Use Of Prosody Research Articles

Age and decision strategies in running memory for speech: effects of prosody and linguistic structure.

Young and elderly adults heard recorded passages of English prose spoken with and without normal prosody, and passages that were devoid of either linguistic or prosodic structure. Subjects were instructed to interrupt the speech input at points of their choosing for immediate recall on a segment-by-segment basis. For both age groups segmentation strategies varied with type of speech materials as did their levels of recall accuracy. Age differences in recall performance were diminished by the presence of normal prosody, an effect only partially attributable to the use of prosody to detect linguistic boundaries at the surface level.

Improvements to a speaker‐independent algorithm

In May 1988, a speaker‐independent recognition algorithm was described at the 115th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America [Scott et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 83, S55 (1988)]. The algorithm yielded 95.4% recognition accuracy on the 20‐word TI database obtained from the National Bureau of Standards. The system has since been adapted for use over the telephone. In so doing, a new database was developed consisting of 16 words (zero‐nine, oh, yes, no, cancel, terminate, and help) as spoken by 11 males and 11 females from various locations across the country. Although small (1001 utterances), the database represented a significant challenge as compared to the one obtained from the NBS. There were fewer training passes per word, more speakers, and there was considerably more noise in the database. Initial tests on this database yielded accuracies of approximately 60%. Four major enhancements to the algorithm improved the accuracy on this database to 95.3% Two of the enhancements compensate for time alignment problems inherent in both linear and nonlinear time normalization routines through the use of prosody and redundancy. The other two enhancements include the extraction of additional features and better use of variances. Results indicate that acceptable speaker‐independent recognition can be obtained with minimal training and processor requirements, given effective normalization routines during the front‐end signal processing.

Prosodic aspects of motherese: Effects on gaze and responsiveness in developmentally disabled children

This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of using voice tones (prosody) typical of “motherese” ( O. K. Garnica, 1977, in C. E. Snow & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking to Children: Language Input and Aquisition, pp. 63–88, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press) on responsiveness and eye gaze in children with severe handicaps. Specificially, two conditions, “motherese” and “conversational” voice tones, were compared. The current study presents data from naturalistic observations of six children, and controlled experimental manipulations with four children. The results of the naturalistic observations in Study 1 suggested a positive relationship between the use of voice tones typical of “motherese” and responsiveness and eye gaze. Further analysis using an alternating treatments design in Study 2 revealed similar results. Specifically, the use of prosody associated with “motherese” showed increased levels of eye gaze when compared to the use of “conversational tones.” The results suggest the importance of considering normal development in analyzing social and teaching interactions between teachers and severely handicapped children.

Speech recognition in the French national project on man‐machine interface

Research and development activities in the field of automatic speech processing have been relatively important in France for the past 20 years. In 1981, the Ministry of Research created the GRECO‐PRC on Man‐Machine Communication with the role of promoting and coordinating research activities in the fields of vision, natural language, and speech. This paper gives an overview of this national project which presently groups more than 40 French laboratories. First, its role, objectives, and means of action will be briefly introduced and then a description of the ongoing projects in the different fields that have been selected will be presented: (1) design, recording, and exploitation of a database of spoken French, BDSON, to be used for fundamental studies in acoustic phonetics as well as for assessment of speech recognition and synthesis systems; (2) morphological database of speech including knowledge‐based techniques; (3) man‐machine dialogue using speech; and (4) use of prosody in automatic speech recognition. The results already obtained will be presented and the future of the project will be discussed.

The effect of discourse structuring devices on listener perceptions of coherence in non‐native university teacher's spoken discourse

ABSTRACT: This paper addresses some of the sources of communication difficulty in the academic context through a discourse analytic examination of videotaped teaching demonstrations by 18 Korean and Chinese teaching assistants. It has been suggested that the primary source of listener perceptions of disorganization in spoken academic discourse might be the overall order in which information is presented. This study, however, reveals that rhetorical organization was not the problem. Research on native speakers’ discourse in an academic environment has indicated that effective communicators use a number of devices to orient their listeners to the relative importance among ideas within the discourse, and simultaneously to convey the interrelationships among these ideas. In particular, we find extensive use of prosody. Native speakers also use a variety of syntactic constructions such as topicalization in order to focus the attention of the listener and show relative foregrounding and backgrounding. Use of these devices provides native‐speaker listeners with a set of cues which allow them to construct coherence. This study shows these cues were absent in the Chinese and Korean speakers. The main structuring devices were lexical repetition and parataxis. In effect, the Chinese and Korean speakers are constructing an undifferentiated, flat discourse structure within which the native‐speaker listener is unable to perceive the intended relationships among the ideas presented.

Age‐related changes in the syntactic interpretation of prosodic cues

The contrast between “He showed her the bird seed,” and “He showed her bird the seed,” can be marked by an article and prosody, or by prosody alone. Aural comprehension of such sentences develops between ages 5 and 13, and comprehension of sentences marked by prosody alone is last to emerge [R. J. Scholes, D.C. Tanis, and A. Turner, Lang. Speech 19, 212–223 (1976)]. We have replicated this finding among a population of 8‐ and 10‐year‐old children, and, in three subsequent experiments, have explored the basis of age‐related changes in use of prosody. The first experiment reveals that age‐related differences in use of prosodic cues extend to another syntactic structure. The second shows that young children's perception of the relevant prosodic cues is superior to their syntactic interpretation of them. The third shows that while emphasis of prosodic cues does not improve comprehension, disruption of either work stress or juncture pause can penalize children's performance, more so for older children than you...

Young children's use of prosody.

ABSTRACTThis study examined the relationship between prosodic variables in children's spontaneous speech and aspects of children's social behaviour while speaking. Twelve children aged 1; 11 to 2; 1 were videotaped in free play with an adult. Two hundred spontaneous utterances were sampled, and each utterance was psychophysically rated on loudness, pitch, and pitch range. These measurements were aggregated in a single measure of prosody for each utterance, which was related to whether or not children (a) made eye contact, (b) showed other social behaviours, or (c) showed no interactive behaviour with adults when an utterance was made. Results showed that utterances made while maintaining eye contact were on average louder and higher and more variably pitched. Such a finding indicates that children use prosodic elements of speech for communicative purposes.

Use of Prosody and Syntactic Markers in Children’s Comprehension of Spoken Sentences

A comparison was made of four- and five-year-old children’s comprehension of coordinate, center-embedded relative clause, and right-branching relative clause sentences under four conditions of presentation: (1) prosody (P) and syntactic markers (M) intact; (2) P intact and M eliminated; (3) M intact and P eliminated; and (4) M and P eliminated. The number of semantic-syntactic relationships in a sentence that were correctly acted out were analyzed by age, sentence type, and conditions of presentation. More relationships were acted out appropriately by five year olds. Differences between sentence type were significant with coordinate sentence type the easiest and right-branching sentence type the most difficult. Conditions of presentation did not significantly affect responses, although there was a significant interaction between condition and sentence type. Scores were significantly lower for center-embedded sentences when M was intact and P eliminated. It was concluded that word order was the major linguistic cue used by the children to process these sentences.