Speaker Age Research Articles

Temporal characteristics of aerodynamic segments in the speech of children and adults.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the temporal characteristics of aerodynamic segments in the normal speech of children and adults without cleft palate. A secondary objective was to determine the within-speaker variability of the segments. Speakers consisted of 46 children aged 6 to 8 years, 41 older children aged 11 to 12 years, and 41 adults aged 18 to 37 years (total n = 128) who repeated the word "hamper" during continuous utterances. The pressure-flow method was used to determine the duration of six segments of the oral air pressure and nasal airflow pulses associated with the /mp/ sequence. Descriptive statistics, including coefficients of variation (COV), were computed for each segment as a function of age and sex of the speakers. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures were used to determine the effects of age, sex, or both on the temporal variables. ANOVAs indicated statistically significant main effects (p <.008) for age on five of the six temporal measures and for sex on three of the six measures. Five of the six COVs were also statistically significant for age. There were no statistically significant interactions between speaker age and sex for any measure. The results indicate distinct patterns of timing for aerodynamic segments of speech produced by children and adults. Overall, adults exhibited less temporal variability than children. The generally longer and more variable segments produced by children suggest diagnostic and treatment implications relative to speakers with velopharyngeal dysfunction.

Think really different: Continuity and specialization in the English dual form adverbs

This paper analyses variation between ‐ly and ‐ø in English dual form adverbs by examining conversational data from York, U.K. Using multivariate analysis and the comparative method we assess the constraint ranking, significance and relative importance of external factors (age, sex, education level) and internal factors (lexical identity, function and meaning). The results show that ‐ly is dominant and has increased dramatically in apparent time. However, cross‐tabulations with individual lexical items reveal that this correlation with speaker age is restricted to a single item–really. In conjunction with evidence from the history of English, we suggest that this does not reflect ongoing developments in English adverb formation, but is the result of continuous renewal in the encoding of ‘intensity’. In contrast, separate analysis of the other adverbs shows that variation between ‐ly and zero is retained in part as a socio‐symbolic resource, in particular for marking less educated male speech. Underlying this social meaning however, is a linguistic constraint which operates across all speakers. The zero adverb encodes concrete, objective meaning–a tendency which can be traced back 650 years or more. This provides yet another example of the interface between social and historical developments in language variation and change.

Bolstering and Undercutting Use of the Elderly Stereotype Through Communication of Exemplars: The Role of Speaker Age and Exemplar Stereotypicality

This study explores how older speakers' descriptions of other older persons might attenuate or bolster the use of the elderly stereotype by young listeners. Older women's descriptions were expected to have more impact on young participants, presumably because older persons are considered experts about elderly persons and the elderly persons seem unlikely to have a hidden agenda in describing other elderly persons. Using a 2-experiment ploy, young adult women initially listened to an audiotape of an older woman or a younger woman describing 3 older persons in her life in either a stereotypic or counterstereotypic manner. In the alleged second experiment, participants acquired information about an older woman and formed an impression of her. Results supported our hypotheses: Participants exposed to an older woman speaking counterstereotypically about her peers formed less stereotypic impressions of a subsequently encountered older woman than participants exposed to the stereotypic descriptions. When a younger woman presented the initial descriptions, there was no difference in the subsequent impressions.

Bolstering and Undercutting Use of the Elderly Stereotype Through Communication of Exemplars: The Role of Speaker Age and Exemplar Stereotypicality

This study explores how older speakers' descriptions of other older persons might attenuate or bolster the use of the elderly stereotype by young listeners. Older women's descriptions were expected to have more impact on young participants, presumably because older persons are considered experts about elderly persons and the elderly persons seem unlikely to have a hidden agenda in describing other elderly persons. Using a 2-experiment ploy, young adult women initially listened to an audiotape of an older woman or a younger woman describing 3 older persons in her life in either a stereotypic or counterstereotypic manner. In the alleged second experiment, participants acquired information about an older woman and formed an impression of her. Results supported our hypotheses: Participants exposed to an older woman speaking counterstereotypically about her peers formed less stereotypic impressions of a subsequently encountered older woman than participants exposed to the stereotypic descriptions. When a younger woman presented the initial descriptions, there was no difference in the subsequent impressions.

Phonetic parallels between the close-mid vowels of Tyneside English: Are they internally or externally motivated?

The distribution of variants of the face and goat vowels in Tyneside English (TE) is assessed with reference to the age, sex, and social class of 32 adult TE speakers. The effects of phonological context and speaking style are also examined. Patterns in the data are suggestive of dialect leveling, whereby localized speech variants become recessive and pronunciations typical of a wider geographical area are adopted. Within this broad pattern, however, there is evidence of parallelism between the vowels in terms of the relative proportions of their variants across speaker groups. It is suggested that pressure to maintain the symmetrical structure of the underlying phonological system is guiding this process. Labov's (1991, 1994) principles of chain shift are discussed in this connection. However, it is argued that the patterns in the data are more plausibly explained by considering the social significance of each variant instead of making reference to variants as socially neutral expressions of abstract phonological categories.

Flexion-extension cervical spine radiography in blunt trauma: A survey of emergency physicians

A survey investigating the use of flexion-extension cervical spine radiography (FE CSR) was distributed to emergency medicine physicians (EMPs). A 20-point survey was mailed to EMPs (N=250) randomly chosen from the membership of the American College of Emergency Physicians in the United States and Canada. One hundred forty-four surveys (58%) were returned. Sixty-six percent of the EMPs were emergency medicine residency-trained, and 38% of the respondents had less than 5 years of clinical experience. Practice settings included emergency departments with an annual volume of >40,000 patients (50%), community-based hospitals (66%), and level I trauma centers (41%). Eighty-seven percent of EMPs obtained FE CSR in 20% of blunt trauma patients with neck complaints. Indications for FE CSR were minimal disruption of cervical contour lines (68%), posterior element interval widening (53%), tenderness (49%), pain (45%), soft tissue swelling (38%), and mechanism of injury (34%). Contraindications to FE CSR were altered mentation (91%), focal neurologic issue (88%), distracting injury (71%), non-English speaker (50%), and young age (defined as <6 years) (29%). With normal FE CSR, 27% would use additional studies: computed tomography (CT) (56%), oblique view (19%); and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (7%). EMPs reported that they did not accompany the patient in 52% of cases. The consultant physician recommended FE CSR in 71% (radiology consultation) and 41% (orthopedic or neurosurgical consultation) of cases, respectively. EMPs used FE CSR in a significant minority of blunt trauma patients along with other radiographic imaging modalities. Reasons for ordering FE CSR more often included radiographic abnormalities rather than historical or examination findings. Consultants frequently recommended their use. FE CSRs were performed most often without physician supervision.

Lexical Change and Variation in the Southeastern United States, 1930-1990

This book discusses words used in the Southeast and how they have changed during the 20th century. It also describes how the lexicon varies according to the speaker's age, race, education, sex, and place of residence (urban versus rural; coastal versus piedmont versus mountain). Data collected in the 1930s as part of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States project were compared with data collected in 1990 from similar speakers in the same communities.The results show that region was the most important factor in differentiating dialects in the 1930s but that it is the least important element in the 1990s, with age, education, race, and age all showing about the same influence on the use of vocabulary. An appendix contains a tally of the responses given by 78 speakers to 150 questions about vocabulary items, along with speakers' commentary. Results from the 1930s may be compared to those from 1990, making this a treasure trove for anyone interested in regional terms or in how our speech is changing as the South moves from an agricultural economy through industrialization and into the information age.

Acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the voices of sedentary and physically active elderly speakers

The purpose of this study was to investigate perceptual and acoustic characteristics of the voices of physically active and sedentary elderly speakers. Recordings of sustained phonations of the vowel /a/ were obtained from 31 male and female elderly speakers. Twenty adult listeners judged the chronological ages of the elderly speakers from their oral performance. The acoustic parameters of Fo, Fo standard deviation, jitter per cent, shimmer per cent, shimmer in dB and noise-harmonic ratio were measured from the sustained vowel phonations of the elderly speakers. Results indicated that physically active elderly speakers were judged as chronologically younger, had less jitter per cent and Fo standard deviation, than their sedentary cohorts. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of defining laryngeal aging physiologically as well as chronologically.

Formant frequency characteristics of elderly speakers in contextual speech.

The present study measured F1 and F2 formant frequency levels of elderly and young male and female speakers producing the /i/, /ae/, [symbol: see text], /u/, and /a/ vowels in two carrier phrases. Results of a series of ANOVAs showed significant interactions of speaker age x vowel for both F1 and F2 formant frequencies for the male and female speakers. Results suggested that while elderly male speakers exhibit significant alterations in vowel production during contextual speech, elderly female speakers generally maintain formant frequency integrity or appropriate articulatory posturing during contextual vowel productions.

Perceptual and Acoustic Analysis of Word Initial Voicing Contrasts Across Speaker Age

Perceptual and Acoustic Analysis of Word Initial Voicing Contrasts Across Speaker Age

Age estimation by different listener groups

This contribution is focused on the perception of speaker age. With forensic applications in mind, the following questions are. asked : ( 1) are trained listeners better at estimating a speaker s chronological age than untrained listeners, (2) are listeners more confident about correct estimates than incorrect ones and (3) do a speaker's smoking habits influence perceived age? The results of an experiment involving direct age estimations by experts and non-experts reveal that professionals cannot be expected to do significantly better than the untrained listeners as long as correlations between perceived age and calendar age are considered. However, phonetic training did manifest itself in greater intersubject consistency. Furthermore, smoking can be demonstrated to influence age estimation in the sense that the smokers were judged to be older than non-smokers of the same calendar age. An examination of the confidence ratings shows that expert listeners tend to be more cautious than non-experts, but confidence does not imply correctness for either group.

Listener Age Estimates of Elderly African American and Caucasian Male Speakers

Speech samples were obtained from 28 male speakers between the ages of 65 and 85 years. Half the speakers were African American and half were Caucasian. The taperecorded speech samples were presented to groups of African American and Caucasian listeners who estimated the age of each speaker in a forward and backward play condition. Both African American and Caucasian listeners tended to underestimate the ages of the Caucasian speakers. Fundamental frequency, frequency range, reading rate, and number and length of pauses were determined. African American speakers demonstrated slower reading rates and longer and more frequent within-sentences pauses. Age estimates were significantly correlated with reading rate in the forward speaking condition.

The development of the perception of cues to the [m]-[n] distinction in CV syllables.

The contribution of the nasal murmur and vocalic formant transition to the perception of the [m]-[n] distinction by adult listeners was investigated for speakers of different ages. Children, aged 3, 5, and 7, and an adult female and male produced consonant-vowel (CV) syllables consisting of either [m] or [n] and followed by [i ae u a]. Three productions of each syllable were computer edited into the following segments: (1) full murmur; (2) 50-ms murmur preceding release; (3) 25-ms murmur preceding release; (4) 25-ms murmur preceding release +25-ms transition following release; (5) 25-ms transition following release; (6) 50-ms transition following release; and (7) full transition+vowel. The results indicate that both the murmur and transition provide cues to place of articulation, but that the latter property is more prominent in perception than the former across speaker age. The salience of the murmur and vocalic transition cues was greater for adults than children indicating a developmental progression of the encoding of gestures associated with these properties. Although the simultaneous presence of murmur and vocalic transition cues surrounding the point of spectral discontinuity improved perception of place of articulation across speakers, there was evidence of a developmental progression of this property also. For speakers of all ages, as segment duration decreased, consistent decrements in identification of place of articulation occurred only for transition stimuli. The murmur+transition was the most salient cue supporting the importance of spectral discontinuities and/or relational properties in production and perception particularly in the acquisition of sound features.

Age perception of speakers of isolated words and sentences

Ten males in each of three age groups (M=12 years, M=22 years, M=74 years, respectively) were recorded while reading lists of 16 words and 16 sentences. The words and sentences were digitized, segmented, and saved on disk. In one experiment, a sample of the words was presented in random order to listeners who judged the age of the speakers. Listeners overestimated the ages of the young voices by 1 year, overestimated the age of the college-age voices by about 9 years, and underestimated the age of the elder voices by almost 20 years. An assimilation effect was also observed, such that age estimates of voices were shifted toward the ages of speakers on the previous trial. Finally, there was a significant correlation between age estimates and the duration of the words. A second experiment utilizing the same methods with isolated sentences revealed smaller estimation errors and smaller assimilation effects. These results, as well as those from ongoing experiments, will be discussed in light of their basic and applied significance.

Acoustic correlates of [b] and [w] produced by normal young to elderly adults.

Various studies indicate that temporal characteristics of articulated subphonemic segments and syllables change as a function of age. The purpose of the present study was to investigate age-related changes in the production of a phonetic contrast--in particular that of the stop consonant [b] versus the semivowel [w]. Thirty-nine subjects with normal hearing and belonging to three age groups (20-30, 50-60, 70-80 years old) were tested. Acoustic analyses of the recorded syllables [b alpha] and [w alpha] indicated that duration of syllables, prevoicing, release, and vowel transition became significantly longer with the speaker's age, except for the vowel transition in the [w] context. However, acoustic cues, such as the difference in amplitude change in the vicinity of the release segment, were not sensitive to the effects of aging.

A Survey of the Linguistic Preferences of Cameroon Pidgin English Speakers

Pidgin English speakers from five major towns in Anglophone Cameroon were asked to indicate their preferences for linguistic variants of variables whose use in written literature had proven problematic. The relationship between the scores and speakers' mother tongue, age, sex, educational background, and geographical location was considered, with particular interest in choices made when one variant was closer to standard Cameroon English than another. Test results indicate, among other things, that students' preference for variants closer to standard English gives way to favorisation of mesolectal forms after their studies; this contributes to the basic stability of Cameroon Pidgin English (PE), in spite of the ever-increasing acquisition of standard English (SE). It is suggested that, in making decisions for written literature, lexical items generally should be chosen at the mesolectal level, but that the orthography should reflect phonological variants closer to SE.

Lexical Classes in Montreal French: The Case of (ε:)

A perceptual study of the use of (εe:) in the Montreal French Vernacular (MFV) reveals that there is extreme variation in the vowel color used by different speakers for this phonological unit. Most men born before 1920 use a raised [e:] realization attested to by orthoepists for the last century, as well as by phoneticians in this century. Older working class women, however, often use a lowered [æ:] or [a:] nucleus. Speakers born after World War II use the more open pronunciation whatever their sex or social standing. Most older speakers use a high percentage of diphthongs in their realization of (ε:), especially in stressed syllables and in specific lexical classes, while younger middle class men and women eliminate diphthongization more consistently than older middle class speakers, and certainly more than their working class age mates. Thus, variation in vowel color and diphthongization are found to be related to a speaker's age, sex, and social standing, as well as to specific lexical classes. The results are relevant to the analysis of Canadian French phonology, as well as to the theory of lexical phonology and to sociolinguistic theories of sound change.

Language Attitudes and Cognitive Mediation

Using an independent samples factorial design, this study examined the roles of accent (standard vs. nonstandard), speech rate (fast vs. medium vs. slow), and age of voice (younger vs. older sounding) on British listeners’ social evaluations of audiotaped voices using the matched-guise technique. In addition, listener judges’ level and nature of cognitive responding, their interpretations of the targets’ utterances and the (mediumterm) recognition value of messages were uniquely explored as a function of these three independent variables. In general, standard speakers were upgraded on competencerelated traits but downgraded on solidarity traits irrespective of age, with older speakers being perceived as less hesitant but more benevolent than their younger counterparts. An Age × Accent interaction effect showed that older-sounding standard speakers were judged the most competent and older-sounding nonstandard speakers the least competent. Favorable ratings were afforded speakers with medium rates, and slow-talking, younger-sounding speakers were particularly downgraded. All three independent variables affected ratings of listeners’ interpretations of the (same) text, while speaker age was the only effect on the recognition of message material 2 days later. The cognitive responding data showed that listener judges were most positive about the source when the target was fast talking and older sounding and were most negative to the fast-talking, younger-sounding, and standard-accented speaker. The diverse pattern of findings emerging at different levels of analysis underscores the important roles of cognitive mediation in language attitude studies in ways not explored sufficiently previously.

Perceptions of speaker's age in natural conversation in Japanese and English

This paper looks at two sets of complementary experimental data to consider whether listeners can determine the age of a speaker from hearing a voice sample. I conclude that they cannot do this. The responses of experimental subjects, while not random, are so imprecise as to be socially useless. The experiments conducted by the author involved speech samples from natural conversations; parallel studies were done in Japan and the US, using native speakers and situations, and native speakers as experimental subjects in each country. These experiments are compared with laboratory studies done in the US using voice samples which eliminated contextual and linguistic cues. The patterning of subjects' responses was the same in the two formats.

The influences of speakers' characteristics and mothers' informal listening instruction on children's evaluations of messages

Age of speaker and mothers' informal instruction about listening were examined as influences on children's evaluations of orally-presented messages. Second- and fourth-grade children listened to one of four speakers (two women and two nine-year-old girls) presenting essays on videotape. Children were asked for their evaluative responses to the essays, some of which were internally inconsistent. Mothers of the children were asked what they would say to their children in hypothetical listening situations. Analyses indicated that children reported more inconsistencies with adult speakers than with child speakers. Mothers' tendency to use communicative feedback that drew explicit attention to the communicative activity was positively associated with children's detection scores for the second-grade group, but not for the fourth-grade group, and this association persisted when family social class was taken into account. Findings are discussed in terms of the relevance of social factors for children's comprehension monitoring.