Mean Syllable Duration Research Articles

Longitudinal development of second language utterance fluency, cognitive fluency, and their relationship

AbstractThe development of L2 utterance fluency has been extensively researched, whereas that of cognitive fluency has rarely been examined. This study investigated the longitudinal development of L2 utterance and cognitive fluency and their relationship. Thirty-one Chinese learners of English completed speaking tasks and a set of tasks for cognitive fluency before and after 5 months’ study abroad. The results showed that participants made a significant improvement in mean syllable duration, end-clause pause frequency, and the speed of syntactic encoding and articulation but not in mid-clause pause frequency or lexical retrieval speed. Mixed-effects modeling confirmed a significant relationship between syntactic encoding speed and mean syllable duration and mid-clause pausing. Furthermore, the significant relationships were maintained over time. The findings highlight (a) the differences between mid-clause and end-clause pausing in terms of their developmental patterns and relationship with cognitive fluency and (b) a significant role of syntactic encoding speed in L2 utterance fluency.

Há declínio na fala de pacientes com Miastenia Gravis ao longo de 4 anos?

ABSTRACT Purpose To compare the speech and voice patterns of myasthenia gravis (MG) patients over four years, and correlate the results with clinical aspects of the disease. Methods Data was collected for 4 years. The clinical assessment tools included the Quantitative Myasthenia Gravis (QMG) score, the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America (MGFA) clinical classification, and the Myasthenia Gravis Quality of Life 15-item Scale (MG-QoL). To assess speech, the recorded speaking tasks were analyzed acoustically and given auditory-perceptual ratings. Sex (equal distribution) and age (p=0.949) were used as matching criteria in the final sample, which consisted of 10 individuals in the MG group (MGG) and 10 individuals in the control group (CG). Results After 4 years, the MG participants presented stable health status, increased mild and moderate dysarthria (from 40% to 90% of the subjects), and a significant deterioration in the respiration, phonation, and articulation subsystems. The acoustic analysis showed a decline in articulatory patterns (speech rate p=0.047, articulation rate p=0.007, mean syllable duration p=0.007) and vocal quality (increased jitter p=0.022). In the follow-up comparison, there was a significant difference between the phonation variables (shimmer and harmonic-to-noise ratio) of the MGG and CG. Conclusion The MG patients presented a decline in speech over four years and an increase in mild and moderate dysarthria. Despite presenting stable health status, their respiratory, phonatory, and articulatory subsystems worsened. There was no correlation between speech patterns and clinical characteristics of the disease (severity and motor scale).

Individual differences in adults' second language fluency development: Motivation and language use

Utterance fluency (UF) in a second language (L2) has been found to be associated with L2 proficiency. Nevertheless, the longitudinal development of UF has been underexamined and its relationship with individual differences such as motivation and L2 use has rarely been investigated simultaneously. The current study investigated L1-Chinese L2-English speakers' changes in UF (speed, pausing, and repair phenomena) before and after 5-month study-abroad and related UF changes to L2 use and motivation. The results showed that participants improved in mean syllable duration and end-clause silent pausing. Individuals' changes in certain UF measures, such as mean syllable duration and mid-clause pause frequency, were positively correlated with daily use of L2. Motivation measures largely did not exhibit significant correlations with UF changes, whereas ideal L2 self and intended effort/commitment demonstrated significant positive relationships with daily L2 use.

Automated Detection of Speech Timing Alterations in Autopsy-Confirmed Nonfluent/Agrammatic Variant Primary Progressive Aphasia.

Motor speech function, including speech timing, is a key domain for diagnosing nonfluent/agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA). Yet, standard assessments use subjective, specialist-dependent evaluations, undermining reliability and scalability. Moreover, few studies have examined relevant anatomo-clinical alterations in patients with pathologically confirmed diagnoses. This study overcomes such caveats using automated speech timing analyses in a unique cohort of autopsy-proven cases. In a cross-sectional study, we administered an overt reading task and quantified articulation rate, mean syllable and pause duration, and syllable and pause duration variability. Neuroanatomical disruptions were assessed using cortical thickness and white matter (WM) atrophy analysis. We evaluated 22 persons with nfvPPA (mean age: 67.3 years; 13 female patients) and confirmed underlying 4-repeat tauopathy, 15 persons with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA; mean age: 66.5 years; 8 female patients), and 10 healthy controls (HCs; 70 years; 5 female patients). All 5 speech timing measures revealed alterations in persons with nfvPPA relative to both the HC and svPPA groups, controlling for dementia severity. The articulation rate robustly discriminated individuals with nfvPPA from HCs (area under the ROC curve [AUC] = 0.95), outperforming specialist-dependent perceptual measures of dysarthria and apraxia of speech severity. Patients with nfvPPA exhibited structural abnormalities in left precentral and middle frontal as well as bilateral superior frontal regions, including their underlying WM. The articulation rate correlated with atrophy of the left pars opercularis and supplementary/presupplementary motor areas. Secondary analyses showed that, controlling for dementia severity, all measures yielded greater deficits in patients with nfvPPA and corticobasal degeneration (nfvPPA-CBD, n = 12) than in those with progressive supranuclear palsy pathology (nfvPPA-PSP, n = 10). The articulation rate robustly discriminated between individuals in each subgroup (AUC = 0.82). More widespread cortical thinning was observed for the nfvPPA-CBD than the nfvPPA-PSP group across frontal regions. Automated speech timing analyses can capture specific markers of nfvPPA while potentially discriminating between patients with different tauopathies. Thanks to its objectivity and scalability; this approach could support standard speech assessments. This study provides Class III evidence that automated speech analysis can accurately differentiate patients with nonfluent PPA from normal controls and patients with semantic variant PPA.

Does the Reuse of Constructions Promote Fluency Development in Task Repetition? A Usage‐Based Perspective

AbstractIn this task‐repetition intervention study, L2 learners’ reuse of linguistic constructions was analyzed to investigate to what extent recurring reliance on specific constructions during the same task repetition predicts fluency development. English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language (EFL) learners performed oral narrative tasks three times per day under two task repetition schedules: blocked (Day 1: Prompt A‐A‐A, Day 2: B‐B‐B, Day 3: C‐C‐C) versus interleaved (Day 1: Prompt A‐B‐C, Day 2: A‐B‐C, Day 3: A‐B‐C). From a usage‐based perspective, their reuse of constructions across the same prompt was examined at both concrete (lexical unigram [e.g., “bicycle”] and trigram [e.g., “behind the bicycle”]) and abstract (parts of speech trigram [e.g., “preposition determiner noun”]) level. Subsequent analyses revealed that blocked practice led to higher reuse of both concrete and abstract constructions than interleaved practice. Reuse frequency was correlated with during‐training and pretest–posttest fluency changes. Particularly, greater reuse of lexical and abstract trigrams during interleaved practice led to improvements in speed and breakdown fluency (i.e., shorter mean syllable duration and fewer mid‐clause pauses) after the intervention, albeit with higher effort (indicated by longer mid‐clause and clause‐final pauses). Taken together, these findings indicate that manipulating task‐repetition schedule may systematically induce reuse of linguistic constructions, which may promote proceduralization (entrenchment) of constructional knowledge at both concrete and abstract levels.

An investigation into utterance-fluency patterns of advanced LL bilinguals

Abstract Adult late-LL learners are the main source of participants for research on utterance fluency. Although there are ample opportunities to study these learners, bilinguals who come from a more diverse background are under-researched. This paper investigates the effects of long-term bilingualism on the second-language fluency patterns of a community of LL-Afrikaans/LL-Spanish bilinguals residing in Patagonia, Argentina. These third-generation bilinguals are dominant in their LL and are undergoing LL attrition. The acoustic analysis draws from a corpus of Spanish sociolinguistic interviews obtained from the bilinguals, who were compared to Spanish monolinguals on speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. For some measures (mean-syllable duration and phonation-time ratio), the bilinguals performed similarly to the Spanish monolinguals, whereas for other measures the results were mixed: the bilinguals produced less filled pauses, but used longer silent pauses and more reformulations, than the monolinguals. These outcomes are theorized within current models of LL-speech production.

Explaining second language utterance fluency: Contribution of cognitive fluency and first language utterance fluency

AbstractGiven that utterance fluency in a second language (L2) is associated with not only L2 cognitive fluency but also utterance fluency in the first language (L1), the study examined to what extent different measures of L2 utterance fluency can be explained by L2-specific cognitive fluency and/or the corresponding L1 utterance fluency measures. Utterance fluency measures on speed, breakdown, and repair phenomena and cognitive fluency measures including speed of lexical retrieval, syntactic encoding, and articulation were collected in the L1 and the L2 from 44 Chinese learners of English. The results show that most L2 utterance fluency measures are accounted for by the combination of L2-specific cognitive fluency measures and the equivalent L1 utterance fluency measure, whereas the number of mid-clause silent pauses and corrections, and mean syllable duration are largely explained by L2-specific cognitive measures, suggesting that they reflect L2-specific knowledge and cognitive skills. In contrast, mean silent pause duration and the number of filled pauses are mainly explained by the corresponding L1 utterance fluency measures.

What Features Best Characterize Adult Second Language Utterance Fluency and What Do They Reveal About Fluency Gains in Short-Term Immersion?

This study reports on how one can examine a second language (L2) speech corpus in order to define which of many possible features of L2 utterance fluency (i.e., speech fluidity) should be the focus of an L2 fluency gains investigation. Participants were 100 adult English-speakers enrolled in a French immersion program. Data from 50 randomly selected participants were assigned to Sample A for Analysis 1 and the remainder to Sample B for Analysis 2. In Analysis 1, 23 candidate speech features, drawn from the literature at large, were examined in Sample A through a series of logical and statistical steps and systematically reduced to four features as constituting a core set of L2 utterance fluency features. In Analysis 2, these four features were examined in the Sample B corpus for gains after 5 weeks of immersion. Results indicated strong gains on all four. In Analysis 3, by way of replication, we reversed the process by using the Sample B data to first define the target fluency features and then the Sample A data to test for fluency gains. The main results replicated those of Analyses 1 and 2. The four features that emerged as core L2 utterance fluency features were mean syllable run length and mean phonation run length between silent pauses, and mean syllable duration and mean silent pause duration. Mean filled pause duration did not meet the criteria for belonging to the same fluency construct. Overall, the results showed that it is possible (a) to operationally define L2 fluency markers without reference to fluency gains, and (b) to then use these fluency markers to study L2 fluency gains without the gains data having shaped the operational definition of fluency in the first place, thereby avoiding the circularity of post hoc identification of relevant variables.

Persuasive talk and pitch

The goal of the present study is to explore how the impact of pragmatic value, degree of giving and position in Intonation Phrase (IP) rhythmic structure can be reconciled in the ongoing discourse. Six interviews were saved on tapes, and then they were transcribed. These interviews were divided into two parts: auditory and acoustic. For analysis, 389 words were selected, and the mean syllable duration in these selected words showed the cognitive scenario and intensifiers. The data were grouped according to novelty/giving, the pragmatic value of the words representing different frames (concepts) of the scenario and the position in IP construction. Statistical analysis showed that the prominence category is on a gradient. Moreover, the pragmatic value of the words represent different concepts/frames in the scenario. According to this research's data, the final position in IP is most favourable. Based on the results of this study, rhythm has a role in regulating and rearranging discourse.

Convergence of speech rate in conversation predicts cooperation

During conversation, interlocutors coordinate their behavior on many levels. Two distinct forms of behavioral coordination have been empirically linked with affiliation and cooperation during or following face-to-face interaction: behavior matching and interpersonal synchrony. Only the latter form constitutes behavioral entrainment involving a coupling between independent oscillators. We present the first study of the association between spontaneously occurring behavioral coordination and post-interaction economic game play. Triads of same-sexed strangers conversed for 10min, after which each participant played an unannounced one-shot prisoner's dilemma (PD) toward each co-participant. When dyads had higher language style matching scores (LSM: Gonzales, A.L., Hancock, J.T., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2010). Language style matching as a predictor of social dynamics in small groups. Communication Research, 31, 3–19), the individuals evaluated each other more positively, but they were no more likely to cooperate in the PD. However, when dyads' speech rates (mean syllable duration) converged more strongly from the beginning to the end of the conversation, they were more likely to cooperate in the PD, despite no effect on interpersonal evaluations. Speech rate convergence, a form of rhythmic entrainment, could benefit interlocutors by mutually reducing cognitive processing during interaction. We suggest that spontaneous, temporally based behavioral coordination might facilitate prosocial behavior when the joint cooperative effort is itself perceived as a form of coordination.

Effects of amygdala lesions on male mouse ultrasonic vocalizations and copulatory behaviour

Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in several behavioural contexts. In particular, male mice articulate a long series of various sounds to females during courtship behaviour. To determine the relationships between this kind of vocal behaviour and emotion, we examined the lesion effects of the amygdala, an important neural module in emotional behaviour, on USVs. We recorded USVs from mice in the lesion and the control (sham operation) groups upon presentation of females and compared USVs before and after surgery. We found that the mean syllable duration of the USVs shortened and the appearance rate of longer syllables decreased after the surgery. The main reasons for these alterations could be explained by the altered courtship behaviour. As reported previously, the mounting behaviour of the lesion group after surgery was markedly less than that of the control group. Therefore, the appearance rate of those longer syllables would decrease logically because longer syllables primarily appear during mounting and intromission. However, we can hypothesize another scenario for the alterations to vocal behaviour: effects on the direct amygdala-periaqueductal grey (PAG) projection might be involved in the increase in the appearance rate of shorter syllables owing to lesion-induced loss of emotions, such as vigilance. Overall, the results suggested two possible mechanisms of the amygdala lesions on the alteration of the vocal behaviour.

Linguistic skills and speaking fluency in a second language

ABSTRACTThis study investigated how individual differences in linguistic knowledge and processing skills relate to individual differences in speaking fluency. Speakers of Dutch as a second language (N = 179) performed eight speaking tasks, from which several measures of fluency were derived such as measures for pausing, repairing, and speed (mean syllable duration). In addition, participants performed separate tasks, designed to gauge individuals’ second language linguistic knowledge and linguistic processing speed. The results showed that the linguistic skills were most strongly related to average syllable duration, of which 50% of individual variance was explained; in contrast, average pausing duration was only weakly related to linguistic knowledge and processing skills.

Prosodic Contrasts in Ironic Speech

Prosodic features in spontaneous speech help disambiguate implied meaning not explicit in linguistic surface structure, but little research has examined how these signals manifest themselves in real conversations. Spontaneously produced verbal irony utterances generated between familiar speakers in conversational dyads were acoustically analyzed for prosodic contrasts. A prosodic contrast was defined as a statistically reliable shift between adjacent phrasal units in at least 1 of 5 acoustic dimensions (mean fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency variability, mean amplitude, amplitude variability, and mean syllable duration). Overall, speakers contrasted prosodic features in ironic utterances with utterances immediately preceding them at a higher rate than between adjacent nonironic utterance pairs from the same interactions. Across multiple speakers, ironic utterances were spoken significantly slower than preceding speech, but no other acoustic dimensions changed consistently. This is the first acoustic analysis examining relative prosodic changes in spontaneous ironic speech. Prosodic contrasts are argued to be an important mechanism for communicating implicit emotional and intentional information in speech—and a means to understanding traditional notions of an ironic tone.

We perceive music before we understand speech

In his article ”Musical emotions: Functions, origins, evolution”[1], Perlovsky explains ”concept-models” with the analogy of the projection of memories and representations onto the visual cortex. He postulates the principle of ”knowledge instinct” that aims at matching concept-models to the surroundings. According to Perlovsky, this instinct causes emotions, satisfaction or dissatisfaction, depending on whether the world and our knowledge about the world coincide. In a hierarchy of concepts, each higher level gives a meaning to the level below. He claims that emotions and concepts have separated for humans. Languages balance between both aspects. By ”differentiation”, he denotes the generation of more specific, detailed concepts, whereas ”synthesis” is performed by the knowledge instinct, creating meanings and purpose on higher levels. For a ”knowledge-accumulating” dynamic culture, or as a special case, music evolution, Perlovsky suggests a dialectic theory, an oscillation between high and low differentiation and synthesis. In the tradition of an integral humanistic view of cultural, aesthetic and musical evolution, Perlovsky’s theory claims wide generalizability. Its formulation as a testable hypothesis poses a challenge. Also in the evolution of the individual human being, there is a state of unity between concept and emotion. Among the first concepts babies can distinguish are the emotional states of their mothers. If we consider rhythm and pitch contours to be among the main constituting features of music, we could say that a baby learns language through music. If their mother is loving/comfortable, fearful or surprised is reflected in the rhythmical pitch contour of the mother’s speech [2, 3]. Mean pitch, mean pitch range, mean syllable duration characterize the different emotions. The infant learns to

Neural encoding of auditory temporal context in a songbird basal ganglia nucleus, and its independence of birds' song experience

Some of the most complex auditory neurons known are found in the songbird forebrain, throughout the 'song system', including its basal ganglia nucleus Area X. These cells are selective for the temporal order of the bird's own song (BOS): they typically respond strongly to BOS, but more weakly when the syllable sequence of BOS is played in reverse order (roBOS), indicating that they integrate auditory information over more than single syllables. Here, studying the zebra finch Area X, we found that order selectivity strongly depends on the mean syllable duration of individual songs, decreasing markedly as this duration approaches 150-200 ms. Simply segmenting the same songs differently, creating an increase in average syllable length towards 150 ms, caused a similar decrease in order selectivity. This suggests that song neurons integrate acoustic information over a relatively limited time window, predominantly less than 150 ms. We provided further support for this by showing that a significant fraction of Area X order selectivity was accounted for by the acoustic similarity between each BOS and roBOS, measured using cross-correlation with fixed window sizes, but only when the correlation windows were at least 50 ms and no more than 200 ms long. All the same findings were evident in birds raised without tutor exposure, indicating that tutor learning has little effect on neural mechanisms underlying song temporal selectivity. Our results suggest that song-selective neurons encode much of the temporal context of song using a short, constant time window that is conserved across differences in songs, birds and learning.

Prosodic and lexical aspects of maternal linguistic input to late‐talking toddlers

Children who have reached the age of 2 years without having acquired a 50-word vocabulary and/or who use no word combinations are referred to in the literature as 'Late Talkers'. Research has not yet identified the factors that cause slow development of expressive language; in particular, relatively little research has been carried out on the characteristics of the maternal linguistic input received by Late Talkers. In fact, the majority of studies in this area have focused principally on the mothers' semantic, pragmatic and interactive verbal behaviour. The objective was to verify whether the input addressed to a group of Late Talkers differs to that addressed to a group of typically developing peers. It was expected that there would be differences in the prosodic and structural/lexical properties of the input, which by creating a 'less than optimal environment' for language acquisition processes, could affect the children's rate of linguistic development. The spontaneous maternal speech of nine Italian-speaking mothers of late-talking toddlers (LT) at 20 months of age was examined and compared with that of nine mothers of age-matched children with typical language development (Late Starters). Data were collected during video-recorded play sessions, which were transcribed and coded based on the structural-lexical and acoustical characteristics of the mothers' speech. Group differences were tested for the following variables: number of utterances per minute, mean number of words per utterance (MLUw), number of nouns per minute, number of different nouns per minute, common nouns as a percentage of overall words, type/token ratio for common nouns, one-word utterances as a percentage of the total number of utterances, one-word utterances formed by a common noun as a percentage of the total number of utterances, mean syllable duration, duration of the final syllable of the utterance, F0 maximum (the highest F0 in the utterance), F0 minimum (the lowest F0 in the utterance) and F0 range (by subtracting F0 min from F0 max). The mothers of LT produced common nouns and mark nouns by a pitch peak with a significantly lower frequency than the mothers of the children with typical language development. The mothers of LT also used flat pitch contours more often than the mothers of the typically developing peers. The study provides evidence that maternal input addressed to Late Talkers can contribute to slowing the process of language acquisition. Based on these findings, additional investigations that examine the contribution of maternal verbal behaviour to the development of language delay are warranted.

VOT and hearing impairment

When deafened adults recover some hearing after receiving a cochlear implant, numerous changes in their speech occur at both phonemic and suprasegmental levels. If a change toward normative values is observed for some phonemic parameter, it may be attributed to the restored hearing; however, it may be a by-product of a suprasegmental change. Consistent with results reported for speakers with normal hearing, Lane et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98, 3096–3106 (1995)] observed in implant users that VOT varies approximately linearly with syllable duration. Therefore, in comparing pre- and postimplant measures of VOT in five speakers, each token’s VOT was adjusted for the change in syllable duration of that token relative to the mean syllable duration in a baseline session (called VOTc). Preimplant, the deaf speakers characteristically uttered plosives with abnormally short VOTc. With some hearing restored, four of the five lengthened VOTc. Changes in voiced plosives’ VOTc with restored hearing were correlated with changes in SPL. Some of the reliable VOTc increases that were not correlated with SPL may have been caused by auditory validation of an internal model for phoneme production. Recent studies of VOT in hearing-impaired speakers will be reviewed in this light. [Work supported by NIDCD, NIH.]

The question of randomness in English foot timing: a control experiment

Isochrony has been considered only in terms of stressed syllables. However, it may also be a random property of unstressed syllables, and a control experiment was deemed necessary. A hand-transcribed database of 98 sentences, each produced by three speakers, formed the input to an algorithm calculating durations of feet, number of syllables per foot, and mean syllable duration within each foot. In each output dataset, feet were based on one of the following criteria: stressed, tense, unreduced, random, or arbitrary syllables (the latter based on ordinal numbers of syllables within the utterance). Calculations were made of the correlations between foot duration and number of syllables per foot, and between mean syllable duration and number of syllables per foot. The “foot compression effect” was shown to be nonrandom, and due to linguistic rather than arbitrary factors. A detailed examination of actual syllable durations was then carried out. The main determinants of syllable duration were the number of constituent segments, and syllable status in terms of target/non-target. A small but significant syllable shortening effect was also found, dependent on the number of syllables in the foot, which was linguistic rather than random.

Changes in voice-onset time in speakers with cochlear implants.

Voice-onset time (VOT) and syllable duration were measured for the English plosives in /Cad/(C = consonant) context spoken by four postlingually deafened recipients of multichannel (Ineraid) cochlear implants. Recordings were made of their speech before, and at intervals following, activation of the speech processors of their implants. Three patients reduced mean syllable duration following activation. Using measures of VOT and syllable duration from speakers with normal hearing [Volaitis and Miller, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 723-735 (1992)] and from the subjects of this study, VOT is shown to vary approximately linearly with syllable duration over the ranges produced here. Therefore, the VOT of each token was adjusted for the change in syllable duration of that token relative to the mean syllable duration in the first baseline session. This variable, labeled VOTc, was used to evaluate the effects on voicing of the speakers' renewed access to the voicing contrast provided by their implants. Preimplant, all four speakers characteristically uttered voiced plosives with too-short VOT, compared to the measures for hearing speakers. Voiceless plosive mean VOT was also abnormally short for two of the speakers, and close to normal for the remaining two. With some hearing restored, subjects made relatively few errors with respect to voicing when identifying plosives in listening tests, and three of the four speakers lengthened VOTc. The findings are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that speakers use their hearing to calibrate mechanisms of speech production by monitoring the relations between their articulations and their acoustic output.

Investigating randomness in foot timing patterns in English

Isochrony has been considered only in terms of stressed syllables. However, it may also be a random property of unstressed syllables, and a control experiment was deemed necessary. A hand‐transcribed database of 98 sentences, each produced by three speakers, formed the input to an algorithm calculating durations of feet, number of syllables per foot, and mean syllable duration within each foot. In each output dataset, feet were based on one of the following: stressed, tense, unreduced, random, or arbitrary syllables (the latter based on ordinal numbers of syllables within the utterance). Calculations were made of the correlations between foot duration and number of syllables per foot, and between foot duration and mean syllable duration. The first correlation was significant for all foot types; the second was significant (and negative) for all except the random and arbitrary types. The conclusion was that, although the mechanism of the tendency toward isochrony had by no means been discovered, it had been shown that the tendency was nonrandom and was due to linguistic rather than arbitrary factors.