise trans women’s average fundamental frequency to a significant degree. Eleven trans women participated in two one-to-one therapy sessions, four weeks apart. Results Results pointed to a statistically significant rise in both their singing and speaking fundamental frequencies following the adapted MIT therapy sessions. Participants were also successful in imitating upward fundamental frequency contours when singing and in producing them independently in the speech modality. Future Directions Longitudinal studies are warranted to determine whether the observed positive results translate into long-term benefits.

Extraction of Music Main Melody and Multi-Pitch Estimation Method Based on Support Vector Machine in Big Data Environment.

Main melody extraction and multi-pitch estimation are two important research topics in the MIR field. In this article, the SVM algorithm is used to analyze and discuss music melody extraction and multi-pitch estimation. In the part of multi-fundamental frequency extraction, this article first filters the song signal with equal loudness and weakens the energy of the high-frequency and low-frequency parts of the song signal. Thereafter, the multi-resolution short-time Fourier transform suitable for processing song signals is introduced. In addition, in order to avoid the sharp jump of the estimated melody pitch in the same note duration range, this article proposes a main melody extraction method combining the SVM algorithm with dynamic programming. In this article, more features are used to distinguish the pitch contour of vocal fundamental frequency from that of the nonvocal fundamental frequency, which does not only depend on energy or a certain feature. The experimental results show that the lowest octave error of this method is 1.46. Meanwhile, the recall rate of the algorithm can reach about 95%. This method not only improves the recall rate of the fundamental frequency of the human voice but also improves the recall rate and pitch accuracy rate of the whole main melody extraction system.

The Sarasota Dolphin Whistle Database: A unique long-term resource for understanding dolphin communication

Common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) produce individually distinctive signature whistles that are learned early in life and that help animals recognize and maintain contact with conspecifics. Signature whistles are the predominant whistle type produced when animals are isolated from conspecifics. Health assessments of dolphins in Sarasota, Florida (USA) provide a unique opportunity to record signature whistles, as dolphins are briefly separated from conspecifics. Recordings were first made in the mid 1970’s, and then nearly annually since 1984. The Sarasota Dolphin Whistle Database (SDWD) now contains 926 recording sessions of 293 individual dolphins, most of known age, sex, and matrilineal relatedness. The longest time span over which an individual has been recorded is 43 years, and 85 individuals have been recorded over a decade or more. Here we describe insights about signature whistle structure revealed by this unique and expansive dataset. Signature whistles of different dolphins show great variety in their fundamental frequency contours. Signature whistle types (with ‘whistle type’ defined as all whistles visually categorized as sharing a particular frequency modulation pattern) can consist of a single stereotyped element, or loop (single-loop whistles), or of multiple stereotyped loops with or without gaps (multi-loop whistles). Multi-loop signature whistle types can also show extensive variation in both number and contour of loops. In addition, fundamental frequency contours of all signature whistle types can be truncated (deletions) or embellished (additions), and other features are also occasionally incorporated. However, even with these variable features, signature whistle types tend to be highly stereotyped and easily distinguishable due to the extensive variability in contours among individuals. In an effort to quantify this individual distinctiveness, and to compare it to other species, we calculated Beecher’s Information Statistic and found it to be higher than for any other animal signal studied so far. Thus, signature whistles have an unusually high capacity to convey information on individual identity. We briefly review the large range of research projects that the SDWD has enabled thus far, and look ahead to its potential to answer a broad suite of questions about dolphin communication.

A qualitative study on the variability in intonation learning and attrition in brazilian portuguese bilingual speakers of spanish l2

In this study we analyzed the production of fundamental frequency contours by bilingual Brazilian speakers living in Spain. His production in Spanish L2 was compared with that of native Spanish speakers and his production in Portuguese L1 with that of monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The analysis is qualitative, based on the visual observation of patterns in temporarily normalized f0 contours. Statements were compared in three modalities, declarative, total interrogative and pronominal interrogative, elicited in two styles of elocution - read separately and inserted into a narrative. In the analysis we observed evidence favorable to the presence of two phenomena that are related to bilingualism: learning, in the form of patterns produced in Spanish L2 similar to those observed in the speech of native Spanish, and linguistic erosion, which is manifested in the appearance of patterns produced by bilinguals in their L1 that are similar to those found in native Spanish. The two phenomena occur gradually and variably among the speakers analyzed. We identify patterns in the production of f0 contours by bilinguals and propose a preliminary classification of variable behaviors in terms of incorporating native Spanish characteristics into L2 production (learning) and the transfer to Portuguese of Spanish intonation characteristics (erosion). In the discussion of the results, we point out a possible relationship between the occurrence of learning and erosion and the experience of speakers with L2, especially the time of residence in Spain and formal study of Spanish and the amount of use of L1. We propose, based on the Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), to understand the differential manifestation of the two processes in the three enunciation modalities studied as a result of the interaction between the different tonal repertoires of Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

Perceptual effects of interpolated Austrian and German standard varieties

This article focuses on the perception of standard varieties produced by Austrian and German TV newscasters from the perspective of listeners from both countries, Germany and Austria. Thus, the paper's sociolinguistic scope is located in the pluricentric realm. It assesses (the perception of) standard language variation on fine phonetic levels. In addition to naturally produced stimuli (read sentences), “intermediate” samples were generated by means of a two-step interpolation procedure: First, the symbolic phone sequences were aligned with a Levenshtein-distance algorithm. Second, a phone-level Dynamic-Time-Warping (DTW) algorithm was applied to align the two utterances on a frame level, taking phoneme boundaries into account. Additionally, the spectrum and the fundamental frequency (F0) contour of the utterances was manipulated to be either interpolated or fixed to a given speaker. This procedure allowed for assessing these features’ contribution to listeners’ judgments of whether a given utterance sounds as if spoken by a speaker from (rather) Germany or (rather) Austria. Results of the judgment task showed that the interpolated samples were perceived in a continuous fashion, similarly by both groups, and with overall greater reliance on spectral than F0 information. These findings suggest that even fine phonetic differences between Standard German from Germany and Austria are recognized and evaluated by listeners from both countries. An overall bias towards perceiving all speech samples as closer to the listeners’ own national standard points to a factor of familiarity with one's own and uncertainty towards the ‘foreign’ standard. The similar degree of this bias indicates that both groups have similar levels of familiarity with their own and uncertainty about the other standard variety.

Effects of F0 contour depth differences on school-age children’s speech recognition in a two-talker masker

This study investigated the extent to which children (ages 5–17) can take advantage of differences in fundamental frequency (F0) contour between target and masker speech to improve speech-in-speech recognition. A number of studies show that differences in F0 and F0 contour between talkers support better speech-in-speech recognition for adults, suggesting it is an important cue for recognizing speech in multitalker environments. However, children’s use of F0 contour differences during speech-in-speech recognition is less well understood. In the present study, sentence recognition was measured adaptively in a two-talker speech masker. Target and masker sentences were recorded with either normal, flat, or exaggerated F0 contours. Results revealed that children’s sentence recognition was impacted by differences in F0 contour depth in both target and masker speech, but the pattern of results differed between children and adults in some conditions. For children, the consistent nature of the flat F0 contour often had a greater impact on speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) than target/masker differences in F0 contour depth. Observed age effects did not appear to be due to limitations in children’s ability to use F0 contour differences in general but are likely related to the perceptual salience of the target contour relative to the masker.

Bottlenose dolphin whistle repertoires: Size and stability over time

Bottlenose dolphins possess vocal learning abilities that influence the development of individually distinctive signature whistles. While signature whistles have been studied in detail, little is known about other whistle types in bottlenose dolphin communication or the size of their whistle repertoires. We made 24-hour acoustic recordings from a group of 13 bottlenose dolphins at Oceanogràfic (Valencia, Spain) for two months to determine the whistle repertoire size of this group and investigate whether learning leads to changes in existing whistle types over time. We extracted fundamental frequency contours from 50 randomly chosen whistles per day (n = 3,119 whistles) and categorised them using ARTwarp (96% vigilance level), resulting in 701 whistle types. The whistle type discovery curve did not plateau after two months, indicating that we did not capture the entire repertoire. Three analytical methods were used to estimate repertoire size (curve-fitting, a capture-recapture model, and the coupon collectors method). These produced repertoire size estimates between 888 and 1358 whistle types. Whistle types appeared and disappeared over time; however, exact randomization tests showed no significant differences between the observed patterns of appearance and disappearance and time-randomized permutations. Our results suggest that these dolphins possess a large whistle repertoire that is stable over time.