Similar Syllables Research Articles

An Error Analysis of the Perception Based on Accent in Japanese

Japanese has many words that have similar syllables but different meanings. However, for non-native speakers, these differences in meaning are quite difficult to spot as they can only be distinguished by tone also refers to accent. This study aims to analyze the misperception of accents in words with the same syllable. The data collected in this study were conducted through a perception test. These words were categorized based on the error types of the specified syllables. This study’s respondents are 20 students of the 3rd and 5th semester Japanese Department of Universitas Komputer Indonesia in the 2022/2023 academic year. The results showed that accent perception errors in respondents mostly occurred in Odaka accent patterns and many words with accents of 4 mora. Perception errors occur because students are unfamiliar with the vocabulary and accent patterns. This is related to the length of student learning.

Adaptive Syllable Training Improves Phoneme Identification in Older Listeners with and without Hearing Loss.

Acoustic-phonetic speech training mitigates confusion between consonants and improves phoneme identification in noise. A novel training paradigm addressed two principles of perceptual learning. First, training benefits are often specific to the trained material; therefore, stimulus variability was reduced by training small sets of phonetically similar consonant-vowel-consonant syllables. Second, the training is most efficient at an optimal difficulty level; accordingly, the noise level was adapted to the participant's competency. Fifty-two adults aged between sixty and ninety years with normal hearing or moderate hearing loss participated in five training sessions within two weeks. Training sets of phonetically similar syllables contained voiced and voiceless stop and fricative consonants, as well as voiced nasals and liquids. Listeners identified consonants at the onset or the coda syllable position by matching the syllables with their orthographic equivalent within a closed set of three alternative symbols. The noise level was adjusted in a staircase procedure. Pre-post-training benefits were quantified as increased accuracy and a decrease in the required signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and analyzed with regard to the stimulus sets and the participant's hearing abilities. The adaptive training was feasible for older adults with various degrees of hearing loss. Normal-hearing listeners performed with high accuracy at lower SNR after the training. Participants with hearing loss improved consonant accuracy but still required a high SNR. Phoneme identification improved for all stimulus sets. However, syllables within a set required noticeably different SNRs. Most significant gains occurred for voiced and voiceless stop and (af)fricative consonants. The training was beneficial for difficult consonants, but the easiest to identify consonants improved most prominently. The training enabled older listeners with different capabilities to train and improve at an individual 'edge of competence'.

On the Emergence of Phonological Knowledge and on Motor Planning and Motor Programming in a Developmental Model of Speech Production.

A broad sketch for a model of speech production is outlined which describes developmental aspects of its cognitive-linguistic and sensorimotor components. A description of the emergence of phonological knowledge is a central point in our model sketch. It will be shown that the phonological form level emerges during speech acquisition and becomes an important representation at the interface between cognitive-linguistic and sensorimotor processes. Motor planning as well as motor programming are defined as separate processes in our model sketch and it will be shown that both processes revert to the phonological information. Two computational simulation experiments based on quantitative implementations (simulation models) are undertaken to show proof of principle of key ideas of the model sketch: (i) the emergence of phonological information over developmental stages, (ii) the adaptation process for generating new motor programs, and (iii) the importance of various forms of phonological representation in that process. Based on the ideas developed within our sketch of a production model and its quantitative spell-out within the simulation models, motor planning can be defined here as the process of identifying a succession of executable chunks from a currently activated phoneme sequence and of coding them as raw gesture scores. Motor programming can be defined as the process of building up the complete set of motor commands by specifying all gestures in detail (fully specified gesture score including temporal relations). This full specification of gesture scores is achieved in our model by adapting motor information from phonologically similar syllables (adapting approach) or by assembling motor programs from sub-syllabic units (assembling approach).

On the Tangut prefix 2da:-

The Tangut language was spoken during the Xixia (Tangut) dynasty (A.D. 1038-1227) in the northwestern part of China.The first emperor (A.D. 1036) established the Tangut script for the language. Although the Tangut language and its script are now extinct, the many documents written in the Tangut script enable us to reconstruct its phonology and grammar. Tangut belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group (Tangut-Qiang). Its grammar possesses unique features that are not found in either Old Tibetan or Old Burman. One of such features is a directional prefix. Six or seven morphemes function as prefixes. Previous works have discussed the change in the function of the prefix from directional to aspect (perfective). Some minor Tibeto-Burman languages have morphemes that are similar syllables or functions to Tangut. In this article, we present the outline of the prefixes and a description of the prefix 2da:- with sample sentences and discuss some remarks

Maximum Speech Performance and Executive Control in Young Adult Speakers.

Purpose This study investigated whether maximum speech performance, more specifically, the ability to rapidly alternate between similar syllables during speech production, is associated with executive control abilities in a nonclinical young adult population. Method Seventy-eight young adult participants completed two speech tasks, both operationalized as maximum performance tasks, to index their articulatory control: a diadochokinetic (DDK) task with nonword and real-word syllable sequences and a tongue-twister task. Additionally, participants completed three cognitive tasks, each covering one element of executive control (a Flanker interference task to index inhibitory control, a letter-number switching task to index cognitive switching, and an operation span task to index updating of working memory). Linear mixed-effects models were fitted to investigate how well maximum speech performance measures can be predicted by elements of executive control. Results Participants' cognitive switching ability was associated with their accuracy in both the DDK and tongue-twister speech tasks. Additionally, nonword DDK accuracy was more strongly associated with executive control than real-word DDK accuracy (which has to be interpreted with caution). None of the executive control abilities related to the maximum rates at which participants performed the two speech tasks. Conclusion These results underscore the association between maximum speech performance and executive control (cognitive switching in particular).

Processing of word stress related acoustic information: A multi-feature MMN study

In the present study, we investigated the processing of word stress related acoustic features in a word context. In a passive oddball multi-feature MMN experiment, we presented a disyllabic pseudo-word with two acoustically similar syllables as standard stimulus, and five contrasting deviants that differed from the standard in that they were either stressed on the first syllable or contained a vowel change. Stress was realized by an increase of f0, intensity, vowel duration or consonant duration. The vowel change was used to investigate if phonemic and prosodic changes elicit different MMN components. As a control condition, we presented non-speech counterparts of the speech stimuli.Results showed all but one feature (non-speech intensity deviant) eliciting the MMN component, which was larger for speech compared to non-speech stimuli. Two other components showed stimulus related effects: the N350 and the LDN (Late Discriminative Negativity). The N350 appeared to the vowel duration and consonant duration deviants, specifically to features related to the temporal characteristics of stimuli, while the LDN was present for all features, and it was larger for speech than for non-speech stimuli. We also found that the f0 and consonant duration features elicited a larger MMN than other features.These results suggest that stress as a phonological feature is processed based on long-term representations, and listeners show a specific sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental cues signaling the prosodic boundaries of words. These findings support a two-stage model in the perception of stress and phoneme related acoustical information.

On the Origins of Phonology

Why do humans drink and drive but fail to rdink and rdive? Here, I suggest that these regularities could reflect abstract phonological principles that are active in the minds and brains of all speakers. In support of this hypothesis, I show that (a) people converge on the same phonological preferences (e.g., dra over rda) even when the relevant structures (e.g., dra, rda) are unattested in their language and that (b) such behavior is inexplicable by purely sensorimotor pressures or experience with similar syllables. Further support for the distinction between phonology and the sensorimotor system is presented by their dissociation in dyslexia, on the one hand, and the transfer of phonological knowledge from speech to sign, on the other. A detailed analysis of the phonological system can elucidate the functional architecture of the typical mind/brain and the etiology of speech and language disorders.

A Causal Inference Model Explains Perception of the McGurk Effect and Other Incongruent Audiovisual Speech.

Audiovisual speech integration combines information from auditory speech (talker’s voice) and visual speech (talker’s mouth movements) to improve perceptual accuracy. However, if the auditory and visual speech emanate from different talkers, integration decreases accuracy. Therefore, a key step in audiovisual speech perception is deciding whether auditory and visual speech have the same source, a process known as causal inference. A well-known illusion, the McGurk Effect, consists of incongruent audiovisual syllables, such as auditory “ba” + visual “ga” (AbaVga), that are integrated to produce a fused percept (“da”). This illusion raises two fundamental questions: first, given the incongruence between the auditory and visual syllables in the McGurk stimulus, why are they integrated; and second, why does the McGurk effect not occur for other, very similar syllables (e.g., AgaVba). We describe a simplified model of causal inference in multisensory speech perception (CIMS) that predicts the perception of arbitrary combinations of auditory and visual speech. We applied this model to behavioral data collected from 60 subjects perceiving both McGurk and non-McGurk incongruent speech stimuli. The CIMS model successfully predicted both the audiovisual integration observed for McGurk stimuli and the lack of integration observed for non-McGurk stimuli. An identical model without causal inference failed to accurately predict perception for either form of incongruent speech. The CIMS model uses causal inference to provide a computational framework for studying how the brain performs one of its most important tasks, integrating auditory and visual speech cues to allow us to communicate with others.

Different Neural Networks Are Involved in Audiovisual Speech Perception Depending on the Context

How are we able to easily and accurately recognize speech sounds despite the lack of acoustic invariance? One proposed solution is the existence of a neural representation of speech syllable perception that transcends its sensory properties. In the present fMRI study, we used two different audiovisual speech contexts both intended to identify brain areas whose levels of activation would be conditioned by the speech percept independent from its sensory source information. We exploited McGurk audiovisual fusion to obtain short oddball sequences of syllables that were either (a) acoustically different but perceived as similar or (b) acoustically identical but perceived as different. We reasoned that, if there is a single network of brain areas representing abstract speech perception, this network would show a reduction of activity when presented with syllables that are acoustically different but perceived as similar and an increase in activity when presented with syllables that are acoustically similar but perceived as distinct. Consistent with the long-standing idea that speech production areas may be involved in speech perception, we found that frontal areas were part of the neural network that showed reduced activity for sequences of perceptually similar syllables. Another network was revealed, however, when focusing on areas that exhibited increased activity for perceptually different but acoustically identical syllables. This alternative network included auditory areas but no left frontal activations. In addition, our findings point to the importance of subcortical structures much less often considered when addressing issues pertaining to perceptual representations.

The relationship between syllable repertoire similarity and pairing success in a passerine bird species with complex song

Repertoire size, i.e. the number of unique song elements that an individual possesses, is thought to be an important target of female preference. However, the use of repertoire size reflects how researchers work with complex songs; while it does not necessary describe biological functions, as listeners of song may also rely on song composition. Specific syllables may have coherent consequences for mate attraction because they are costly to produce, mediate syllable sharing or indicate the dialect of origin. We tested for the relationship between song composition and pairing success in the collared flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis). We applied a tree-clustering method to hierarchically classify males based on the degree of repertoire overlap, and then used a phylogenetic approach to assess the degree by which pairing speed matches the hierarchically structured song data. We found that males using similar syllables also find a breeding partner at a similar speed. Partitioning the variance components of pairing speed, we detected that the consequences of particular syllables for mating are repeatable across males. When assessing the role of repertoire similarity in mediating direct syllable sharing, we derived a positive relationship between the physical distance between pairs of males and their repertoire overlap implying that neighboring males avoid copying each other's song. Finally, we were unable to demonstrate that syllables related to higher mating success are more common in the population, which would support mechanisms based on female preference for local songs. Our results imply that individual-specific song organization may be relevant for sexual selection.

C085 Event-related responses in early-implanted children to changes in perceptual features of musical tones

In the present study, we investigated the processing of word stress related acoustic features in a word context. In a passive oddball multi-feature MMN experiment, we presented a disyllabic pseudo-word with two acoustically similar syllables as standard stimulus, and five contrasting deviants that differed from the standard in that they were either stressed on the first syllable or contained a vowel change. Stress was realized by an increase of f0, intensity, vowel duration or consonant duration. The vowel change was used to investigate if phonemic and prosodic changes elicit different MMN components. As a control condition, we presented non-speech counterparts of the speech stimuli.Results showed all but one feature (non-speech intensity deviant) eliciting the MMN component, which was larger for speech compared to non-speech stimuli. Two other components showed stimulus related effects: the N350 and the LDN (Late Discriminative Negativity). The N350 appeared to the vowel duration and consonant duration deviants, specifically to features related to the temporal characteristics of stimuli, while the LDN was present for all features, and it was larger for speech than for non-speech stimuli. We also found that the f0 and consonant duration features elicited a larger MMN than other features.These results suggest that stress as a phonological feature is processed based on long-term representations, and listeners show a specific sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental cues signaling the prosodic boundaries of words. These findings support a two-stage model in the perception of stress and phoneme related acoustical information.

Syllable acoustics, temporal patterns, and call composition vary with behavioral context in Mexican free-tailed bats

Recent research has shown that some bat species have rich vocal repertoires with diverse syllable acoustics. Few studies, however, have compared vocalizations across different behavioral contexts or examined the temporal emission patterns of vocalizations. In this paper, a comprehensive examination of the vocal repertoire of Mexican free-tailed bats, T. brasiliensis, is presented. Syllable acoustics and temporal emission patterns for 16 types of vocalizations including courtship song revealed three main findings. First, although in some cases syllables are unique to specific calls, other syllables are shared among different calls. Second, entire calls associated with one behavior can be embedded into more complex vocalizations used in entirely different behavioral contexts. Third, when different calls are composed of similar syllables, distinctive temporal emission patterns may facilitate call recognition. These results indicate that syllable acoustics alone do not likely provide enough information for call recognition; rather, the acoustic context and temporal emission patterns of vocalizations may affect meaning.

Localisation of an acoustic signal in a noisy environment: the display call of the king penguin Aptenodytes patagonicus.

King penguin chicks identify their parents by an acoustic signal, the display call. This call consists of a succession of similar syllables. Each syllable has two harmonic series, strongly modulated in frequency and amplitude, with added beats of varying amplitude generated by a two-voice system. Previous work showed that only one syllable of the call is needed for the chick to identify the calling adult. Both the frequency modulation pattern of the syllable and the two-voice system play a role in the call identification. The syllabic organisation of the call, the harmonic structure and the amplitude modulations of the syllables apparently do not contribute to individual recognition. Are these acoustic features useless? To answer to this question, playback experiments were conducted using three categories of experimental signals: (i) signal with only the fundamental frequencies of the natural call, (ii) signal with the amplitude of each syllable kept at a constant level and (iii) signals with only one syllable, repeated or not. The responses of chicks to these experimental signals were compared to those obtained with the calls of their natural parents. We found that these acoustic features, while not directly implicated in the individual recognition process, help the chicks to better localise the signal of their parents. In addition, the redundant syllabic organisation of the call is a means of counteracting the masking effect of the background noise of the colony.

Respiratory units of motor production and song imitation in the zebra finch.

Juvenile male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) learn a stereotyped song by imitating sounds from adult male tutors. Their song is composed of a series of syllables, which are separated by silent periods. How acoustic units of song are translated into respiratory and syringeal motor gestures during the song learning process is not well understood. To learn about the respiratory contribution to the imitation process, we recorded air sac pressure in 38 male zebra finches and compared the acoustic structures and air sac pressure patterns of similar syllables qualitatively and quantitatively. Acoustic syllables correspond to expiratory pressure pulses and most often (74%) entire syllables are copied using similar air sac pressure patterns. Even notes placed within different syllables are generated with similar air sac pressure patterns when only segments of syllables are copied (9%). A few of the similar syllables (17%) are generated with a modified pressure pattern, typically involving addition or deletion of an inspiration. The high similarity of pressure patterns for like syllables indicates that generation of particular sounds is constrained to a narrow range of air sac pressure conditions. Following presentation of stroboscope flashes, song was typically interrupted at the end of an expiratory pressure pulse, confirming that expirations and, therefore, syllables are the smallest unit of motor production of song. Silent periods, which separate syllables acoustically, are generated by switching from expiration to inspiration. Switching between respiratory phases, therefore, appears to play a dominant role in organizing the stereotyped motor program for song production.

VOCALISATIONS OF THE MÁSAFUERA RAYADITO APHRASTURA MASAFUERAE ON ISLA ALEJANDRO SELKIRK, CHILE

ABSTRACT Three vocalisation types of the másafuera rayadito Aphrastura masafuerae are described using sonograms: common call, alarm call, and song. They are analysed according to their structure, kHz-frequency, duration and time of day. The common call can be uttered singly or in a series with regular pauses. This intensive call is heard even through fog and wind and seems to be used for contacting the partner as well as signalling the home range to neighbours. The alarm call is a continuous series of similar syllables without pauses. The song is given exclusively in the morning before sunrise by only one individual of the pair. It has one type of phrase only, which is repeated. Phrases are interrupted by regular pauses. These vocalisation types are clearly different from each other, but also have features in common: the monotonous structure, repetition of units and temporal frequency of elements.

Auditory temporal perception deficits in the reading-impaired: A critical review of the evidence

We assess evidence and arguments brought forward by Tallal (e.g., 1980) and by the target paper (Farmer & Klein, 1995) for a general deficit in auditory temporal perception as the source of phonological deficits in impaired readers. We argue that (1) errors in temporal order judgment of both syllables and tones reflect difficulty in identifying similar (and so readily confusable) stimuli rapidly, not in judging their temporal order; (2) difficulty in identifying similar syllables or tones rapidly stem from independent deficits in speech and nonspeech discriminative capacity, not from a general deficit in rate of auditory perception; and (3) the results of dichotic experiments and studies of aphasics purporting to demonstrate left-hemisphere specialization for nonspeech auditory temporal perception are inconclusive. The paper supports its arguments with data from a recent control study. We conclude that, on the available evidence, the phonological deficit of impaired readers cannot be traced to any co-occurring nonspeech deficits so far observed and is phonetic in origin, but that its full nature, origin, and extent remain to be determined.

Effects of training on fricative identification in toddlers

ABSTRACTResearchers who have attempted to relate phonemic identification in young children to their productive performance have met with little success. The failure to do so may reflect the difficulty of the task and uncontrolled stimulus familiarity. Fricative perception was investigated in toddlers using repeated tests to control for these factors. Each subject was tested on two contrasts, one the child produced distinctly in an imitation task and one the child produced as similar syllables. The final perceptual results were well matched to productive distinctiveness. Performance on the identification task over time is considered in terms of the relation between perception and production, the methodology, and competition at the phonological level in the learning of new words.

Rate of acoustic change may underlie hemispheric specialization for speech perception.

Phonemically similar syllables, differing only by temporal acoustic cues, were presented dichotically to investigate temporal processing mechanisms in hemispheric specialization for speech. Reducing the rate of acoustic change within syllables while keeping their phonemic characteristics constant significantly decreased the characteristic asymmetry in processing speech.

Mandible position and stress

In English, a stress-timed language, each stressed vowel is associated with a downward excursion of the jaw, whereas unstressed vowels are not [O. Fujimura, ASA paper (June, 1977)]. Fijian has been assumed to be syllable-timed [C. Hockett, Manual of Phonology, 59 (19551] and described as stress-timed [A. J. Schutz, Hawaii Working Papers in Linguistics, 8.2.86 (1976)]. Meaningful Fijian sentences where segmental influences on vowel duration were minimized were studied. All low vowels showed a downward excursion of the jaw, large for stressed [a] in lexical words, moderate or small for unstressed [a] in lexical words, and small for unstressed [a] in particles. The durations between the onsets of the vowels measured acoustically were proportional to the magnitude of the downward excursion of the jaw. Thus the necessity for making a separate jaw movement for nearly every syllable may contribute to keeping the syllable durations more uniform than in English, but substantially less than identical for similar syllables with different stress. This finding may account for the differences in descriptions of Fijian regarding its status as stress- or syllable-timed.

The effect of vowel similarity and syllable length on acoustic memory

Darwin and Baddeley (1974) argue that the presence of recency, suffix, and modality effects are not attributable to the acoustic properties of the stimuli but, rather, to the acoustic distance between the items comprising the test series. The present study is designed to determine whether stimulus duration is a significant variable in acoustic memory. Eight different blocks of synthetic stimuli were prepared; one block each of 60 msec similar and dissimilar syllables and 190 msec similar and dissimilar syllables. The other four blocks consisted of these same vocabularies, but each list in the block had an eighth syllable suffix of the same duration as the syllables in the block. Significant recency and suffix effects are seen for dissimilar syllables of both durations. No effects are demonstrated for 60-msec similar syllables, but both of the effects are seen for 190-msec similar syllables. These results indicate that whether or not a speech sound is preserved in precategorical acoustic storage (PAS) depends upon not only the acoustic distance between the stimuli, but also on other characteristics intrinsic to the stimuli, e.g., stimulus duration.