Journal Of Phonetics Research Articles

Developmental consistency in the use of subphonemic information during real-time sentence processing

ABSTRACT Apparently homophonous sequences contain acoustic information that differentiates their meanings [Gahl. (2008). Time and thyme are not homophones: The effect of lemma frequency on word durations in spontaneous speech. Language, 84(3), 474–496; Quené. (1992). Durational cues for word segmentation in Dutch. Journal of Phonetics, 20(3), 331–350]. Adults use this information to segment embedded homophones [e.g. ham vs. hamster; Salverda et al. (2003). The role of prosodic boundaries in the resolution of lexical embedded in speech comprehension. Cognition, 90(1), 51–89] in fluent speech. Whether children also do this is unknown, as is whether listeners of any age use such information to disambiguate lexical homophones. In two experiments, 48 English-speaking adults and 48 English-speaking 7 to 10-year-old children viewed sets of four images and heard sentences containing phonemically identical sequences while their eye movements were continuously tracked. As in previous research, adults showed greater fixation of target meanings when the acoustic properties of an embedded homophone were consistent with the target than when they were consistent with the alternate interpretation. They did not show this difference for lexical homophones. Children’s behaviour was similar to that of adults, indicating that the use of subphonemic information in homophone processing is consistent over development.

The cross‐linguistic patterns of phonation types

AbstractWe provide an update on the state of research on phonation (the production of sound by the vocal folds) since Gordon and Ladefoged's, Journal of Phonetics, 2001 29, 383–406 overview, focusing on the acoustics of breathiness, creak, and other linguistic voice qualities. We highlight cross‐linguistic variation, introduce measuring techniques, and discuss the relationship between phonation and other phonological dimensions (e.g., tone, vowel quality). We also review perceptual literature, an area of phonation research that has greatly expanded recently. Taken together, the studies reviewed demonstrate that phonation types indeed lie not just on a single continuum, but in a multidimensional space.

Phonetic Documentation in Three Collections: Topics and Evolution.

Phonetic aspects of many languages have been documented, though the breadth and focus of such documentation varies substantially. In this survey, phonetic aspects (here called "categories") that are typically reported were assessed in three English-language collections-the Illustrations of the IPA, articles from the Journal of Phonetics, and papers from the Ladefoged/Maddieson Sounds of the World's Languages (SOWL) documentation project. Categories were defined for consonants (e.g., Voice Onset Time (VOT) and frication spectrum; 10 in total), vowels (e.g., formants and duration; 7 total) and suprasegmentals (e.g., stress and distinctive vowel length, 6 total). The Illustrations, due to their brevity, had, on average, limited coverage of the selected categories (12% of the 23 categories). Journal of Phonetics articles were typically theoretically motivated, but 64 had sufficient measurements to count as phonetic documentation; these also covered 12% of the categories. The SOWL studies, designed to cover as much of the phonetic structure as feasible in an article-length treatment, achieved 41% coverage on average. Four book-length studies were also examined, with an average of 49% coverage. Phonetic properties of many language families have been studied, though Indo-European is still disproportionately represented. Physiological measures were excluded as being less common, and perceptual measures were excluded as being typically more theoretical. This preliminary study indicates that certain acoustic properties of languages are typically measured and may be considered as an impetus for later, fuller coverage, but broader consensus on the categories is needed. Current documentation efforts could be more useful if these considerations were addressed.

Phonetic documentation in the literature: Coverage rates for topics and languages

With the introduction of automatic methods for examining both the acoustic and articulatory aspects of speech, our knowledge of the phonetic details of well-studied languages has grown substantially. Research on the phonetics of under-documented languages has expanded, but the breadth of coverage remains a challenge. What topics within the sound systems of these languages should be documented? With an ultimate aim of a reasonably complete typological assessment, should researchers focus on particular language families or phenomena and exclude others? Here, a survey of several hundred articles was undertaken, examining three major venues in the phonetics literature: Journal of Phonetics, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, and publications from the UCLA Languages of the World project (which appeared in various venues). 20 features were found to be addressed in many studies, and a rough guide to the coverage for a language can be seen in the total number of features reported in a study. Coverage has increased over time, but most studies still address a small percentage of the phonetic substance of the target language. Coverage across language family and region also increased but is still skewed toward Indo-European languages. Future directions and recommendations will be presented.

Velar-vowel coarticulation across the lifespan and in people who stutter: Findings and model

The study of anticipatory coarticulation provides insight into the speech production planning process. In the present study, the task involved repeating velar-vowel consonant combinations in a carrier sentence (e.g., for /ke/, “Say a cape again”). Data for velar-vowel coarticulation were analyzed using the Articulate Assistant Advanced software to create tongue traces that were quantified following the procedures for average of the nearest neighbor point-to-point distance between curves (Zharkova & Hewlett 2009, Journal of Phonetics). There were 126 participants total in child (8-12), young adult (18-39), and older adult (55-75) ages and groups of typical speakers (n = 21, 23, 29) and people who stutter (n = 15, 23, 11). Data analysis found a decrease in coarticulatory influence of the vowel on the velar across the lifespan, but no differences in coarticulation for people who stutter. Analysis of variability found greater variability for children and people who stutter. A two allophone model of coarticulation provided the best fit to the data, replicating Frisch & Wodzinski (2016, Journal of Phonetics).

A preliminary investigation of velar-vowel coarticulation in Spanish-English Bilinguals

Coarticulation, the influence of one speech sound on another in running speech, has been suggested as an index of speech motor control. Therefore, proficient and stable coarticulation could be a diagnostic tool in language assessment and speech-language pathology. In the present study coarticulation was investigated in Spanish-English bilingual adults to determine whether velar-vowel coarticulation patterns differ in English versus Spanish. Velar-vowel coarticulation was measured in six Spanish-English bilingual university students. Participants recited sentences in blocks of English, Spanish, and a mix of both languages. Each sentence included a target word starting with /k/ + vowel. Tongue movement was recorded using a sub-mental ultrasound probe held in a stabilizing helmet. Ultrasound images were analyzed to identify tongue posture following procedures of Frisch & Wodzinski (2016, Journal of Phonetics, doi: 10.1016/j.wocn.2016.01.001). The results indicate a pattern similar to that found for Interspeech Posture in French-English bilinguals (Wilson & Gick, 2014, Journal of Speech, Language, Hearing Research, doi: 10.1044/2013JSLHR-S-12-0345). Some bilinguals showed a single pattern for both languages while others produced distinct velar postures between English and Spanish.

Postfocal Downstep in German.

This article is a follow-up study of Féry and Kügler (2008. Pitch accent scaling on given, new and focused constituents in German. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 680-703). It reports on an experiment of the F0 height of potential pitch accents in the postfocal region of German sentences and addresses in this way an aspect of the influence of information structure on the intonation of sentences that was left open in the previous article. The results of the experiment showed that, when several constituents are located in this position, they are often in a downstep relation, but are rarely upstepped. In 37% of the cases, the pitch accents are only realized dynamically and there is no down- or upstepping. We interpret these results as evidence that postfocal constituents are phrased independently. The data examined speak against a model of postfocal intonation in which postfocal phrasing is eliminated and all accents are reduced to zero. Instead, the pitch accents are often present, although reduced. Moreover, the facts support the existence of prosodic phrasing of the postfocal constituents; the postfocal position implies an extremely compressed register, but no dephrasing or systematic complete deaccentuation of all pitch accents. We propose adopting a model of German intonation in which prosodic phrasing is determined by syntactic structure and cannot be changed by information structure. The role of information structure in prosody is limited to changes in the register relationship of the different parts of the sentence. Prefocally, there is no or only little register compression because of givenness. Postfocally, register compression is the rule. A model of intonation must take this asymmetry into account.

Neural correlates of individual differences in processing of rising tones in Cantonese: Implications for speech perception and production

Neural correlates of individual differences in processing of rising tones in Cantonese: Implications for speech perception and production

A Welcome Message from an Editor

It is with great delight to introduce you the Journal of Phonetics & Audiology, the journal aiming to publish works of great distinction in the area of phonetics and audiology and provide open access to articles using this platform.

A novelty effect in phonetic drift of the native language

Previous findings on adult second-language (L2) learners showed systematic phonetic changes in their production of the native language (L1) starting in the first weeks of L2 learning [Chang, C. B. (2012). Rapid and multifaceted effects of second-language learning on first-language speech production. Journal of Phonetics, 40, 249–268]. This “phonetic drift” of L1 production in novice L2 learners was consistent with reports of phonetic drift in advanced L2 learners; however, the fact that novice learners showed relatively pronounced drift was unexpected. To explore the hypothesis that this pattern is due to a novelty effect boosting the encoding and retrieval of elementary L2 experience, the current study compared the inexperienced learners analyzed previously (learners with no prior knowledge of the L2) to experienced learners enrolled in the same language program. In accordance with the hypothesis, experienced learners manifested less phonetic drift in their production of L1 stops and vowels than inexperienced learners, suggesting that progressive familiarization with an L2 leads to reduced phonetic drift at later stages of L2 experience. These findings contradict the assumption that L2 influence on the L1 is weakest at early stages of L2 learning and argue in favor of viewing the L1 and L2 both as dynamic systems undergoing continuous change.

Automating phonetic measurement: The case of voice onset time

Of 58 papers published so far this year in Journal of Phonetics, 16 (28%) feature Voice Onset Time (VOT) or related measurements, confirming that VOT remains a central concern in the field. However, phoneticians’ VOT measurements generally continue to rely on human judgment, which requires significant labor, makes even large laboratory experiments onerous, and prevents the field from taking full advantage of the millions of hours of digital speech now becoming available. We present an algorithm for accurate automatic measurement of VOT, combining HMM forced alignment for determining approximate stop boundaries with paired burst and voicing onset detectors. Each detector is a frame-level max margin classifier operating on the scale-space projection of a small number of relevant acoustic features. On a large set of clean lab speech, this system has a mean absolute error (relative to human annotation) of only 2.8 ms, with 98% of errors <10 ms. On a subcorpus independently annotated by two of the authors, the system agreed with the two human annotators as well as they agreed with one another (1.49 vs 1.50 ms). Promising results on other datasets will be reported. The system will be released as open-source software.

Sublexical Properties of Spoken Words Modulate Activity in Broca's Area but Not Superior Temporal Cortex: Implications for Models of Speech Recognition

Many models of spoken word recognition posit that the acoustic stream is parsed into phoneme level units, which in turn activate larger representations [McClelland, J. L., & Elman, J. L. The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1-86, 1986], whereas others suggest that larger units of analysis are activated without the need for segmental mediation [Greenberg, S. A multitier theoretical framework for understanding spoken language. In S. Greenberg & W. A. Ainsworth (Eds.), Listening to speech: An auditory perspective (pp. 411-433). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005; Klatt, D. H. Speech perception: A model of acoustic-phonetic analysis and lexical access. Journal of Phonetics, 7, 279-312, 1979; Massaro, D. W. Preperceptual images, processing time, and perceptual units in auditory perception. Psychological Review, 79, 124-145, 1972]. Identifying segmental effects in the brain's response to speech may speak to this question. For example, if such effects were localized to relatively early processing stages in auditory cortex, this would support a model of speech recognition in which segmental units are explicitly parsed out. In contrast, segmental processes that occur outside auditory cortex may indicate that alternative models should be considered. The current fMRI experiment manipulated the phonotactic frequency (PF) of words that were auditorily presented in short lists while participants performed a pseudoword detection task. PF is thought to modulate networks in which phoneme level units are represented. The present experiment identified activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus that was positively correlated with PF. No effects of PF were found in temporal lobe regions. We propose that the observed phonotactic effects during speech listening reflect the strength of the association between acoustic speech patterns and articulatory speech codes involving phoneme level units. On the basis of existing lesion evidence, we interpret the function of this auditory-motor association as playing a role primarily in production. These findings are consistent with the view that phoneme level units are not necessarily accessed during speech recognition.

In defense of discrete features

A major challenge for discrete feature theories of speech perception is that the acoustic signal is continuously changing within and between segments at a high rate. These theories must explain how continuously changing spectral patterns are perceived as discrete and independent features. This problem does not disappear after auditory transformations of the acoustic signal, since temporal and frequency resolution, despite being coarse, still preserve most of the signal dynamics. In this work, it is shown that if articulatory features are extracted from the continuously changing acoustic signal, assuming that the signal is the output of a lossless vocal tract terminated in a unit resistance, i.e., a Darlington configuration (Iskarous, Journal of Phonetics, 2010), it is possible to obtain a discretely changing place of articulation feature from the continuous signal change. This will be illustrated using articulatory inversion of VV and CV transitions from the X-ray microbeam database for five male and five female participants. This work supports theories of discrete and independent perceptual features, as assumed for instance by Miller and Nicely (1955), if the acoustic signal is interpreted in terms of the vocal tract actions that cause it (Goldstein and Fowler, 2003).

A one-year longitudinal study of English and Japanese vowel production by Japanese adults and children in an English-speaking setting

The effect of age of acquisition on first- and second-language vowel production was investigated. Eight English vowels were produced by Native Japanese (NJ) adults and children as well as by age-matched Native English (NE) adults and children. Productions were recorded shortly after the NJ participants' arrival in the USA and then one year later. In agreement with previous investigations [ Aoyama, Flege, Guion, Akahane-Yamada, & Yamada (2004). Journal of Phonetics, 32, 233–250], children were able to learn faster, leading to higher accuracy than adults in a year's time. Based on the spectral quality and duration comparisons, NJ adults had more accurate production at Time 1 but showed no improvement over time. The NJ children's productions, however, showed significant differences from the NE children's for English “new” vowels /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /ɑ/, /ʌ/ and /ʊ/ at Time 1 but produced all eight vowels in a native-like manner at Time 2. An examination of NJ speakers' productions of Japanese /i/, /a/, /u/ over time revealed significant changes for the NJ Child Group only. Japanese /i/ and /a/ showed changes in production that can be related to second language (L2) learning. The results suggest that L2 vowel production is affected importantly by age of acquisition and that there is a dynamic interaction, whereby the first and second language vowels affect each other.

Individual differences in the perception of final consonant voicing among native and non-native speakers of English

In two previous papers published in Journal of Phonetics, we presented findings concerning perception and production of devoicing by native speakers of Mandarin ( Hayes-Harb, Smith, Bent, & Bradlow, 2008) and native speakers of German ( Smith, Hayes-Harb, Bruss, & Harker, 2009), who were learning English as a second language (L2). As with most studies dealing with the acquisition of L2 speech perception and production, we reported findings concerning general patterns among the various groups of listeners and speakers. We have subsequently come to appreciate that although averages across groups of subjects allow for useful generalizations, it is important to be cautious in drawing strong conclusions about the nature of L2 speech perception and production based only on group data, e.g., inferring that all subjects show essentially the same pattern as represented by group averages. The purpose of the present investigation was to re-examine speech perception patterns for the English word-final voicing contrast among the native English and non-native speakers/listeners from the Hayes-Harb et al. (2008) and Smith et al. (2009) studies in greater detail and to emphasize the importance of evaluating the performance of individual listeners along with group data in future research.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Loose Lips and Silver Tongues, or, Projecting Sexual Orientation Through Speech

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Loose Lips and Silver Tongues, or, Projecting Sexual Orientation Through Speech

Diagonal d′ does not (always) diagnose failure of separability: An addendum to Kingston, Diehl, Kirk, and Castleman (2008)

Kingston, Diehl, Kirk, and Castleman [Kingston, J., Diehl, R. L., Kirk, C. J., Castleman, W.A., 2008. On the perceptual structure of distinctive features: The [voice] contrast. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 28–54] present a sophisticated experimental design and detection theoretic analysis of the internal auditory structure of phonological contrasts. However, a potentially important aspect of multidimensional detection theory—the covariance structure of assumed underlying multivariate Gaussian perceptual densities—was left unexplored. We discuss Kingston et al.'s approach in the context of a general definition of multidimensional d′ and present a description of two distinct configurations of perceptual densities requiring fundamentally different interpretations that account equally well for the “mean-shift integrality” results reported by Kingston et al. We end with a brief discussion of approaches to distinguishing these underlying configurations empirically.

Perceived sexual orientation and speech style: A perceptual and acoustic analysis of intentionally clear and conversational speech.

Munson et al. [Journal of Phonetics (2006)], found a correlation between perceived speech clarity and perceived sexual orientation (PSO) of male talkers: those who had been rated to sound gay were rated by an independent group to produce speech clearly. A smaller, opposite influence was found for women talkers. Munson et al. hypothesized that gay male speech styles might be based, in part, on clear speech styles. One weakness of Munson et al.’s study was that none of the speech examined was intentionally clear. This study follows up on this finding. A new group of 29 listeners rated the PSO of four men and four women producing conversational and intentionally clear speech, recorded as part of a larger study on interspeaker differences in talker intelligibility. PSO was rated using a five-point scale. Speech style had a moderate, statistically significant influence on PSO. In contrast with previous research, both men and women were rated as gayer-sounding when producing clear styles than when producing conversational ones. The differences in mean ratings were small. This investigation, thus, partly supports Munson et al.’s findings. The relatively small influence of speech style on PSO likely reflects the complex, content-dependent nature of gay speech styles and PSO.

Structural and dialectal effects on pitch peak alignment in two varieties of British English

We report three experiments, based on test sentences read aloud, on the influence of sentence position and phonological vowel length on the alignment of accent-related f 0 peaks in Scottish Standard English (SSE) and Southern British English (RP). One experiment deals with prenuclear accent peaks and the other two with nuclear accent peaks. Three findings confirm reports in the recent literature on several other European languages. First, as has been reported for Dutch [Ladd, D.R., Mennen, I., & Schepman, A. (2000). Phonological conditioning of peak alignment in rising pitch accents in Dutch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 2685–2696], the alignment of prenuclear peaks is later with phonologically short vowels than with long ones, and the effect cannot be explained by actual vowel duration but appears to reflect syllable structure. Second, nuclear peaks are aligned much earlier (relative to the accented vowel) than prenuclear peaks, and, as in Dutch [Schepman, A., Lickley, R., & Ladd, D.R. (2006). Effects of vowel length and ‘right context’ on the alignment of Dutch nuclear accents. Journal of Phonetics, 34, 1–28], the effect of syllable structure appears to be absent in nuclear accents; instead, their alignment is strongly influenced by whether the accented syllable is in utterance-final position. Third, as in a number of other studies, we find evidence for differences of phonetic detail between languages or language varieties: both nuclear and prenuclear peaks are aligned later in SSE than in RP, and nuclear peaks appear to be aligned earlier in English than in Dutch.

Acoustic consequences of gestural intrusion errors

An increasing number of studies have elicited speech errors in articulatory experiments, and thus evaluated errors on the basis of their articulatory properties, yet there has been no study that relates the articulatory variability observed in errors to the acoustic consequences. The present study aims to evaluate the acoustic properties of errorful/error-free [k] and [t] stimuli with known articulatory configurations (and articulatorily categorized as errorful/error-free), and determine the extent to which articulatory errors have acoustically observable consequences. The most frequent error observed in the articulatory data is an intrusion of a second gesture, resulting in a simultaneous presence of both tongue tip and tongue body gestures during production of [k] or [t]. Spectral analysis of these stimulis' bursts shows that [k] and [t] are differently affected by intrusion gestures: intrusion errors during intended [k] tokens are more robustly grouped with error-free [k] across speakers, while intrusion errors during intended [t] tokens are more variable, some being acoustically like [t], some like [k], and some like neither category, matching previous perceptual results (Pouplier & Goldstein 2004, Journal of Phonetics). These results will be discussed in the context of different timing patterns between the two co-occurring gestures during intrusion errors.