Spontaneous Speech Samples Research Articles

"Do I Sound Straight?": Acoustic Correlates of Actual and Perceived Sexual Orientation and Masculinity/Femininity in Men's Speech.

This study aims to give an integrative answer on which speech stereotypes exist toward German gay and straight men, whether and how acoustic correlates of actual and perceived sexual orientation are connected, and how this relates to masculinity/femininity. Hence, it tests speech stereotype accuracy in the context of sexual orientation. Twenty-five gay and 26 straight German speakers provided data for a fine-grained psychological self-assessment (e.g., masculinity/femininity) and explicit speech stereotypes. They were recorded for an extensive set of read and spontaneous speech samples using microphones and nasometry. Recordings were analyzed for a variety of acoustic parameters (e.g., fundamental frequency and nasalance). Seventy-four listeners categorized speakers as gay or straight on the basis of the same sentence. Most relevant explicitly expressed speech stereotypes encompass voice pitch, nasality, chromaticity, and smoothness. Demonstrating implicit stereotypes, speakers were perceived as sounding straighter, the lower their median f0, center of gravity in /s/, and mean F2. However, based on actual sexual orientation, straight men only showed lower mean F1 than gay men. Additionally, we found evidence that actual masculinity/femininity and the degree of sexual orientation were reflected in gay and straight men's speech. Implicit and explicit speech stereotypes about gay and straight men do not contain a kernel of truth, and differences within groups are more important than differences between them. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.6484001.

Acoustic-Perceptual Correlates of Voice in Indian Hindu Purohits

Purohit, in the Indian religious context (Hindu), means priest. Purohits are professional voice users who use their voice while performing regular worships and rituals in temples and homes. Any deviations in their voice can have an impact on their profession. Hence, there is a need to investigate the voice characteristics of purohits using perceptual and acoustic analyses. A total of 44 men in the age range of 18-30 years were divided into two groups. Group 1 consisted of purohits who were trained since childhood (n = 22) in the traditional gurukul system. Group 2 (n = 22) consisted of normal controls. Phonation and spontaneous speech samples were obtained from all the participants at a comfortable pitch and loudness. The Praat software (Version 5.3.31) and the Speech tool were used to analyze the traditional acoustic and cepstral parameters, respectively, whereas GRBAS was used to perceptually evaluate the voice. Results of the independent t test revealed no significant differences across the groups for perceptual and traditional acoustic measures except for intensity, which was significantly higher in purohits' voices at P < 0.05. However, the cepstral values (cepstral peak prominence and smoothened cepstral peak prominence) were much higher in purohits than in controls at P < 0.05 CONCLUSIONS: Results revealed that purohits did not exhibit vocal deviations as analyzed through perceptual and acoustic parameters. In contrast, cepstral measures were higher in Indian Hindu purohits in comparison with normal controls, suggestive of a higher degree of harmonic organization in purohits. Further studies are required to analyze the physiological correlates of increased cepstral measures in purohits' voices.

APTITUDE, EXPERIENCE, AND SECOND LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION PROFICIENCY DEVELOPMENT IN CLASSROOM SETTINGS

AbstractThe current study longitudinally examined the influence of aptitude on second language (L2) pronunciation development when 40 first-year Japanese university students engaged in practice activities inside and outside English-as-a-Foreign-Language classrooms over one academic year. Spontaneous speech samples were elicited at the beginning, middle, and end points of the project, analyzed for global, segmental, syllabic, prosodic, and temporal aspects of L2 pronunciation, and linked to their aptitude and experience profiles. Results indicated that the participants generally enhanced the global comprehensibility of their speech (through reducing vowel insertion errors in complex syllables) as a function of increased classroom experience during their first semester, and explicit learning aptitude (associative memory, phonemic coding) appeared to help certain learners further enhance their pronunciation proficiency through the development of fluency and prosody. In the second semester, incidental learning ability (sound sequence recognition) was shown to be a significant predictor of the extent to which certain learners continued to improve and ultimately attain advanced-level L2 comprehensibility, largely thanks to improved segmental accuracy.

Acoustic characteristics and learner profiles of low-, mid- and high-level second language fluency

ABSTRACTIn the context of 90 adult Japanese learners of English with diverse second language experience and 10 native speakers, this study examined the linguistic characteristics and learner profiles of low-, mid- and high-level fluency performance. The participants’ spontaneous speech samples were initially rated by 10 native listeners for global fluency on a 9-point scale (1 =dysfluent, 9 =very fluent), and then divided into four proficiency groups via cluster analyses: low (n= 29), mid (n= 30), high (n= 31), and native (n= 10). Next, the data set was analyzed for the number of pauses within/between clauses, articulation rate, and the frequency of repetitions/self-corrections. According to the results of a series of analyses of variance, the frequency of final-clause pauses differentiated low- and mid-level fluency performance; the number of mid-clause pauses differentiated mid- and high-level performance; and articulation rate differentiated high-level and nativelike performance. The analyses also found that the participants’ second language fluency was significantly associated with their length of residence profiles (0–18 years), but not with their age of arrival profiles (19–40 years).

Tracking the Growth of Tense and Agreement in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Differences Between Measures of Accuracy, Diversity, and Productivity.

Composite measures of children's use of tense and agreement morphology differ in their emphasis on accuracy, diversity, or productivity, yet little is known about how these different measures change over time. An understanding of these differences is especially important for the study of children with specific language impairment, given these children's extraordinary difficulty with this aspect of grammar. We computed 3 types of composite scores from spontaneous speech samples obtained from 17 preschoolers with specific language impairment before, during, and after their participation in a language intervention study. These measures were the Finite Verb Morphology Composite (a measure of accuracy), the Tense Marker Total (a measure of diversity), and the Productivity Score (a measure of productivity). The 3 measures differed in their growth trajectories. Sample size did not alter the linear or quadratic nature of growth of any composite, although it did affect the absolute values found for the Tense Marker Total and Productivity Score. Even when sample size is controlled, early growth can be seen in tense and agreement accuracy with relatively limited diversity and productivity, whereas later growth in diversity and productivity can occur with very little change in accuracy.

The Impact of Expiratory Muscle Strength Training on Speech Breathing in Individuals With Parkinson's Disease: A Preliminary Study.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of expiratory muscle strength training on speech breathing and functional speech outcomes in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Twelve individuals with PD were seen once a week for 8 weeks: 4 pretraining (baseline) sessions followed by a 4-week training period. Posttraining data were collected at the end of the 4th week of training. Maximum expiratory pressure, an indicator of expiratory muscle strength, and lung volume at speech initiation were the primary outcome measures. Secondary outcomes included lung volume at speech termination, lung volume excursion, utterance length, and vocal intensity. Data were collected during a spontaneous speech sample. Individual effect sizes > 1 were considered significant. Maximum expiratory pressure increased in a majority of participants after training. Training resulted in 2 main respiratory patterns: increasing or decreasing lung volume initiation. Lung volume termination and excursion, utterance length, and vocal loudness were not consistently altered by training. Preliminary evidence suggests that the direct physiologic intervention of the respiratory system via expiratory muscle strength training improves speech breathing in individuals with PD, with participants using more typical lung volumes for speech following treatment.

Speech disfluencies in children with Down Syndrome

PurposeSpeech and language development in individuals with Down syndrome is often delayed and/or disordered and speech disfluencies appear to be more common. These disfluencies have been labeled over time as stuttering, cluttering or both. Findingswere usually generated from studies with adults or a mixed age group, quite often using different methodologies, making it difficult to compare findings. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze and describe the speech disfluencies of a group, only consisting of children with Down Syndrome between 3 and 13 years of age. MethodParticipants consisted of 26 Dutch-speaking children with DS. Spontaneous speech samples were collected and 50 utterances were analyzed for each child. Types of disfluencies were identified and classified into stuttering-like (SLD) and other disfluencies (OD). The criterion of three or more SLD per 100 syllables (cf. Ambrose & Yairi, 1999) was used to identify stuttering. Additional parameters such as mean articulation rate (MAR), ratio of disfluencies, and telescoping (cf. Coppens-Hofman et al., 2013) were used to identify cluttering and to differentiate between stuttering and cluttering. Results & conclusionApproximately 30 percent of children with DS between 3 and 13 years of age in this study stutter, which is much higher than the prevalence in normally developing children. Moreover, this study showed that the speech of children with DS has a different distribution of types of disfluencies than the speech of normally developing children. Although different cluttering-like characteristics were found in the speech of young children with DS, none of them could be identified as cluttering or cluttering-stuttering.

Identification of High-Frequency Morphosyntactic Structures in Persian-Speaking Children Aged 4-6 Years: A Qualitative Research

Syntax has a high importance among linguistic parameters and the prevalence of syntax deficits is relatively high in children with language disorders. As such, independent examination of syntax in language development is of paramount importance. In this regard, Iranian language pathologists are faced with the lack of standardized tests. The present study aimed to determine the most frequent and essential morphosyntactic structures of the Persian-speaking children aged 4-6 years, as an initial step in the design of a test to assess their expressive morphosyntactic features. The present descriptive qualitative study was designed and conducted in two phases in Tehran (Iran) during 2014-2015. The first phase involved an extensive review of the Persian grammar sources, language development texts, modeling a test called SPELT-3, and morphosyntactic analysis of samples of spontaneous speech from 30 Persian-speaking children aged 4-6 years. In this phase, 30 structures were extracted as the most frequent morphosyntactic features used by children aged 4-6 years. The second phase of the research involved directed content analysis via in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 10 specialists in the fields of linguistics, language, and speech pathology. In total, 30 morphosyntactic structures were extracted in the first phase of the study as the most frequent morphosyntactic structures of the Persian-speaking children aged 4-6 years. The overall validity of these structures was estimated at 70%. Based on the results, the selected morphosyntactic structures could be the foundation for morphosyntactic assessments in Persian-speaking children aged 4-6 years.

Procesos fonológicos en una prueba de repetición de no-palabras en niños con trastorno específico del lenguaje

Phonological processes have been extensively studied in spontaneous speech samples and in early stages of development. However, there are very few studies that have addressed these processes in Spanish at later ages in tasks involving a high processing load of the working memory such as a test of non-word repetition (NWR) in children with specific language impairment (SLI). This paper contrasts the occurrence of phonological errors among Mexican children with SLI and typically developing children (TD) using a NWR task. The study included 16 children aged 5-6 years: 8 children with SLI and 8 with TD. The results showed general patterns in the behavior of phonological processes in both groups. Also, a similar distribution of processes was in the SLI and TD groups. These results support studies in other languages both in type and tokens of processes: the SLI group had a higher number of phonological processes. The most productive processes in both groups were assimilation, processes with modification of the syllabic structure and multiple processes. The TD and SLI groups could be distinguished by phonological processes. Among those processes that showed differences between groups were multiple processes, followed by processes that modify the syllabic structure. We show that phonological processes are persistent into the school years when children are presented with a task that involves a greater processing load.

Improving the Efficiency of Reliable Size in Spontaneous Speech Sample Analysis: Focusing on Analysis of Productive Vocabulary Size

Improving the Efficiency of Reliable Size in Spontaneous Speech Sample Analysis: Focusing on Analysis of Productive Vocabulary Size

Perception of keywords elicited under various adverse acoustic environments

In a recent study, keywords were elicited in spontaneous speech samples from eight pairs of interlocutors who completed the “spot-the-difference” Diapix task in one of three acoustic environments: quiet, 2-talker babble, or 8-talker babble. In some conditions, talkers were in the same acoustic environment and in others they were in disparate environments. In all cases, the acoustic environments were presented over headphones in order to obtain clean recordings of the speech but maintain the influence of the environment on production. The current study investigated the perception of the keywords in each of the three acoustic environments at different signal-to-noise ratios, when they were presented in either the same or disparate adverse environment than ones in which they were elicited. Results from the current experiment will be discussed with regard to intelligibility obtained when words were presented in the same vs. different environments; the differences obtained in perception might indicate whether speech modifications in adverse environments are specific to a particular environment or more global in nature. The correlations between perception results to acoustic measures of these keywords in these various acoustic environment will also identify key factors that might improve communication effectiveness in adverse environments.

Speech Characteristics and Intelligibility in Adults with Mild and Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

Purpose: Adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) often show reduced speech intelligibility, which affects their social interaction skills. This study aims to establish the main predictors of this reduced intelligibility in order to ultimately optimise management. Method: Spontaneous speech and picture naming tasks were recorded in 36 adults with mild or moderate ID. Twenty-five naïve listeners rated the intelligibility of the spontaneous speech samples. Performance on the picture-naming task was analysed by means of a phonological error analysis based on expert transcriptions. Results: The transcription analyses showed that the phonemic and syllabic inventories of the speakers were complete. However, multiple errors at the phonemic and syllabic level were found. The frequencies of specific types of errors were related to intelligibility and quality ratings. Conclusions: The development of the phonemic and syllabic repertoire appears to be completed in adults with mild-to-moderate ID. The charted speech difficulties can be interpreted to indicate speech motor control and planning difficulties. These findings may aid the development of diagnostic tests and speech therapies aimed at improving speech intelligibility in this specific group.

Dimensional paralinguistic information control based on multiple-regression HSMM for spontaneous dialogue speech synthesis with robust parameter estimation

This paper describes spontaneous dialogue speech synthesis based on the multiple regression hidden semi-Markov model (MRHSMM), which enables users to specify paralinguistic information of synthesized speech with a dimensional representation. Paralinguistic aspects of synthesized speech are controlled by multiple regression models whose explanatory variables are abstract dimensions such as pleasant-unpleasant and aroused-sleepy. However, in the training phase of the MRHSMM, estimated regression coefficients may have unreasonably large values, which cause fragility in the parameter generation with respect to paralinguistic information given to the synthesizer. For robust estimation of the regression matrices of the MRHSMM with unbalanced spontaneous dialogue speech samples, the re-estimation formulae were derived in the framework of the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation. By examining the synthesized speech, it was confirmed that the acoustic features of synthesized speech are well controlled by the dimensions, especially by the dimension of aroused-sleepy. The result of a perceptual experiment confirmed that the naturalness of synthesized speech was improved by applying the MAP estimation for regression matrices. In addition, a relatively high correlation was observed between given and perceived paralinguistic information, which implies that the proposed method could successfully reflect intended paralinguistic messages on the synthesized speech.

Speech Sound Acquisition in a 5-year-old Spanish-English Bilingual Child

One of the most challenging aspects of assessing the phonological development of bilingual children is finding a method that is both ecologically valid and informative. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether spontaneous speech samples from an English-Spanish bilingual child give clinically relevant information through an analysis of phonological complexity. In this single subject case study, the researchers collect spontaneous speech samples from a 5-year-old, English-Spanish bilingual child. The speech samples are transcribed and evaluated to assess phonemic accuracy and levels of phonological complexity in both target languages. The results of this study indicate that spontaneous speech samples may be effective in evaluating speech sound complexity of production for bilingual children and add to previous studies that have shown similar findings.

Lexical diversity in narrative discourse of children with specific language impairment

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) exhibit significant difficulties in acquiring, processing and using new words. Analysis of spontaneous speech is a useful tool in assessing the development and use of the lexicon in children with SLI. Measures of lexical diversity are commonly used methods in the evaluation of lexical efficiency in spontaneous speech. The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences in overall lexical diversity and semantic words diversity between children with SLI and typically developing children. The sample consisted of 115 children between five and eight years of age, divided into two groups, 60 children diagnosed with SLI and 55 typically developing children. A sample of spontaneous speech was obtained through the task of story retelling. Fairy tale 'Cinderella' was used as a stimulus task. Lexical diversity and semantic words diversity were calculated with Type Token Ratio (TTR - Chotlos, 1944; Templin, 1957). The results showed that children with SLI had significantly lower score of lexical diversity in spontaneous speech compared with typically developing children. Difficulties with lexical diversity in children with SLI were found in both, overall lexical diversity (p≤0.00) and semantic words diversity (p≤0.00). Also, difficulties with lexical diversity in children with SLI, comparing with typically developed children, were confirmed in both age groups, preschool (p≤0.00) and early school age (p≤0.00). Children with SLI had deficits in the use of all classes of words. The difficulties were manifested in the production of semantic words, as well as in the production of words that have no specific meaning (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions). Also, deficits in the use of different words in discourse characterized children with SLI in both age groups (preschool and early school age).

Subcortical Effects on Voice and Fluency in Dysarthria: Observations from Subthalamic Nucleus Stimulation.

ObjectiveParkinson’s disease (PD), caused by basal ganglia dysfunction, is associated with motor disturbances including dysarthria. Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, a preferred treatment targeting basal ganglia function, improves features of the motor disorder, but has uncertain effects on speech.We studied speech during contrasting stimulation states to reveal subcortical effects on voice and articulation. Measures were made on selected samples of spontaneous and repeated speech.MethodsPersons with Parkinson’s disease (PWP) who had undergone bilateral deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) provided spontaneous speech samples and then repeated portions of their monologue both on and off stimulation. Excerpts were presented in a listening protocol probing intelligibility. Also analysed were a continuous phrase repetition task and a second spontaneous speech sample. Fundamental frequency (F0), harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), jitter, shimmer and fluency were measured in these three speech samples performed with DBS stimulation on and off.ResultsDuring subcortical stimulation, spontaneous excerpts were less intelligible than repeated excerpts. F0 and HNR were higher and shimmer was decreased in repetition and stimulation. Articulatory dysfluencies were increased for spontaneous speech and during stimulation in all three speech samples.ConclusionDeep brain stimulation disrupts fluency and improves voice in spontaneous speech, reflecting an inverse influence of subcortical systems on articulatory posturing and laryngeal mechanisms. Better voice and less dysfluency in repetition may occur because an external model reduces the speech planning burden, as seen for gait and arm reach. These orthogonal results for fluency versus phonatory competence may account for ambivalent reports from dysarthric speakers and reveal the complexity of subcortical control of motor speech.

Measuring sentence types and complexity of spontaneous discourse productions by Cantonese-speakers with traumatic brain injury in Guangzhou: A pilot study

Measuring sentence types and complexity of spontaneous discourse productions by Cantonese-speakers with traumatic brain injury in Guangzhou: A pilot study

Consonant Frequency and Phonological Characteristics of Eojeols in Spontaneous Speech Samples from 18- to 30-Month-Old Korean Children

배경 및 목적: 18-30개월 한국 아동의 자발화를 수집하여 자음 유형별 산출 빈도와 어절의 첫소리 특성을 살펴보았다. 방법: 생후 18-24개월과 25-30개월 아동 각각 20명으로부터 자발화를 수집하였다. 총 11,258개의 어절로 구성된 5,622개의 자발화를 음성 전사하여 두 연령 집단 간 자음 산출 빈도, 자음 유형별 산출 비율, 어절의 첫 말소리...

Do long-term tongue piercings affect speech quality?

Purpose: To explore possible effects of tongue piercing on perceived speech quality.Methods: Using a quasi-experimental design, we analyzed the effect of tongue piercing on speech in a perception experiment. Samples of spontaneous speech and read speech were recorded from 20 long-term pierced and 20 non-pierced individuals (10 males, 10 females each). The individuals having a tongue piercing were recorded with attached and removed piercing. The audio samples were blindly rated by 26 female and 20 male laypersons and by 5 female speech-language pathologists with regard to perceived speech quality along 5 dimensions: speech clarity, speech rate, prosody, rhythm and fluency.Results: We found no statistically significant differences for any of the speech quality dimensions between the pierced and non-pierced individuals, neither for the read nor for the spontaneous speech. In addition, neither length nor position of piercing had a significant effect on speech quality. The removal of tongue piercings had no effects on speech performance either. Rating differences between laypersons and speech-language pathologists were not dependent on the presence of a tongue piercing.Conclusions: People are able to perfectly adapt their articulation to long-term tongue piercings such that their speech quality is not perceptually affected.

Acoustics of palilalia: A case study

Palilalia is a rather rare speech disorder associated with a variety of etiologies including Parkinson's disease, stroke, epilepsy, and others. According to the literature, palilalia is characterized by repetitions of words, phrases, and/or sentences produced with an increasing rate and decreasing intensity. Because of the rare nature of this disorder, literature involving the characteristics is limited and somewhat contradictive. Although the original definition involves increasing rate and decreasing intensity, some researchers (i.e., Kent &amp; Lapointe, 1982) have found different characteristics such as decreasing rate and increasing intensity when examining individual cases. This study adds to the literature regarding characteristics of palilalic speech in terms of change in rate and fundamental frequency from the original utterance to the first repeated train. This study utilized a single-subject design involving a 42 year old male who suffered an anoxic brain injury. Spontaneous speech samples were collected and analyzed. The results showed significant differences in terms of rate and fundamental frequency with the first repeated train in comparison to the original utterance. The rate was significantly faster and the fundamental frequency was significantly higher in the repeated utterance.