Loud Speech Research Articles

Dual-task costs of clear and loud speech: Implications for talkers with Parkinson disease

Decades of research suggest that the speech production adjustments associated with adopting a clearer or louder speaking style enhance speech intelligibility, making these speech styles a common talker-oriented strategy in speech production interventions for talkers with dysarthria secondary to Parkinson disease (PD). Recent data suggest that explicit instructions to speak louder or clearer than usual may increase the processing load and effort associated with speech production. Empirical data will be presented that demonstrate these higher-effort speech styles may require greater attentional resources than habitual or conversational speech. A group of neurotypical talkers performed a sentence repetition task using Habitual, Loud, and Clear speech styles in isolation and while performing a concurrent visuomotor tracking task. Lip and jaw kinematics, speech intensity, and accuracy on the visuomotor task were collected to quantify performance on each task. Group-level data suggest that when faced with the competing task demands of the visuomotor task, neurotypical talkers prioritized the articulatory and phonatory adjustments associated with Clear and Loud speech at the cost of secondary task performance. Case examples from talkers with hypokinetic dysarthria resulting from PD will also be examined to frame and discuss clinical implications and considerations.

The impact of facial personal protective equipment on speech intensity

The impact of facial personal protective equipment on speech intensity

Impact of Face Masks on Speech in Parkinson's Disease: Effect of Clear and Loud Speech Styles.

The purpose of this study is to quantify the combined effects of face masks and effortful speech styles on speech intensity, spectral moments, and measures of spectral balance in talkers with Parkinson's disease. Fifteen people with Parkinson's disease and 15 healthy, older controls read aloud sentences in three face mask conditions and three speech style conditions. Mask conditions included no mask, surgical masks, and KN95 masks. Speech styles included habitual, clear, and loud. Acoustic measures of intensity, spectral moments, and spectral balance were modeled as a function of speaker group, mask, and speech style. Overall, talkers with PD demonstrated lower concentrations of high-frequency spectral energy in their speech. Face masks attenuated high-frequency energy, whereas clear followed by loud speaking styles amplified high frequencies. Overall, the attenuation observed by face masks was preserved across speech styles, and both mask and speech patterns were observed to be similar across groups. Clear and loud speech styles were effective in compensating for the damping effects of masks in talkers with and without PD. However, given that people with PD demonstrated poorer overall spectral balance compared to controls, the gains afforded by speaking clearly or loudly may be limited when wearing a face mask.

How children speak with their voice assistant Sila depends on what they think about her

Children encounter artificial intelligence, e.g., voice assistants, at an increasingly younger age. However, we know far too little about children's communicative behavior with a voice-only interaction partner and whether and how their assumptions about the interaction partner predict how they communicate. To address these aspects, we ran a treasure hunt game with 50 5-6-year-olds who were guided through the hunt by a voice-only interaction partner “Sila” – acted by a human and connected via loudspeakers. Crucially, Sila was introduced either as a human or a voice assistant. We employed easy communication trials in which communication went smoothly and challenging communication trials that contained staged misunderstandings. Results showed that at the group level, children differed in the way they adjusted their speech across experimental phases – both in quantity (fewer grounding turns and fewer syllables in speech directed to voice assistants) and quality (reduced increase in f0 and intensity in speech directed to voice assistants). Notably, the communicative behavior was predicted by children's individual parasocial relationship with their voice-only interaction partner. We discuss the relevance of our findings for developmental science at the interface with communication science and phonetics, and the direct practical implications we can infer for speech technology.

Your body tells more than words – predicting perceived meeting productivity through body signals

ABSTRACT The productivity of work meetings is mostly assessed through post-hoc questionnaires. These questionnaires are impractical as they require additional time after the meeting has ended. Thus, measuring meeting productivity in a non-intrusive manner is of practical and theoretical importance. Extending research on physiological arousal and the healthy physiological variability thesis to the context of work meetings, we take a novel approach and investigate whether physiological arousal and the variability in implicit body signals of meeting participants (heart rate, arm movements, and speech intensity) can be accurate predictors of perceived meeting productivity. In a preliminary field study, we used smartwatches and tracked the body signals of 16 team members in 26 team meetings. The perceived meeting productivity was assessed at the end of the meetings. Partly supporting our assumptions, multilevel analysis showed that the variance in arm acceleration was a significant predictor of perceived meeting productivity. Further, using a random forest classifier, we accurately predicted perceived meeting productivity in roughly 60% of the cases with body signals. This study adds to previous work on meeting effectiveness by tapping into the potential of wearables to provide valid information about perceived meeting productivity. Cultivating our findings, we discuss lessons learned for future research.

An evaluation of a multi‐component intervention for loud speech among children with autism spectrum disorder

An evaluation of a multi‐component intervention for loud speech among children with autism spectrum disorder

Quantifying Spatial and Temporal Variability of Clear and Loud Speech Produced While Performing a Concurrent Visuomotor Task.

The purpose of this research note was to quantify the impact of concurrent performance of an attention-demanding secondary task on utterance-to-utterance movement variability associated with higher effort speaking styles, namely, clear and loud speech. Lip and jaw kinematics collected as part of a prior study were analyzed. Participants repeated "Buy Bobby a puppy" using habitual, loud, and clear speech styles in isolation and while performing a secondary tracking task. The lip aperture (LA) signal was segmented based on opening and closing gestures associated with the utterance. The standard deviation of each segment duration was calculated to quantify temporal variability. To quantify spatial variability, each segment was first time normalized. The mean standard deviation of the overlapping time-normalized LA amplitudes was computed for each segment from the repetitions produced in each speech style and condition (speaking in isolation vs. speaking while tracking). A relative measure of spatial variation was also computed to account for the potential impact of articulatory scaling. Clear speech was associated with greater temporal and spatial variability than the habitual and loud styles. In the habitual style, talkers also exhibited a slight reduction in absolute spatial variability when speaking while tracking compared to speaking in isolation. The reduction in absolute spatial variability was likely associated with the concomitant reduction in LA range of motion, as there was no change in the relative spatial variability between conditions. The current investigation expands prior work by quantifying spatial and temporal characteristics of different speaking styles performed in isolation and while concurrently performing an attention-demanding visuomotor task.

Evaluating the utility of daily speech assessments for monitoring depression symptoms.

Depression is a common mental health disorder and a major public health concern, significantly interfering with the lives of those affected. The complex clinical presentation of depression complicates symptom assessments. Day-to-day fluctuations of depression symptoms within an individual bring an additional barrier, since infrequent testing may not reveal symptom fluctuation. Digital measures such as speech can facilitate daily objective symptom evaluation. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of daily speech assessment in characterizing speech fluctuations in the context of depression symptoms, which can be completed remotely, at a low cost and with relatively low administrative resources. Community volunteers (N = 16) completed a daily speech assessment, using the Winterlight Speech App, and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for 30 consecutive business days. We calculated 230 acoustic and 290 linguistic features from individual's speech and investigated their relationship to depression symptoms at the intra-individual level through repeated measures analyses. We observed that depression symptoms were linked to linguistic features, such as less frequent use of dominant and positive words. Greater depression symptomatology was also significantly correlated with acoustic features: reduced variability in speech intensity and increased jitter. Our findings support the feasibility of using acoustic and linguistic features as a measure of depression symptoms and propose daily speech assessment as a tool for better characterization of symptom fluctuations.

Emotion Intensity and its Control for Emotional Voice Conversion

Emotional voice conversion (EVC) seeks to convert the emotional state of an utterance while preserving the linguistic content and speaker identity. In EVC, emotions are usually treated as discrete categories overlooking the fact that speech also conveys emotions with various intensity levels that the listener can perceive. In this paper, we aim to explicitly characterize and control the intensity of emotion. We propose to disentangle the speaker style from linguistic content and encode the speaker style into a style embedding in a continuous space that forms the prototype of emotion embedding. We further learn the actual emotion encoder from an emotion-labelled database and study the use of relative attributes to represent fine-grained emotion intensity. To ensure emotional intelligibility, we incorporate emotion classification loss and emotion embedding similarity loss into the training of the EVC network. As desired, the proposed network controls the fine-grained emotion intensity in the output speech. Through both objective and subjective evaluations, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed network for emotional expressiveness and emotion intensity control.

Сопоставительный анализ требований к владению фонетической стороной звучащей речи в отечественных и международных экзаменах по английскому языку

The number of high school graduates taking the final exam in foreign languages is constantly growing. Changes in the CEFR documents that regulate and describe the levels of foreign language proficiency have caused the necessity to reconsider traditional views on pronunciation standards and assessment of the speaking part of international English language exams. The paper focuses on the assessment of the level of proficiency in the phonetic aspect of speech. The authors provide a comparative analysis of the criteria for assessing the level of proficiency in phonological competence in various language exams. Russian and international English language exams apply different requirements to the phonological competence of a test taker. Changes to the descriptors, specifications and assessment criteria for the speaking part of the National State Examination in English are proposed based on the global trend for speech clarity instead of the accent closest to the sound of a native speaker. Introduction of the changes leads to development of an optimal strategy for preparing students for various language exams. The study formulates provisions that will navigate the process of exam preparation for the NSE in the English language. Students are advised to focus on the clarity of speech, to adhere to the rhythmic and intonation patterns of the statement, which should correspond with the communicative task. An important role is given to the intensity of speech and clarity of articulation, the demonstration of willingness and desire to start communication. Students are not recommended to stick to a certain accent typical for native speakers trying to imitate their pronunciation.

Study of monuments written in higher school education curriculum

The study of ancient written monuments in the curricula of universities is relevant today. It is also important to study the styles of these written monuments during their teaching. Translation monument of the 16th century “Shuhadaname” is one of the richest prose monuments of the Azerbaijani literary language family style. This work, translated into Azerbaijani by Hussein Vaiz Kasifi's from Persian “Rovzatush-Shuhada” (“Garden of Martyrs”) by Secretary Nishati, is devoted to the Islamic interpretation of the idea of martyrdom reflected in religious books, as well as family and domestic relations in that ideological context. The article examines the elements of family style in the language of the translation of “Shuhadaname”, the features of the living vernacular, which characterizes the speech of individual characters, the speech situation, the effectiveness (intensity) of speech, etc. analyzed from the perspectives. In this article we will talk about styles in the language of “Shuhadaname”, one of the monuments of the XVI century.

Neurobiology of the linguistic function: a review and implications for aphasic rehabilitation

The Wernicke-Geschwind model has been considered the main reference in regard to the neural basis of language function. Indeed, this model has been systematically used to explain and interpret different aphasic disorders. However, recent findings across several neuroimaging studies challenge the suitability of this model to explain the cerebral dynamics observed after brain damage. This paper provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the most recent findings on language neuroscience. Thus, a consistent body of evidence obtained from the use of various techniques (including fMRi, EEG, MEG, TMS, tDCS, among others) strongly indicates the existence of a dynamic brain network involved in language function that recruits distant brain regions across both hemispheres, hence revealing the obsoleteness of traditional approaches for a complete understanding of language dysfunction. Despite these systematic and well-stablished findings, this and other language models are still considered nowadays in the educational and clinical practice, with detrimental implications for the successful characterization and rehabilitation of aphasic patients. Taking into account the dynamic reorganization of the language neural network, the use of modern brain neuro-modulatory techniques, together with the implementation of intense speech therapy, are discussed as the first option to be considered for the successful treatment of aphasia.

Design and Development of a Spanish Hearing Test for Speech in Noise (PAHRE)

There are few hearing tests in Spanish that assess speech discrimination in noise in the adult population that take into account the Lombard effect. This study presents the design and development of a Spanish hearing test for speech in noise (Prueba Auditiva de Habla en Ruido en Español (PAHRE) in Spanish). The pattern of the Quick Speech in Noise test was followed when drafting sentences with five key words each grouped in lists of six sentences. It was necessary to take into account the differences between English and Spanish. A total of 61 people (24 men and 37 women) with an average age of 46.9 (range 18-84 years) participated in the study. The work was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, a list of Spanish sentences was drafted and subjected to a familiarity test based on the semantic and syntactic characteristics of the sentences; as a result, a list of sentences was selected for the final test. In the second phase, the selected sentences were recorded with and without the Lombard effect, the equivalence between both lists was analysed, and the test was applied to a first reference population. The results obtained allow us to affirm that it is representative of the Spanish spoken in its variety in peninsular Spain. In addition, these results point to the usefulness of the PAHRE test in assessing speech in noise by maintaining a fixed speech intensity while varying the intensity of the multi-speaker background noise. The incorporation of the Lombard effect in the test shows discrimination differences with the same signal-to-noise ratio compared to the test without the Lombard effect.

STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION USING PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT IN NURSING HOMES: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Abstract Care of persons with living with dementia is complicated by using personal protective equipment (PPE). Masks and other facial coverings although protective, prohibit visualization of lip-reading and nonverbal cues and obscure identity. The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine best practices for effective communication while using PPE from the provider (n=10), resident (n=5), and family perspective (n=4). The 19 participants were recruited from four states. Qualitative content analysis identified two major themes: (1) challenges experienced during nursing home pandemic care, and (2) the communication strategies to overcome PPE challenges. Although our interviews were not focused on experiences outside of using PPE, all participants voiced trauma surrounding the lockdown for residents and separation from their families. All participants expressed pessimism surrounding the PPE, but this was also met with feelings of normalization surrounding its use. The communication strategies discussed focused on emphasizing (1) verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and (2) person-centered communication. The general communication strategies recommended were consistent with expert opinions such as using written messages and gestures, using loud speech, using clear speech, identifying self, and varying approaches based on person and context. Person-centered approaches centered on the staff and resident "knowing each other." Specifically, knowing the resident is essential to understanding their personal barriers and facilitators to successful communication and knowing each other in a personal and trusting manner helps overcome barriers caused by PPE. This study provides practical suggestions for best practices in communication and reinforces the need for person-centered communication focused on psycho-emotional care.

Lip hyper-articulation in loud voice: Effect on resonance-harmonic proximity

Men and women speakers were recorded while producing sustained vowels at comfortable and loud levels. Following comfortable speech, loud levels were produced in three different conditions: first without specific instruction (UL); then maintaining the same pitch as the comfortable level (PL); and finally, keeping both pitch and lip articulation constant (PAL). The sound pressure level, the fundamental frequency ( fo), the first two vocal tract resonances (R1 and R2), the lip geometry, and the larynx height were measured. For women, a closer proximity of R1 to its nearest harmonic, nfo, was observed in UL. However, no such increased proximity was found in PL, when speakers could, and did, hyper-articulate. Also, no increased proximity was observed in PAL, when lip articulation was constrained. No significant increase in R1: nfo proximity was observed in men in any of the three loud conditions. Finally, R2 was not observed significantly closer to a voice harmonic in loud speech, for neither men nor women.

The Impact of Facial Personal Protective Equipment on Speech Intensity.

Facial personal protective equipment (FPPE) filters small particles in the operating room (OR) but also affects speech production, diminishing the effective transfer of information among OR team members. The aim of the study is to assess the attenuating effects of different combinations of layered FPPE on speech intensity, including potential differences in the effect of talkers with varying backgrounds and speaking volumes. We recruited 30 speakers from health and nonhealth occupations with English as either their first or second language. All participants spoke unmasked, at varying voice levels into a portable Zoom H4n device 12 inches from the microphone. These no-mask recordings were played from a Styrofoam head, fitted with 7 combinations of FPPE commonly worn in the COVID-19 era, with the attenuated signals assessed for digital average signal levels. We submitted these attenuation values to an omnibus mixed analysis of variance and performed a spectral analysis on signal attenuation stratified by typical speech frequency bands. Signal attenuation was strongly determined by FPPE combination, regardless of talker sex, first language, and occupation ( P < 0.01, η 2p = 0.881). The effects of vocal output were also significant ( P < 0.01, η 2p = 0.881). Soft talkers experienced particularly high attenuation at frequency bands higher than 2,000 Hz. The signal of the softest talkers, when asked to speak loudly, was similar to the loud talkers' signal. Layered FPPE in the OR protects the surgical team from small particle exposure but may increase communication failures. Our data can help OR staff choose FPPE and alter their vocal volume accordingly.

Ambulatory Phonation Monitoring in Prelingual and Postlingual Deaf Patients after Cochlear Implantation

Introduction: Hearing loss is known to play a fundamental role in voice production due to a lack of auditory feedback. In this study, we evaluated both fundamental frequency (F₀) and loudness of voice on adult deaf patients subjected to cochlear implantation, and we analyzed these results according to the prelingual or postlingual onset of the deafness. Methods: The study population, balanced in terms of sex, consisted of 32 adults who had undergone cochlear implantation due to severe or profound bilateral hearing loss (16 with prelingual deafness and 16 with postlingual deafness) and their outcomes were compared with a control group of 32 normal hearing (NH) subjects. All subjects were asked to utter the sustained vowel /a/ for at least 5 s and then to read an Italian phonetically balanced text. Voice recordings were performed by means of an ambulatory phonation monitoring (APM 3200). Measurements were performed without cochlear implant (CI), then with CI switched on, both in quiet condition and with background noise. Results: Compared to NH subjects, deaf individuals were overall characterized by higher F₀ and loudness values, especially in the vowel task than the reading. In the sustained vowel task, no patients demonstrated significant voice changes after switching on the CI; contrarily, in the reading task, the use of the CI reduced both loudness and F₀ up to values comparable to NH subjects, although only in males. There was no significant difference in speech parameters between prelingual and postlingual deafness, although overall lower values were evident in case of postlingual deafness. The use of the CI showed a significant reduction of F₀ in males with postlingual deafness and of loudness, both for patients with prelingual and postlingual deafness. Finally, there was a positive correlation between postoperative hearing thresholds and overall speech loudness, highlighting how subjects with better hearing outcomes after CI positioning generally speak with a lower loudness and therefore a reduced vocal effort and load. Discussion/Conclusion: We found similar speech performances between prelingual and postlingual deafness, both in the vowel /a/ phonation and in the reading, providing a further suggestion that prelingual adult patients may benefit from cochlear implantation in phonation as well, in addition to the known excellent hearing outcomes. Overall, these results highlight the ability of the CI to adjust in everyday speech certain phonatory aspects such as F₀ and loudness by restoring the auditory feedback.

The retrospective acceptability of high intensity versus low intensity speech intervention in children with a cleft palate: A qualitative study from the parents' point of view using the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability.

Increasing attention is paid to the effectiveness of high-intensity speech intervention in children with a cleft (lip and) palate (CP±L). It is, however, unknown if high-intensity intervention is acceptable to the intervention recipients. Parents have an integral role in supporting their children with intervention highlighting the importance of intervention acceptability to parents. To compare the retrospective acceptability of high-intensity speech intervention (10 1-hr speech therapy sessions divided over 2 weeks) with the retrospective acceptability of low-intensity speech intervention (10 1-hr speech therapy sessions divided over 10 weeks) for children with a CP±L from the parents' point of view. Twelve parents of 12 children, aged 6-0 years who received high-intensity speech intervention (n = 6) or low-intensity speech intervention (n = 6), were invited to participate in this study. Seven parents (n = 3 in the high-intensity group and n = 4 in the low-intensity group) agreed to participate (total response rate: 7/12, 58.33%). A qualitative study design using semi-structured interviews was applied. To investigate the retrospective acceptability of the two intervention intensities, deductive coding according to the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) was used. With regard to the TFA construct 'affective attitude', results demonstrated that parents had positive feelings about the provided speech intervention regardless of the intensity. Parents of children who received high-intensity speech intervention reported two specific benefits related to the high intervention intensity: (1) it improved their relationship with the speech-language pathologist and (2) it improved their child's ability to make self-corrections in his/her speech. Even though both high-intensive and low-intensity speech intervention were considered burdensome (TFA construct 'burden'), parents were less likely to drop out of high-intensity intervention because the total intervention period was kept short. In conclusion, high-intensity speech intervention seemed acceptable to parents. More positive codes were identified for some of the TFA constructs in the high-intensity intervention group than in the low-intensity intervention group. Considering that some parents doubted their self-efficacy to participate in high-intensity speech intervention, speech-language pathologists need to counsel them so that they can adhere to the high intervention intensity. Future studies should investigate whether high-intensity speech intervention is also acceptable to the children who receive the intervention and to the speech-language pathologists who deliver the intervention. What is already known on this subject Increasing attention is paid to the effectiveness of high-intensity speech intervention in children with a cleft (lip and) palate (CP±L). Different quantitative studies have shown positive speech outcomes after high-intensity cleft speech intervention. Despite this increasing attention to high-intensity speech intervention, it is unknown whether high-intensity intervention is also acceptable to the intervention recipients. This study compared the retrospective acceptability of high-intensity speech intervention (10 1-hour speech therapy sessions divided over 2 weeks) with the retrospective acceptability of low-intensity speech intervention (10 1-hour speech therapy sessions divided over 10 weeks) in children with a CP±L from the parents' point of view. What this paper adds to existing knowledge More positive codes were identified for some of the TFA constructs in the high-intensity intervention group than in the low-intensity intervention group. Nevertheless, some parents doubted their self-efficacy to participate in high-intensity speech intervention. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The findings of this study forces us to reconsider the traditional cleft speech intervention delivery models which usually consist of low-intensity intervention. Speech-language pathologists need to counsel parents and so that they can adhere to the high intervention intensity.

Respiratory and articulatory influences on inhalation noise during speech

During speech production, individuals inhale more deeply and rapidly compared to non-speaking inspiration. Such inspirations are also more frequently audible than their non-speech counterparts. To what extent do the acoustic characteristics of inhalation noise reflect respiratory contributions versus other articulatory mechanisms? To gain insight into this question, here we relate acoustics, captured using a head-mounted microphone, with kinematic data collected via respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) and optopalatography (OPG). The OPG system permits measurement of lip movements (displacement and velocity), tongue-palate contacts, and midsagittal distance when the tongue has no contact with the palate. Custom-made palates, including both contact sensors as well as optical sensors, were obtained for eight typical female speakers of German. Speech was recorded in normal and loud conditions. In this exploratory analysis, we anticipate that (a) louder speech will be accompanied by deeper, more rapid inhalations; and (b) greater articulatory opening during the inhalation phase; (c) the magnitude of lip aperture will be correlated with inspiration-excited first formant values; and (d) both supralaryngeal and respiratory displacements and velocities will be reflected in the inhalation noise characteristics. That is, speech inspiration, like speech itself, will demonstrate regular correspondences between physiological actions and the acoustic output.

Leg movements affect speech intensity.

Coordination between speech acoustics and manual gestures has been conceived as "not biologically mandated" (McClave E. J Psycholinguist Res 27(1): 69-89, 1998). However, recent work suggests a biomechanical entanglement between the upper limbs and the respiratory-vocal system (Pouw W, de Jonge-Hoekstra D, Harrison SJ, Paxton A, Dixon JA. Ann NY Acad Sci 1491(1): 89-105, 2021). Pouw et al. found that for movements with a high physical impulse, speech acoustics co-occur with the physical impulses of upper limb movements. They interpret this result in terms of biomechanical coupling between arm motion and speech via the breathing system. This coupling could support the synchrony observed between speech prosody and arm gestures during communication. The present study investigates whether the effect of physical impulse on speech acoustics can be extended to leg motion, assumed to be controlled independently from oral communication. The study involved 25 native speakers of German who recalled short stories while biking with their arms or their legs. These conditions were compared with a static condition in which participants could not move their arms. Our analyses are similar to that of Pouw et al. (Pouw W, de Jonge-Hoekstra D, Harrison SJ, Paxton A, Dixon JA. Ann NY Acad Sci 1491(1): 89-105, 2021). Results reveal that the presence of intensity peaks in the acoustic signal co-occur with the time of peak acceleration of legs' biking movements. However, this was not observed when biking with the arms, which corresponded to lower acceleration peaks. In contrast to intensity, F0 was not affected in the arm and leg conditions. These results suggest that 1) the biomechanical entanglements between the respiratory-vocal system and the lower limbs may also impact speech; 2) the physical impulse may have to reach a threshold to impact speech acoustics.NEW & NOTEWORTHY The link between speech and limb motion is an interdisciplinary challenge and a core issue in motor control and language research. Our research aims to disentangle the potential biomechanical links between lower limbs and the speech apparatus, by investigating the effect of leg movements on speech acoustics.