Speech Task Research Articles

The Effects of Interactive Context on Acoustic Characteristics of Speech in People With Dysarthria: A Preliminary Study.

The current study compared temporal and spectral acoustic contrast between vowel segments produced by speakers with dysarthria across three speech tasks-interactive, solo habitual, and solo clear. Nine speakers with dysarthria secondary to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis participated in the study. Each speaker was paired with a typical interlocutor over videoconferencing software. The speakers produced the vowels /i, ɪ, ɛ, æ/ in /h/-vowel-/d/ words. For the solo tasks, speakers read the stimuli aloud in both their habitual and clear speaking styles. For the interactive task, speakers produced a target stimulus for their interlocutor to select among the four possibilities. We measured the duration difference between long and short vowels, as well as the F1/F2 Euclidean distance between adjacent vowels, and also determined how well the vowels could be classified based on their acoustic characteristics. Temporal contrast between long and short vowels was higher in the interactive task than in both solo tasks. Spectral distance between adjacent vowel pairs was also higher for some pairs in the interactive task than the habitual speech task. Finally, vowel classification accuracy was highest in the interactive task. Overall, we found evidence that individuals with dysarthria produced vowels with greater acoustic contrast in structured interactions than they did in solo tasks. Furthermore, the speech adjustments they made to the vowel segments differed from those observed in solo speech.

Could linguistic and cognitive factors, degree of autistic traits and sex predict speech disfluencies in autistic young adults and controls?

ABSTRACT This study aimed to evaluate the effect of linguistic complexity and individual background variables (i.e. linguistic and cognitive abilities, degree of autistic traits, and sex) on speech disfluencies in autistic young adults and controls. Thirty-two 19- to 33-year-old autistic adults and 35 controls participated in this study. The frequency of disfluencies and stuttering severity were evaluated based on a narrative speech task. Linguistic complexity was assessed by evaluating the syntactic structures of the narratives. Cognitive and linguistic abilities were assessed using the General Ability Index (GAI), Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) and Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI) from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IV. Autistic traits were measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Multiple-linear regression analyses (syntactic complexity, GAI, AQ, sex, and group status as predictors) showed that (a) syntactic complexity predicted total and stuttering-like disfluencies and stuttering severity, (b) GAI predicted typical disfluencies, and (c) sex predicted total, typical, and stuttering-like disfluencies. Additional correlation analyses revealed negative association between PRI and disfluencies in the control group but not in the autistic group. No connection was found between AQ and disfluencies. It seems that while some connections between disfluencies and individual cognitive features were found, some of the possible contributing factors for greater speech disfluency might differ between autistic and typical speakers.

Associations between Stress Mindset and Changes in Positive Affect during a Speech Task: A Preliminary Study

A stress mindset is an individual’s belief that stress has either enhancing (stress-is-enhancing mindset: SEM) or debilitating (stress-is-debilitating mindset: SDM) consequences. This study examined the associations between SEM and changes in positive affect during a speech task using a sample of 32 Japanese college students as participants. It was hypothesized that participants with SEM would show a greater increase in positive affect over time than those with SDM. The participants rested for three minutes, prepared for three minutes, delivered a speech about themselves in front of an evaluator and video camera (task period), and again rested for three minutes. Positive affect was measured immediately after the two resting periods and during the speech. The participants were divided into groups of 17 and 15 in the SEM and SDM groups, respectively, based on their stress mindset scores. Both groups were fairly matched concerning age and male/female ratio. Change patterns of positive affect did not differ between the two groups, which did not support the hypothesis. However, positive affect was significantly higher in the SEM group compared with the SDM group. The present results differed from previous findings reported in North America. Inconsistent results are discussed related to differences in the speech task and cross-cultural variations of happiness and coping with stressors between North America and Japan.

Effects of Speaking Rate Changes on Speech Motor Variability in Adults.

The relationship between speaking rate and speech motor variability was examined in three groups of neurotypical adults, n = 40; 15 young adults (18-30 years), 13 adults (31-40 years), and 12 middle-aged adults (41-50 years). Participants completed a connected speech task at three speaking rates (habitual, fast, and slow) where kinematic (lower lip movement) and acoustic data were obtained. Duration and variability were measured at each speaking rate. Findings revealed a complex relationship between speaking rate and variability. Adults from the middle age range (31-40 years) demonstrated shorter acoustic and kinematic durations compared with the oldest age group (41-50 years) during the habitual speaking rate condition. All adults demonstrated the greatest variability in the slow speaking rate condition, with no significant differences in variability between habitual and fast speaking rates. Interestingly, lip aperture variability was significantly lower in the youngest age group (18-30 years) compared with the two older groups during the fast speaking rate condition. Differences in measures of acoustic variability were not observed across the age levels. Strong negative correlations between kinematic/acoustic duration and lip aperture/acoustic variability in the youngest age group were revealed. Therefore, while a slow speaking rate does result in greater variability compared with habitual and fast speaking rates, longer durations of productions by the different age groups were not linked to higher spatiotemporal index (STI) values, suggesting that timing influences speech motor variability, but is not the sole contributor.

An exploratory characterization of speech- and fine-motor coordination in verbal children with Autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder often associated with difficulties in speech production and fine-motor tasks. Thus, there is a need to develop objective measures to assess and understand speech production and other fine-motor challenges in individuals with ASD. In addition, recent research suggests that difficulties with speech production and fine-motor tasks may contribute to language difficulties in ASD. In this paper, we explore the utility of an off-body recording platform, from which we administer a speech- and fine-motor protocol to verbal children with ASD and neurotypical controls. We utilize a correlation-based analysis technique to develop proxy measures of motor coordination from signals derived from recordings of speech- and fine-motor behaviors. Eigenvalues of the resulting correlation matrix are inputs to Gaussian Mixture Models to discriminate between highly-verbal children with ASD and neurotypical controls. These eigenvalues also characterize the complexity (underlying dimensionality) of representative signals of speech- and fine-motor movement dynamics, and form the feature basis to estimate scores on an expressive vocabulary measure. Based on a pilot dataset (15 ASD and 15 controls), features derived from an oral story reading task are used in discriminating between the two groups with AUCs > 0.80, and highlight lower complexity of coordination in children with ASD. Features derived from handwriting and maze tracing tasks led to AUCs of 0.86 and 0.91, however features derived from ocular tasks did not aid in discrimination between the ASD and neurotypical groups. In addition, features derived from free speech and sustained vowel tasks are strongly correlated with expressive vocabulary scores. These results indicate the promise of a correlation-based analysis in elucidating motor differences between individuals with ASD and neurotypical controls.

Volumetric and diffusion MRI abnormalities associated with dysarthria in multiple sclerosis

Abstract Up to half of all people with multiple sclerosis experience communication difficulties due to dysarthria, a disorder that impacts the motor aspects of speech production. Dysarthria in multiple sclerosis is linked to cerebellar dysfunction, disease severity and lesion load, but the neuroanatomical substrates of these symptoms remain unclear. In this study, 52 participants with multiple sclerosis and 14 age- and sex-matched healthy controls underwent structural and diffusion MRI, clinical assessment of disease severity and cerebellar dysfunction, and a battery of motor speech tasks. Assessments of regional brain volume and white matter integrity, and their relationships with clinical and speech measures, were undertaken. White matter tracts of interest included the interhemispheric sensorimotor tract, cerebello-thalamo-cortical tract, and arcuate fasciculus, based on their roles in motor and speech behaviours. Volumetric analyses were targeted to Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, the corpus callosum, thalamus, and cerebellum. Our results indicated that multiple sclerosis participants scored worse on all motor speech tasks. Fixel-based diffusion MRI analyses showed significant evidence of white matter tract atrophy in each tract of interest. Correlational analyses further indicated that higher speech naturalness - a perceptual measure of dysarthria – and lower reading rate were associated with axonal damage in the interhemispheric sensorimotor tract and left arcuate fasciculus in people with multiple sclerosis. Axonal damage in all tracts of interest also correlated with clinical scales sensitive to cerebellar dysfunction. Participants with multiple sclerosis had lower volumes of the thalamus and corpus callosum compared to controls, though no brain volumetrics correlated with measures of dysarthria. These findings indicate that axonal damage, particularly when measured using diffusion metrics, underpin dysarthria in multiple sclerosis.

A multimodal approach to automated hierarchical assessment of bulbar involvement in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

As a hallmark feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), bulbar involvement leads to progressive declines of speech and swallowing functions, significantly impacting social, emotional, and physical health, and quality of life. Standard clinical tools for bulbar assessment focus primarily on clinical symptoms and functional outcomes. However, ALS is known to have a long, clinically silent prodromal stage characterized by complex subclinical changes at various levels of the bulbar motor system. These changes accumulate over time and eventually culminate in clinical symptoms and functional declines. Detection of these subclinical changes is critical, both for mechanistic understanding of bulbar neuromuscular pathology and for optimal clinical management of bulbar dysfunction in ALS. To this end, we developed a novel multimodal measurement tool based on two clinically readily available, noninvasive instruments-facial surface electromyography (sEMG) and acoustic techniques-to hierarchically assess seven constructs of bulbar/speech motor control at the neuromuscular and acoustic levels. These constructs, including prosody, pause, functional connectivity, amplitude, rhythm, complexity, and regularity, are both mechanically and clinically relevant to bulbar involvement. Using a custom-developed, fully automated data analytic algorithm, a variety of features were extracted from the sEMG and acoustic recordings of a speech task performed by 13 individuals with ALS and 10 neurologically healthy controls. These features were then factorized into 10 composite outcome measures using confirmatory factor analysis. Statistical and machine learning techniques were applied to these composite outcome measures to evaluate their reliability (internal consistency), validity (concurrent and construct), and efficacy for early detection and progress monitoring of bulbar involvement in ALS. The composite outcome measures were demonstrated to (1) be internally consistent and structurally valid in measuring the targeted constructs; (2) hold concurrent validity with the existing clinical and functional criteria for bulbar assessment; and (3) outperform the outcome measures obtained from each constituent modality in differentiating individuals with ALS from healthy controls. Moreover, the composite outcome measures combined demonstrated high efficacy for detecting subclinical changes in the targeted constructs, both during the prodromal stage and during the transition from prodromal to symptomatic stages. The findings provided compelling initial evidence for the utility of the multimodal measurement tool for improving early detection and progress monitoring of bulbar involvement in ALS, which have important implications in facilitating timely access to and delivery of optimal clinical care of bulbar dysfunction.

Do Acoustic Characteristics of Dysarthria in People With Parkinson's Disease Differ Across Languages?

Cross-language studies suggest more similarities than differences in how dysarthria affects the speech of people with Parkinson's disease (PwPD) who speak different languages. In this study, we aimed to identify the relative contribution of acoustic variables to distinguish PwPD from controls who spoke varieties of two Romance languages, French and Portuguese. This bi-national, cross-sectional, and case-controlled study included 129 PwPD and 124 healthy controls who spoke French or Portuguese. All participants underwent the same clinical examinations, voice/speech recordings, and self-assessment questionnaires. PwPD were evaluated off and on optimal medication. Inferential analyses included Disease (controls vs. PwPD) and Language (French vs. Portuguese) as factors, and random decision forest algorithms identified relevant acoustic variables able to distinguish participants: (a) by language (French vs. Portuguese) and (b) by clinical status (PwPD on and off medication vs. controls). French-speaking and Portuguese-speaking individuals were distinguished from each other with over 90% accuracy by five acoustic variables (the mean fundamental frequency and the shimmer of the sustained vowel /a/ production, the oral diadochokinesis performance index, the relative sound level pressure and the relative sound pressure level standard deviation of the text reading). A distinct set of parameters discriminated between controls and PwPD: for men, maximum phonation time and the oral diadochokinesis speech proportion were the most significant variables; for women, variables calculated from the oral diadochokinesis were the most discriminative. Acoustic variables related to phonation and voice quality distinguished between speakers of the two languages. Variables related to pneumophonic coordination and articulation rate were the more effective in distinguishing PwPD from controls. Thus, our research findings support that respiration and diadochokinesis tasks appear to be the most appropriate to pinpoint signs of dysarthria, which are largely homogeneous and language-universal. In contrast, identifying language-specific variables with the speech tasks and acoustic variables studied was less conclusive.

Perception of Voicing and Aspiration in Hindi, American English, and Tamil Listeners in Quiet and in Background Noise.

There is a dearth of literature in determining whether language groups for whom aspiration and/or voicing is phonologically contrastive show better perception relative to those who do not use these features contrastively and whether the cue type modulates perception in noise. This study addresses perception of laryngeal cues (voicing and aspiration) by Hindi, English, and Tamil listeners, in quiet and in noise. Sixteen participants between 20 and 45 years of age were included in each of the three language groups. The stimuli were bilabial stops that contrasted phonetically in voicing and aspiration, voicing-lead [ba], short-lag [pa], and long-lag aspirated [pha], with one set corresponding to the Hindi phonemes /ba/, /pa/, and /pha/ and the second set to the English phonemes /ba/ and /pa/ (which are phonetically [pa] and [pha], respectively). Tamil includes only the short-lag [pa] as a bilabial stop consonant. The stimuli were presented at 70 dB SPL, in quiet and in speech-shaped noise at a signal-to-noise ratio of 0. Participants performed two speech identification tasks and a speech discrimination task. Patterns of perceptual assimilation related to the first language were observed in all three language groups, and accuracy was generally higher in quiet than in noise. Hindi participants identified the English /pa/ as Hindi /pha/ and English /ba/ as Hindi /pa/. The American English participants identified Hindi /pha/ as English /pa/ and both the Hindi /pa/ and Hindi /ba/ as English /ba/. In contrast, Tamil listeners generally perceived both Hindi and English bilabial stops as one category, regardless of voicing and aspiration. English and Hindi participants generally showed higher accuracy for native language stimuli. Patterns of assimilation in quiet and noise differed across language groups for each stimulus type. The aspirated stimuli were most likely to be misperceived in noise by all groups (often as /ha/). The results serve as evidence that listeners accurately access native language speech cues, even in noise. The results contribute toward a better understanding of cross-linguistic speech processing in noise.

Impaired speech input and output processing abilities in children with cleft palate speech disorder.

Cleft lip and palate is one of the most common oral and maxillofacial deformities associated with a variety of functional disorders. Cleft palate speech disorder (CPSD) occurs the most frequently and manifests a series of characteristic speech features, which are called cleft speech characteristics. Some scholars believe that children with CPSD and poor speech outcomes may also have weaknesses in speech input processing ability, but evidence is still lacking so far. (1) To explore whether children with CPSD and speech output disorders also have defects in speech input processing abilities; (2) to explore the correlation between speech input and output processing abilities. Children in the experimental group were enrolled from Beijing Stomatological Hospital, Capital Medical University, and healthy volunteers were recruited as controls. Then three tasks containing real and pseudo words were performed sequentially. Reaction time, accuracy and other indicators in three tasks were collected and then analysed. The indicators in the experimental group were significantly lower than those in the control group. There was a strong correlation between speech input and output processing tasks. The performance of both groups when processing pseudo words in the three tasks was worse than that when dealing with real words. Compared with normal controls, children with CPSD have deficits in both speech input and output processing, and there is a strong correlation between speech input and output speech processing abilities. In addition, the pseudo words task was more challenging than the real word task for both groups. What is already known on the subject Children with cleft lip and palate often have speech sound disorders known as cleft palate speech disorder (CPSD). CPSD is characterised by consonant errors called cleft speech characteristics, which can persist even after surgery. Some studies suggest that poor speech outcomes in children with CPSD may be associated with deficits in processing speech input. However, this has not been validated in mainland China. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The results of our study indicate that children with CPSD exhibit poorer performance in three tasks assessing speech input and output abilities compared to healthy controls, suggesting their deficits in both speech input and output processing. Furthermore, a significant correlation was observed between speech input and output processing abilities. Additionally, both groups demonstrated greater difficulty in processing pseudo words compared to real words, as evidenced by their worse performance in dealing with pseudo words. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The pseudo word tasks designed and implemented in our study can be employed in future research and assessment of speech input and output abilities in Chinese Mandarin children with CPSD. Additionally, our findings revealed the significance of considering both speech output processing abilities and potential existence of speech input processing ability for speech and language therapists when evaluating and developing treatment options for children with CPSD as these abilities are also important for the development of literacy development.

Subtle Patterns of Altered Responsiveness to Delayed Auditory Feedback during Finger Tapping in People Who Stutter.

Differences in sensorimotor integration mechanisms have been observed between people who stutter (PWS) and controls who do not. Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) introduces timing discrepancies between perception and action, disrupting sequence production in verbal and non-verbal domains. While DAF consistently enhances speech fluency in PWS, its impact on non-verbal sensorimotor synchronization abilities remains unexplored. A total of 11 PWS and 13 matched controls completed five tasks: (1) unpaced tapping; (2) synchronization-continuation task (SCT) without auditory feedback; (3) SCT with DAF, with instruction either to align the sound in time with the metronome; or (4) to ignore the sound and align their physical tap to the metronome. Additionally, we measured participants' sensitivity to detecting delayed feedback using a (5) delay discrimination task. Results showed that DAF significantly affected performance in controls as a function of delay duration, despite being irrelevant to the task. Conversely, PWS performance remained stable across delays. When auditory feedback was absent, no differences were found between PWS and controls. Moreover, PWS were less able to detect delays in speech and tapping tasks. These findings show subtle differences in non-verbal sensorimotor performance between PWS and controls, specifically when action-perception loops are disrupted by delays, contributing to models of sensorimotor integration in stuttering.

L2 repair fluency through the lenses of L1 repair fluency, cognitive fluency, and language anxiety

Abstract Repairs (including false starts, repetitions, and different types of self-corrections) have been examined in second language (L2) speech fluency research as one dimension of (dis)fluent speech. However, in contrast to other dimensions of L2 speech fluency (speed and breakdown), repair fluency is not equally well understood: the results are mixed, and more research investigating the factors behind L2 repair fluency is needed. While some previous studies suggest links between first language (L1) and L2 repair fluency, to what extent L2 repairs are connected with cognitive and affective factors is less understood. To achieve a comprehensive view of the factors behind L2 repair fluency, we combine perspectives of L1 repair fluency, attention control, and language anxiety (LA) that have individually been shown to potentially affect L2 repairs but have rarely been examined together. We analyzed data from L1 Finnish and L2 English monologue speech tasks, a Stroop task in L1 and L2, and surveys for general and task-specific LA from 59 advanced users of English to investigate how L1 repair fluency, cognitive fluency, and LA are related to L2 repair fluency. Correlational analyses revealed that task-specific LA and certain Stroop measures were connected with L2 repair measures, while correlations between L1 and L2 repair fluency measures were weak. An analysis of repair profiles of participants displaying the highest levels of L2 repair fluency revealed that, overall, repairs are more common in the L2 than in the L1, but patterns regarding preferences for repair types vary across individuals. The study has methodological implications for psycholinguistic and SLA research into L2 repair fluency and broader implications for L2 classrooms and assessment.

Self-initiated self-repairs of connected speech and novel vocabulary learning during the first year of recovery from aphasia: four longitudinal case studies

ABSTRACT Background Self-initiated self-repair of problems in speech production has been suggested to be associated with aphasia treatment gains and recovery, but the topic has been little studied. Similarly, the ability to learn novel words has been associated with anomia treatment benefits, although longitudinal data on such learning is lacking. Aims The present study’s aim was to examine whether and how self-initiated self-repairs in connected speech and the ability to learn novel vocabulary reflected recovery from aphasia as measured with cognitive-linguistic tests. Additionally, our aim was to explore whether self-initiated repair and novel word learning changed in parallel during recovery. Methods & Procedures Four people with aphasia (PWA) (2 anomic, 1 Wernicke, and 1 global aphasia) were tested in the subacute (11 to 68 days post stroke) and chronic (12 months post stroke) phases of recovery with cognitive-linguistic tests, connected speech tasks, and a computerized learning task. In the learning task, PWA associated 6 pseudowords with 6 unfamiliar referents. The associations were learned from an ambiguous setup with feedback. At both time points, learning was measured as correct immediate recognition of the items and recognition maintenance one week post-training. The proportion of self-initiated self-repairs and the proportion of unrepaired problems in connected speech were used as measures of self-repair behavior. Outcomes & Results All participants initiated self-repairs both in the subacute and chronic phases, and their self-repairs were most often related to aphasic difficulties in speech production. Between the subacute and chronic phases, self-repairs changed both in quality and quantity. The proportion of self-repair elements decreased in 4/4 participants and the proportion of unrepaired problem segments decreased in 3/4 participants. Of the participants, 3/4 showed significant novel word learning and/or maintenance already in the subacute phase and 4 /4 in the chronic phase. Conclusion Reduction in self-initiated self-repairs of speech reflected recovery from aphasia. Novel word learning improved during aphasia recovery from the subacute to the chronic phase. Novel word learning was possible even in subacute, severe aphasia and even in an ambiguous task set-up with no explicitly provided word-referent connections. Novel word learning and self-initiated self-repairs did not change in a clearly parallel manner; however, these findings need to be tested with a larger sample.

Accuracy and Cut-Off Values of Cepstral Measures in the Clinical Evaluation of Brazilian Portuguese Speakers

OBJECTIVETo identify the accuracy and cut-off values of the Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP) and Cepstral Peak Prominence-Smoothed (CPPS) obtained from different speech tasks, to identify dysphonic voices in Brazilian Portuguese speakers, and to verify the correlation between these measures and the overall severity of dysphonia (OS). METHODIn a study with 376 subjects—277 with dysphonia and 99 controls—we recorded four speech tasks and assessed OS with a visual analog scale (VAS). We extracted CPP and CPPS from these recordings and analyzed them using receive operating characteristic (ROC) curves to determine cut-off values and other performance metrics (area under curve, accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and likelihood ratios). RESULTSCPP values below 28.15 dB (sustained vowel [Ɛ]), 28.77 dB (sustained vowel [a]), 28.58 dB (all CAPE-V sentences), and CPPS values below 16.42 dB (sustained vowel [Ɛ]), 17.02 dB (sustained vowel [a]), and 11.30 dB (all CAPE-V sentences) are indicative of the presence of dysphonia. CPPVE, CPPVA, CPPCAPE-V, CPPVS, CPPSVE, CPPSVA, CPPSCount, CPPSCAPE-V e CPPSVS, and CPPSVS can explain the variability of OS from 19% to 57.9%. CONCLUSIONThe cut-off values for CPPVE, CPPVA, CPPCAPE-V, CPPSVE, CPPSCAPE-V, and CPPSVA obtained from Praat software can be used as a reference for the clinical voice assessment of Brazilian Portuguese speakers in the respective speech tasks. Analysis of the correlation coefficients of the cepstral measures investigated provided us with a predictive model of OS perception based on each measure/speech task.

What contributes to fluent L2 speech? Examining cognitive and utterance fluency link with underlying L2 collocational processing speed and accuracy

AbstractSecond language (L2) fluency research has suggested that a range of linguistic knowledge and processing speed serve as cognitive fluency (CF) underlying L2 utterance fluency (UF). Building on prior CF-UF link studies, this study explored L2 collocational processing speed and accuracy as underlying CF measures. This study also explored the phrasal frequency effect on the relationship between collocational processing speed and UF to test whether the processing speed of higher-frequency collocations is more strongly related to UF. A total of 108 Japanese university students completed a phrasal acceptability judgment task with adjective–noun collocations pooled from the Academic Collocation List. Speech was elicited in an argumentative speech task, and UF measures were computed based on speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results revealed that the collocational processing speed was weakly tied to articulation rate and mid-clause and end-clause silent pause ratio (rho = |.271–.322|), while the collocational processing accuracy was weakly to moderately tied to most UF measures except filled pause ratio (rho = |.281–.368|). The collocation frequency moderated the relationship between the processing speed and UF, suggesting that high-frequency collocations served as a proxy for automaticity in speech production. Implications for CF-UF link research are discussed.

“AS I THINK OF MY PRESENTATION …” TERTIARY-LEVEL EFL STUDENTS’ EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TOWARDS ORAL PRESENTATION

Oral presentation—a special form of public speaking in the context of second language (L2) learning—is a widely used activity at the tertiary level, both as a speech task and a form of assessment. While ample empirical evidence indicates that delivering a speech before an audience induces anxiety for most individuals, even when speaking in their native language, relatively little is known about the emotional experience of presenting a speech in a second language. To explore the emotional challenges public speaking in the L2 might pose to learners, this study examined tertiary-level EFL students’ emotional reactions to an upcoming in-class presentation. While the primary focus of the study was anxiety in response to L2 presentations, participants were unaware of this to ensure an unbiased assessment of anxiety’s importance relative to other emotions. A unique feature of the study is its focus on pre-presentation experiences, a topic hitherto unexplored in L2 research. The participants were 33 English Studies students from a Hungarian university. Their affective responses were investigated longitudinally, at three key junctures during the semester: (1) upon receiving the presentation task, (2) after deciding whether to present individually or with a partner, and (3) in the run-up to the presentation. Each time, participants responded to a short pre-task questionnaire with open-ended questions. The results have shown that anxiety was a prominent emotion during the pre-presentation period at all three significant events examined. It was detectable as soon as the presentation task was announced, influenced learners’ choices of paired rather than individual presentation, and showed a marked increase in the lead-up to the talk. The study has important pedagogical implications.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu/0700/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

THE STATE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES AS A MEANS OF PEDAGOGICAL CORRECTION OF SPEECH ERRORS IN CHILDREN OF THE FIFTH YEAR OF LIFE

The formation of state education and its significant modernization is a consequence of Ukraine’s entry into the European and world educational space. One of the priority tasks of the education system is the upbringing and development of a Ukrainian-speaking personality with a national outlook. Such an individual must possess a single language system of spoken and written Ukrainian texts, must be fluent in various communicative situations, comprehensively contribute to the popularization of the language, ensuring its social prestige. The article is devoted to the study of the state of the organization of communicative activity, which can become an effective means of pedagogical correction of speech errors in children of the fifth year of life both in the conditions of a preschool education institution and in the family, provided that it is properly and managed. The purpose of the research is the analysis of the Basic Component of Preschool Education, current educational programs for preschool institutions for the presence of speech development tasks, as well as a survey of educators and parents of pupils regarding awareness of the concepts of “speech errors”, “speech correction” and ownership of tools for correcting speech mistakes and practicing correct speech.

Identification of the Biomechanical Response of the Muscles That Contract the Most during Disfluencies in Stuttered Speech.

Stuttering, affecting approximately 1% of the global population, is a complex speech disorder significantly impacting individuals' quality of life. Prior studies using electromyography (EMG) to examine orofacial muscle activity in stuttering have presented mixed results, highlighting the variability in neuromuscular responses during stuttering episodes. Fifty-five participants with stuttering and 30 individuals without stuttering, aged between 18 and 40, participated in the study. EMG signals from five facial and cervical muscles were recorded during speech tasks and analyzed for mean amplitude and frequency activity in the 5-15 Hz range to identify significant differences. Upon analysis of the 5-15 Hz frequency range, a higher average amplitude was observed in the zygomaticus major muscle for participants while stuttering (p < 0.05). Additionally, when assessing the overall EMG signal amplitude, a higher average amplitude was observed in samples obtained from disfluencies in participants who did not stutter, particularly in the depressor anguli oris muscle (p < 0.05). Significant differences in muscle activity were observed between the two groups, particularly in the depressor anguli oris and zygomaticus major muscles. These results suggest that the underlying neuromuscular mechanisms of stuttering might involve subtle aspects of timing and coordination in muscle activation. Therefore, these findings may contribute to the field of biosensors by providing valuable perspectives on neuromuscular mechanisms and the relevance of electromyography in stuttering research. Further research in this area has the potential to advance the development of biosensor technology for language-related applications and therapeutic interventions in stuttering.

The moderating role of L2 proficiency in the predictive power of L1 fluency on L2 utterance fluency

The current study examined the extent to which first language (L1) utterance fluency measures can predict second language (L2) fluency and how L2 proficiency moderates the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency. A total of 104 Japanese-speaking learners of English completed different argumentative speech tasks in their L1 and L2. Their speaking performance was analysed using measures of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. L2 proficiency was operationalised as cognitive fluency. Two factor scores of cognitive fluency—linguistic resources and processing speed—were computed based on performance in a set of linguistic knowledge tests capturing vocabulary knowledge, morphosyntactic processing, and articulatory skills. A series of generalised linear mixed-effects models revealed small-to-moderate effect sizes for the predictive power of L1 utterance fluency measures on their L2 counterparts. Moderator effects of L2 proficiency were found only in speed fluency measures. The relationship between L1 and L2 speed fluency was weaker for L2 learners with wider L2 linguistic resources. Conversely, for those with faster L2 processing speed, the L1-L2 link tended to be stronger. These findings indicate that the L1-L2 fluency link is subject to the complex interplay of phonological differences between learners’ L1 and L2 and their L2 proficiency, offering implications for diagnostic speaking assessment.

What Do Self-Supervised Speech Models Know About Words?

Abstract Many self-supervised speech models (S3Ms) have been introduced over the last few years, improving performance and data efficiency on various speech tasks. However, these empirical successes alone do not give a complete picture of what is learned during pre-training. Recent work has begun analyzing how S3Ms encode certain properties, such as phonetic and speaker information, but we still lack a proper understanding of knowledge encoded at the word level and beyond. In this work, we use lightweight analysis methods to study segment-level linguistic properties—word identity, boundaries, pronunciation, syntactic features, and semantic features—encoded in S3Ms. We present a comparative study of layer-wise representations from ten S3Ms and find that (i) the frame-level representations within each word segment are not all equally informative, and (ii) the pre-training objective and model size heavily influence the accessibility and distribution of linguistic information across layers. We also find that on several tasks—word discrimination, word segmentation, and semantic sentence similarity—S3Ms trained with visual grounding outperform their speech-only counterparts. Finally, our task-based analyses demonstrate improved performance on word segmentation and acoustic word discrimination while using simpler methods than prior work.1