Phonetic Identification Research Articles

Dances of the tongue: Temporal cues and temporal context in the production and perception of vowels

One focus of the research program of Joanne Miller and her colleagues has been on the influence of temporal context (including speaking rate) on the perception of consonant contrasts differentiated primarily by temporal cues (e.g., Voice Onset Time as a major cue for voicing contrasts; formant transition durations for manner contrasts). This talk will summarize some of my own findings on the role of temporal context (speaking style and rate) in the perception of vowels by native and non-native speakers of American English (AE). In AE Consonant-Vowel-Consonant syllables, duration varies systematically, but redundantly, among vowels contrasting in vowel “height,” cued primarily by first formant (F1) target frequency. Additional patterns of F1 temporal trajectories (timing of F1 maximum frequency and temporal symmetry/asymmetry of F1 onset and offset trajectories) differentiate so-called tense (long) and lax (short) AE vowels. Results of this research support the conception of speech production as a rhythmic activity with nested levels of timing control. Temporal patterns in syllabic- and multisyllabic-length segments of speech simultaneously provide information for phonetic identity and super-segmental structure within an exquisitely choreographed “dance” of the articulators. Differences in perception by native and non-native listeners support the conclusion that these are language-specific, learned patterns.

Методика и критерии идентификации полонизмов литовского языка

The methodology and criteria of identification of Polish loanwords in Lithuanian
 The article examines the methodology and criteria of identification of Polish loan words in Lithuanian. Also etymology, peculiar developments, and trends in the infiltration of these borrowings are discussed. The following conclusions are proposed based on our analysis: 1) Polonisms in Lithuanian can be divided into three groups, based on the principles of (α) establishing the primary source of the variants of the Lithuanian word (through areal distribution), and (β) the words’ phonetic, morphological and semantic identity (correlated with the modulation of α). Also taken into account are peculiarities in the usage of the primary forms (not necessarily in the inherited layer) on the West Slavic ground, and their secondary variants in the East Slavic languages (based on the influence of factors α and β). The resulting three groups are: I. mo n o g e n i c (i.e. homogenous, not represented in the vocabulary of the East Slavic languages (based on factor α)), II. i n d e t e r m i n a t e (due to the presence of variants of loanwords from Polish in East Slavic vocabulary (factor α) in different time periods), III. a l t e r n a t i v e (III.1. forms belonging to the inherited layer, characteristic of Polish and one of the East Slavic languages (with regard to factor α); III.2. doublet variants of foreign origin, derived from a different primary source; III.3. Semipolonisms). 2) The kg digraph is one of the crucial characteristics that allows Polish loanwords in Lithuanian to be divided into the monogenic, indeterminate, and alternative. It is attested in the structure of Old Belorussian lexemes, and it reflects the phonetic feature of the Belorussian explosive velar consonant г /g/ in loanwords and in words of the inherited layer, in combinations with other consonants: зг, дзг, and джг. 3) Spirantization of the West Slavic sonant *ȓ (> ř /ź/ or /ś/), when the temporal factor is taken into account (the process operated till the 17th c.), is a feature of paramount importance as it allows Lithuanian words to be identified and attributed to either Polish or Belorussian. 4) The phenomenon of vocalization of the Polish lateral sonant ł (the shift to /ṷ/), also known as vavation, is reflected in those loanwords in Lithuanian which belong to a later period, in dialectal forms, and also in Belorussian lexemes, and it regulates the division of borrowings into Polonisms and Belorussianisms. 5) When attributing loanwords based on differences in vowels, it is their place in the system that should be considered, not their pronunciation. 6) The etymological status of the borrowing is determined by a match between the semantic value of the word in Lithuanian, and the original form in the West and/or East Slavic languages. 7) The fact that the Polish etymon is itself of East Slavic origin, has no influence on the establishing of the status of Polonism for a borrowing into Lithuanian (so-called secondary Polonisms).

On the principles of Chinese transcription of Mongolian sounds in the Sino-Mongolian glossaryDada yu/Beilu yiyu(late 16th–early 17th century)

The article deals with the main principles according to which Mongolian sounds are rendered into Chinese in the Sino-Mongolian glossary Dada yu/Beilu yiyu (late 16th–early 17th century) where one of the late Middle Mongolian dialects is reflected. Three such principles are distinguished by the author: (1) principle of phonetic identity (the Chinese and Mongolian segments completely coincide with each other by their features); (2) principle of phonetic substitution in its two varieties: weak phonetic substitution (the Chinese and Mongolian segments differ from each other in only one distinctive feature) and strong phonetic substitution (the Chinese and Mongolian segments are distinguished from each other by two or more features); (3) principle of zero marking (the Mongolian segment is in no way rendered into the Chinese transcription because of the impossibility of its notation by means of Chinese). The influence of different stages of the phonetic development of Chinese on the glossary’s system of transcriptions is also emphasised, such as Standard Chinese, Late Ming Guanhua, and Ancient Mandarin.

Effects of two acoustic continua on the within-category perceptual structure of tones

The present study investigated effects of two acoustic continua on the within-category perceptual structure of Putonghua Tone 2 and Tone 3. These two tones were simulated with tokens varying along two acoustic continua about F0 contour: the timing of F0 turning point and falling of F0. Three different syllable durations were tested with voice quality under control. Multidimensional scaling analyses were applied to investigate relative influence of phonetic identification and category goodness on the perceptual dissimilarity of synthesized tonal tokens. The result revealed that Tone 3 has later F0 turning point and greater F0 falling than Tone 2, which confirms former findings. The new finding is that perceptual representation of these two tones categories is different in their internal structures. Best tokens disperse within categories and are usually not unique. Perceptual space involving Tone 2 tokens shrink but that involving Tone 3 doesn't. Goodness rating contributes significantly to the dissimilarity scaling across Tone 2 tokens but not Tone 3 tokens.

The use of acoustic cues for phonetic identification: Effects of spectral degradation and electric hearing

Although some cochlear implant (CI) listeners can show good word recognition accuracy, it is not clear how they perceive and use the various acoustic cues that contribute to phonetic perceptions. In this study, the use of acoustic cues was assessed for normal-hearing (NH) listeners in optimal and spectrally degraded conditions, and also for CI listeners. Two experiments tested the tense/lax vowel contrast (varying in formant structure, vowel-inherent spectral change, and vowel duration) and the word-final fricative voicing contrast (varying in F1 transition, vowel duration, consonant duration, and consonant voicing). Identification results were modeled using mixed-effects logistic regression. These experiments suggested that under spectrally-degraded conditions, NH listeners decrease their use of formant cues and increase their use of durational cues. Compared to NH listeners, CI listeners showed decreased use of spectral cues like formant structure and formant change and consonant voicing, and showed greater use of durational cues (especially for the fricative contrast). The results suggest that although NH and CI listeners may show similar accuracy on basic tests of word, phoneme or feature recognition, they may be using different perceptual strategies in the process.

Formant frequencies, vowel identity, and the perceived relative tallness of synthetic speakers

Listeners can make consistent judgments regarding the tallness of speakers [Rendall etal., J. Exp. Psych: Human Percep. Perform. 33, 1208 (2007)]. These judgments are informed by the f0 and formant frequencies (FFs) of a speaker's voice. However, FFs are also cues to vowel identity, such that a small speaker producing an /u/ might have lower average FFs than a larger speaker producing an /æ/. Do listeners use absolute FFs to judge speaker tallness, or do they “correct” for phonetic identity and consider the FFs of a vowel relative to those expected for that category? To test this, a series of synthetic vowels (/i æ u/) with different FF scalings and different numbers of formants (2–5) were created. These scalings were intended to replicate speakers of different vocal tract lengths (i.e., sizes). Participants were presented with pairs of vowels and asked to indicate which vowel sounded like it had been produced by a taller speaker. Results indicate that listeners consider both absolute and phonetically “corrected” FF information and that formants higher than F3 greatly reduce listener's reliance on absolute F1 and F2 information in making speaker size judgments.

Non-symmetric time resolution for spectral feature trajectories

In a study presented at the fall 2010 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (Zahorian etal., “Time/frequency resolution of acoustic features for automatic speech recognition”), we demonstrated that spectral/temporal evolution features which emphasize temporal aspects of acoustic features, with relatively low spectral resolution, are effective for phonetic recognition in continuous speech. These features are computed using discrete cosine transform coefficients for spectral information from 8 ms frames and discrete cosine series coefficients (DCSCs) for their temporal evolution, over overlapping intervals (blocks) longer than 200 ms. These features are presented as an alternative to mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, and their delta terms, for automatic speech recognition (ASR). In the present work, it is shown that these features are even more effective for ASR, using a non-symmetric time window which is tilted toward the beginning of each block when computing DCSCs. This non-symmetry can be implemented by combining two Gaussian windows with different standard deviations. This work also supports the hypothesis that the left context is somewhat more informative to phonetic identity than is the right context. Experimental results for automatic phone recognition are given for various conditions using the TIMIT and NTIMIT databases.

Coherence masking protection for speech in children and adults

In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that children are more obliged than adults to fuse components of speech signals and asked whether the principle of harmonicity could explain the effect or whether it is, instead, due to children’s implementing speech-based mechanisms. Coherence masking protection (CMP) was used, which involves labeling a phonetically relevant formant (the target) presented in noise, either alone or in combination with a stable spectral band (the cosignal) that provides no additional information about phonetic identity and is well outside the critical band of the target. Adults and children (8 and 5 years old) heard stimuli that were either synthetic speech or hybrids consisting of sine wave targets and synthetic cosignals. The target and cosignal either shared a common harmonic structure or did not. An adaptive procedure located listeners’ thresholds for accurate labeling. Lower thresholds when the cosignal is present indicate CMP. Younger children demonstrated CMP effects that were both larger in magnitude and less susceptible to disruptions in harmonicity than those observed for adults. The conclusion was that children are obliged to integrate spectral components of speech signals, a perceptual strategy based on their recognition of when all components come from the same generator.

Perceptual learning of talker‐idiosyncratic phonetic cues.

A number of recent studies have explored “perceptual learning,” in which listeners use lexical knowledge to learn about a talker’s idiosyncratic phoneme pronunciations and adjust their perception of other tokens from that talker accordingly. In a typical perceptual learning study, listeners might hear an item that is ambiguous between “crocotile” and “crocodile” during exposure. Since only crocodile is a word, listeners would learn (following several examples) that this talker has long VOTs, and subsequently at test show a shift in their categorization of a /d/‐/t/ VOT continuum by the same talker. The present study explored perceptual learning through cues rather than through lexical knowledge. We used a phonetic contrast (s‐th) in which there are both primary (spectral) and secondary (amplitude/duration) cues to phonetic identity. Listeners heard tokens of minimal s‐th word pairs in which either the primary or secondary cue was ambiguous, but the alternative cue was unambiguous and thus disambiguated th...

Integrating evidence over time: A look at conditional models for speech processing.

Many acoustic events, particularly those associated with speech events, can be thought of as events in a rich descriptive subspace where the dimensions of the subspace can be thought of as a sort of decomposition of the original event space. In phonetic terms, we can think of how phonological features can be integrated to determine phonetic identity; for auditory scene analysis we can look how features like harmonic energy and cross-channel correlation come together to determine whether a particular frequency corresponds to target speech versus background noise. Some success has been achieved by thinking of these problems as probabilistic detection of acoustic (sub-)events. However, event detectors are typically local in nature and need to be smoothed out by looking at neighboring events in time. This talk describes using conditional random fields models within the automatic speech recognition setting to combine bottom-up speech event detectors. The talk will explore some of the successes and limitations of this log-linear method which integrates local evidence over time sequences.

Premotor cortex mediates perceptual performance

Articulatory goals have long been proposed to mediate perception. Examples include direct realist and constructivist (analysis by synthesis) theories of speech perception. Although the activity in brain regions involved with action production has been shown to be present during action observation (Mirror Neuron System), the relationship of this activity to perceptual performance has not been clearly demonstrated at the event level. To this end we used functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI and magnetoencephalography MEG to measure brain activity for correct and incorrect trials of an auditory phonetic identification in noise task. FMRI analysis revealed activity in the premotor cortex including the neighboring frontal opercular part of Broca's area (PMC/Broca's) for both perception and production tasks involving the same phonetic stimuli (potential mirror system site) that was significantly greater for correct over incorrect perceptual identification trials. Time–frequency analysis of single trials conducted over MEG current localized to PMC/Broca's using a hierarchical variational Bayesian source analysis technique revealed significantly greater event-related synchronization ERS and desynchronization ERD for correct over incorrect trials in the alpha, beta, and gamma frequency range prior to and after stimulus presentation. Together, these fMRI and MEG results are consistent with the hypothesis that articulatory processes serve to facilitate perceptual performance, while further dispelling concerns that activity found in ventral PMC/Broca's (mirror system) is merely a product of covert production of the perceived action. The finding of performance predictive activity prior to stimulus onset as well as activity related to task difficulty instead of information available in stimulation are consistent with constructivist and contrary to direct realist theories of perception.

Excitation patterns and phonetic identities of Chinese vowels

After entering the peripheral auditory system, a sound undergoes many significant changes. The excitation pattern describes these changes psychoacoustically as inner expression. This study investigates the relations between excitation patterns and their phonetic qualities for Chinese steady-state vowels. First, the peak positions of the envelope of excitation patterns were measured on a database. The results demonstrated that each Chinese vowel has its own special position for the representative peak of the excitation pattern. Second, to examine the sufficiency of these results, a series of experiments that consisted of identification and evaluation tasks were conducted, in which spectral components of natural isolated vowels were manipulated to create certain excitation patterns. Subjects’ responses of these stimuli show that the position of the representative peak of the excitation pattern of a vowel plays a crucial role on its phonetic identity. The results suggest that the phonetic identity of vowels is determined by the position of the representative peak of the excitation pattern evoked by it, and other peaks, if any, do not have phonetic meaning. Additionally, several phenomena about speech perception are discussed on the basis of this study.

Cues to perception of reduced flaps

Natural, spontaneous speech (and even quite careful speech) often shows extreme reduction in many speech segments, even resulting in apparent deletion of consonants. Where the flap ([inverted J]) allophone of /t/ and /d/ is expected in American English, one frequently sees an approximant-like or even vocalic pattern, rather than a clear flap. Still, the /t/ or /d/ is usually perceived, suggesting the acoustic characteristics of a reduced flap are sufficient for perception of a consonant. This paper identifies several acoustic characteristics of reduced flaps based on previous acoustic research (size of intensity dip, consonant duration, and F4 valley) and presents phonetic identification data for continua that manipulate these acoustic characteristics of reduction. The results indicate that the most obvious types of acoustic variability seen in natural flaps do affect listeners' percept of a consonant, but not sufficiently to completely account for the percept. Listeners are affected by the acoustic characteristics of consonant reduction, but they are also very skilled at evaluating variability along the acoustic dimensions that realize reduction.

Implicit learning of non‐native speech stimuli.

Previous studies have induced robust adult learning of non‐native natural speech stimuli using explicit instructions and feedback. Here, Greek adults were exposed to non‐native Hindi phonemes for six sessions in which they were unaware of the phoneme distinctions and the phonemes had no relevance to their main task. Stimuli were natural recordings of CV syllables (a retroflex or dental unvoiced stop followed by [a]) from a Hindi speaker. On each trial, participants heard two identical dental sounds and two retroflex sounds differing in intensity by an adaptively varied amount between 0.5–3 dB. The explicit task was to identify which pair differed in intensity, while the implicit learning goal was the phonetic contrast. After training, participants were tested on explicit phonetic identification and discrimination of trained and untrained stimuli spoken by the same and a novel speaker. The trained group outperformed an untrained group who were administered the same tests. Our results are compatible with a perceptual learning model where task‐irrelevant stimuli (Hindi sounds) are learned due to a systematic pairing with task targets (intensity difference). Learning did not extend to the novel speaker, in agreement with previous studies showing that variability in training is crucial for generalization.

EEG evidence of auditory size perception in adults and infants

Event Abstract Back to Event EEG evidence of auditory size perception in adults and infants Martin Vestergaard1, 2*, R. D. Patterson1, F. Pulvermüller2, G. P. Háden3, Yury Shtyrov2 and I Winkler3, 4 1 Department of Physiology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom 2 INSERM, Ecole Normale Superieure, United Kingdom 3 Institute for Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary 4 Institute of Psychology, University of Szeged, Hungary Auditory size perception refers to the ability to make accurate judgments of the size of a sound source based solely upon the sound emitted from the source. The two parameters that specify the size of a sound source are pitch and resonance. Communication sounds thus contain pitch and resonance cues that code for the size of the speaker but that are unrelated to the phonetic identity of the speech sounds. However, the human auditory system has a remarkable ability to recognize speech despite the acoustic variability associated with differences in speaker size. It has therefore been suggested that the auditory system pre-processes sound to detect and normalize for pitch and resonance, and that our ability to make judgments about the size of sound sources is based on parametric by-products of this pre-processing. For example, based solely on sound, humans can make reliable judgments about the weight and the relative size of speakers, as well as the relative size of musical instruments. Since most animal calls are pulse-resonance sounds, pitch and resonance can code for animal size in most animate communication sounds. Humans and other animals can thus use the size information encoded in communication sounds to adapt their behavior. The ability to gauge the size of the members of a species – be it a predator or a suitor – probably has an evolutionary basis. According to this notion, the auditory system operates an innate frequency code that associates low frequencies with large sources and high frequencies with small sources. Within a behavioral context, anatomical size is interpreted as dominance (for large animals) and submissiveness (for small animals). Because such behavior appears early within life it is often assumed that normalization and detection of auditory size is an innate automatic process. We collected electro-physiological and behavioral data to test whether sound-source size parameters are detected from task irrelevant sequences of communication sounds in adults and newborn infants. The MMN obtained from adults indexed automatic detection of changes in size for voices, musical instruments and animal calls. Neonates detected changes in the size of a musical instrument. The data are consistent with the notion that auditory size-deviant detection in humans is an innate automatic process. This conclusion is compatible with the theory that the ability to assess the size of sound sources evolved because it provided selective advantage of being able to detect competent suitors and dangerous predators. Conference: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications, Budapest, Hungary, 4 Apr - 7 Apr, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Presentations Citation: Vestergaard M, Patterson RD, Pulvermüller F, Háden GP, Shtyrov Y and Winkler I (2009). EEG evidence of auditory size perception in adults and infants. Conference Abstract: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.05.106 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 26 Mar 2009; Published Online: 26 Mar 2009. * Correspondence: Martin Vestergaard, Department of Physiology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, mdv23@cam.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Martin Vestergaard R. D Patterson F. Pulvermüller G. P Háden Yury Shtyrov I Winkler Google Martin Vestergaard R. D Patterson F. Pulvermüller G. P Háden Yury Shtyrov I Winkler Google Scholar Martin Vestergaard R. D Patterson F. Pulvermüller G. P Háden Yury Shtyrov I Winkler PubMed Martin Vestergaard R. D Patterson F. Pulvermüller G. P Háden Yury Shtyrov I Winkler Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Natural Boundaries in Gap Detection are Related to Categorical Perception of Stop Consonants

The hypothesis that a natural auditory psychophysical discontinuity contributes to a perceptual category boundary between voiced and voiceless English stop consonants was examined. The relationships between voice onset time (VOT) phonetic boundary and gap-detection thresholds for conditions in which the sounds delimiting the gap were acoustically identical or different were examined in 18 native young adult English speakers. It was specifically hypothesized that between-channel gap-detection thresholds, in contrast to within-channel gap thresholds, would be better predictors of categorical VOT values for listeners. The stimuli used in the between-channel gap-detection task were designed such that dissimilar leading and trailing markers of the gap approximated a stop burst and a following vowel, both in terms of temporal and spectral relationships, while being devoid of phonetic identity. The stimuli used to examine the VOT measure were synthesized bilabial stop syllables in a continuum ranging from /ba/ to /pa/. Statistically significant larger gap thresholds were found for the between-channel conditions than for the within-channel condition (p < 0.05). The center frequency of the trailing marker affected the between-channel gap thresholds with the thresholds improving as the center frequency increased (p < 0.05). Statistically significant positive correlations and predictive linear relations were found between VOT phonetic boundaries and between-channel gap thresholds (p < 0.05) but not within-channel gap thresholds (p > 0.05). A relationship between the phonetic boundary of voiced-voiceless speech sounds and the auditory temporal resolution task of detecting gaps placed within dissimilar markers, regardless of the center frequency of the trailing marker noise burst, was demonstrated. Detection of gaps between different nonspeech acoustic markers and categorical perception of VOT seems to share the same underlying perceptual timing mechanisms in native English speakers.

The Effects of Contextual Strength on Phonetic Identification in Younger and Older Listeners

It has often been reported that older listeners have difficulty discriminating between phonetically similar items, but may rely on contextual cues as a compensatory mechanism. The present study examined the effects of different degrees of semantic bias on speech perception in groups of younger and older listeners. Stimuli from two /g/-/k/ voice onset time (VOT) continua were presented at the end of biasing and neutral sentences. Results indicated that context strongly influenced phonetic identification in older listeners; this was true for younger listeners only in the case of less-than-ideal stimuli. Findings are discussed in relation to theories concerning age-related changes in speech processing.

Perception of reduced speech: Approximated stops

Natural, spontaneous speech often shows extreme reductions of many speech segments, to the point of apparent deletion. Where the flap allophone of /t/ and /d/ is expected in American English, one frequently sees an approximant‐like or even vocalic pattern, rather than a clear flap. Still, such tokens are usually perceived as containing a /t/ or /d/ (e.g. 'needle' even with a very reduced /d/ is usually not perceived as 'kneel'). The current work identifies acoustic characteristics of reduced 'flaps' and presents phonetic identification data for continua that manipulate these characteristics. Presence vs. absence of a dip in intensity, duration of that dip, and degree of that dip in decibels are manipulated. Degree of intensity dip has the strongest effect, with a minimal dip in intensity more likely to be perceived as 'kneel' and a strong dip in intensity more likely to be perceived as 'needle.' The results indicate that all three of these characteristics do affect listeners' percept of a consonant, but not sufficiently to completely account for the percept. Listeners are sensitive to the acoustic characteristics of consonant reduction, but they are also very skilled at evaluating variability along the acoustic dimensions that realize reduction.

Speech perception performance is mediated by brain regions involved with speech production

Event Abstract Back to Event Speech perception performance is mediated by brain regions involved with speech production Daniel Callan1, 2*, A. Callan3 and Mitsuo Kawato1 1 Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Japan 2 National Institute of Communication Techologies, Japan 3 ATR Cognitive Information Science Laboratories, Japan The finding that premotor areas are active not only during action production but also during observation of action, Mirror Neuron System, has led to considerable conjecture regarding the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying a variety of abilities ranging from perception to social cognition. Despite these findings, the relationship of this activity to perceptual performance has not been demonstrated. Without such evidence, it may be argued that this activity does not reflect neural processes important for perception at all, but merely reflects covert imitation of the perceived action that is the product of perceptual processing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging as well as 208 channel MEG for each subject (N=13) to measure brain activity to correct and incorrect trials on an auditory phonetic identification task. The task involved listening to a syllable (/ba/, /bo/, /da/, do/) presented aurally embedded in white noise and selecting the initial phoneme (/b/ or /d/) by button press as quickly and accurately as possible using the left hand. An event-related analysis was employed in which the correct trails were contrasted with incorrect trials. An additional fMRI experiment was conducted in which subjects overtly produced the same syllables as were presented on the auditory speech perception task. Only the left premotor cortex showed super-threshold activity differences for correct over incorrect trials (p < 0.005; spatial extent > 50 voxels, small volume correction pFDR < 0.05) (Figure 1). The activity was in the same region found to be active during speech production of the syllables, supporting the hypothesis that articulatory processes serve to facilitate perceptual performance, while further dispelling concerns that activity found in this region is merely a product of covert imitation of the perceived action. These results have far reaching implications bringing performance related support to studies proposing that action perception is mediated by brain regions involved with action production (Mirror Neuron Theory). pic1 tn_pic1 pic Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Language Citation: Callan D, Callan A and Kawato M (2008). Speech perception performance is mediated by brain regions involved with speech production. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.241 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Dec 2008; Published Online: 09 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Daniel Callan, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Kyoto, Japan, dcallan@atr.jp Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Daniel Callan A. Callan Mitsuo Kawato Google Daniel Callan A. Callan Mitsuo Kawato Google Scholar Daniel Callan A. Callan Mitsuo Kawato PubMed Daniel Callan A. Callan Mitsuo Kawato Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

The ability of expert witnesses to identify voices: a comparison between trained and untrained listerners

This study reports the results of a speaker identification experiment in which the performance of phonetic expert witnesses and untrained listeners was compared. In a direct identification task participants from both groups were asked to identify the voice of a target speaker among five foils. Results showed that expert witnesses, who were experienced in speaker identification, performed significantly better than untrained listeners, who had no experience in phonetic speaker identification.