Voice Onset Time Research Articles

Test-retest reliability of acoustic and linguistic measures of speech tasks

Recent studies suggest that automatic speech analysis is promising for diagnosing movement and cognitive disorders. However, the reliability of acoustic and linguistic measures receives insufficient research efforts. The present study examines the test-retest reliability of commonly used acoustic and linguistic features in a healthy Chinese adult sample. Forty healthy young adults participated in the study and received seven frequently used speech tests twice, separated by 2–3 days. Fifty-six acoustic and linguistic features were extracted for each participant. The test-retest reliabilities of those features were then estimated using the intra-class correlation (ICC) method. The frequency-related, spectral, diadochokinetic (diadochokinetic rate, voice onset time), and content length features showed acceptable absolute agreement between the two test sessions. Articulation tasks (sustained vowel pronunciation, diadochokinetic rate) provided more reliable features than cognitive tasks such as picture descriptions. However, approximately half of those features failed to reach a moderate reliability requirement. There were no gender differences in the reliability estimates. We suggest increasing trial numbers or using multiple tests to increase the reliability of automated speech tests.

Voice Onset Time of Stop Consonants in Hindi Speaking Children with Cerebral Palsy

Voice Onset Time of Stop Consonants in Hindi Speaking Children with Cerebral Palsy

Bilingual Children Shift and Relax Second-Language Phoneme Categorization in Response to Accented L2 and Native L1 Speech Exposure.

Listeners adjust their perception to match that of presented speech through shifting and relaxation of categorical boundaries. This allows for processing of speech variation, but may be detrimental to processing efficiency. Bilingual children are exposed to many types of speech in their linguistic environment, including native and non-native speech. This study examined how first language (L1) Spanish/second language (L2) English bilingual children shifted and relaxed phoneme categorization along the cue of voice onset time (VOT) during English speech processing after three types of language exposure: native English exposure, native Spanish exposure, and Spanish-accented English exposure. After exposure to Spanish-accented English speech, bilingual children shifted categorical boundaries in the direction of native English speech boundaries. After exposure to native Spanish speech, children shifted to a smaller extent in the same direction and relaxed boundaries leading to weaker differentiation between categories. These results suggest that prior exposure can affect processing of a second language in bilingual children, but different mechanisms are used when adapting to different types of speech variation.

Voice onset time and vowel formant measures in online testing and laboratory-based testing with(out) surgical face masks

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, conducting experiments online is increasingly common, and face masks are often used in everyday life. It remains unclear whether phonetic detail in speech production is captured adequately when speech is recorded in internet-based experiments or in experiments conducted with face masks. We tested 55 Spanish–Basque–English trilinguals in picture naming tasks in three conditions: online, laboratory-based with surgical face masks, and laboratory-based without face masks (control). We measured plosive voice onset time (VOT) in each language, the formants and duration of English vowels /iː/ and /ɪ/, and the Spanish/Basque vowel space. Across conditions, there were differences between English and Spanish/Basque VOT and in formants and duration between English /iː/–/ɪ/; between conditions, small differences emerged. Relative to the control condition, the Spanish/Basque vowel space was larger in online testing and smaller in the face mask condition. We conclude that testing online or with face masks is suitable for investigating phonetic detail in within-participant designs although the precise measurements may differ from those in traditional laboratory-based research.

Voice onset time of plosive consonants in initial position in badidni dialect

Phoneticians have presented several ways and theories for knowing the features and characteristics of plosive consonants. Acoustic ways are ones that languages’ plosive consonants are determined by them. In the last 60 years VOT was widely used as an acoustic parameter by phoneticians for comparing voicing contrast and determining the categories and features of plosive consonants as an acceptable way. Until now it’s not known that plosive consonants are determined in badini dialect according to the VOT parameter. This study is an attempt to what extent we can benefit from the mentioned parameter for specifying voicing contrast distinction, voicing categories and their properties and features. For this purpose the two plosive consonants /b, p/ are used as a stimulus of this investigation in the initial 6 monosyllabic words in the environment of the two vowels /ɑ æ,/. The collected data are taken from (20) badini dialect speakers. It’s assumed that voicing contrast, VOT values and the categories of plosive (voiced and voiceless) consonants are different in baddini dialect. Depending on procedures and statistical analysis tests it concludes that; VOT is formed in three ways and three separate values. This study consists of five sections; the first section is the introduction, the second one is theoretical framework, in the third section the procedures of doing this study are shown, statistical results and discussing them are mentioned in the fourth section and the conclusions of the study are shown in the fifth section.

Phonetic and Lexical Crosslinguistic Influence in Early Spanish–Basque–English Trilinguals

AbstractA central question in multilingualism research is how multiple languages interact. Most studies have focused on first (L1) and second language (L2) effects on a third language (L3), but a small number of studies dedicated to the opposite transfer direction have suggested stronger L3 influence on L2 than on L1 in postpuberty learners. In our study, we provide further support for stronger L3‐to‐L2 than L3‐to‐L1 influence and show that it extends to (a) phonetics and the lexicon and (b) childhood learners. Fifty Spanish–Basque–English trilingual adults who had acquired Spanish from birth and Basque between 2 to 4 years of age through immersion participated in a speeded trilingual switching task measuring production of voice onset time and lexical intrusions. Participants experienced more phonetic and lexical crosslinguistic influence from L3 English during L2‐Basque production than during L1‐Spanish production. These findings show that even highly proficient early bilinguals experience differential influence from a classroom‐taught L3 to L1 and to L2.

Neural inhibition during speech planning contributes to contrastive hyperarticulation

Previous work has demonstrated that words are hyperarticulated on dimensions of speech that differentiate them from a minimal pair competitor. This phenomenon has been termed contrastive hyperarticulation (CH). We present a dynamic neural field (DNF) model of voice onset time (VOT) planning that derives CH from an inhibitory influence of the minimal pair competitor during planning. We test some predictions of the model with a novel experiment investigating CH of voiceless stop consonant VOT in pseudowords. The results demonstrate a CH effect in pseudowords, consistent with a basis for the effect in the real-time planning and production of speech. The scope and magnitude of CH in pseudowords was reduced compared to CH in real words, consistent with a role for interactive activation between lexical and phonological levels of planning. We discuss the potential of our model to unify an apparently disparate set of phenomena, from CH to phonological neighborhood effects to phonetic trace effects in speech errors.

Effects of Gender on Emphasis Production in Jordanian Arabic: A Socio-Phonetic Study

This article investigates the effects of gender on two emphatic sounds, namely [sˤ] and [tˤ], in Ajlouni-Jordanian Arabic, a sub-dialect of Rural Jordanian Arabic. The study was mainly motivated by the relatively small literature on the bearing(s) of gender on emphasis production in Jordanian Arabic in general and in Ajlouni Jordanian Arabic specifically. To do so, the effects gender has on emphasis productions in this dialect were tested in mono- and bi-syllabic words, with the emphatic sounds occurring both word-initially and word-finally. The vowel qualities which were incorporated in the stimuli of this study include the long low-back vowel [a:], the short low-back vowel [a], the long high-front vowel [i:], the short mid-high front vowel [ɪ], the long high-back vowel [u:] and the short mid-high back vowel [ʊ]. The sample of this study consisted of 12 native speakers of Ajlouni-Jordanian Arabic, with each speaker producing 48 minimal pairs. The acoustic measurements that were carried out on the data are consonant duration (CD), Voice Onset Time (VOT), and the vowel first three formant frequencies (F1, F2, and F3). The study showed that, relative to gender, only VOT was a reliable acoustic correlate of emphasis where CD, on the one hand, and F1, F2, and F3 in both the target and non-target syllables, on the other hand, showed no significance.

Perception and production of voice onset time in bilingual Italian-German children and monolingual German peers

Perception and production of voice onset time in bilingual Italian-German children and monolingual German peers

The automated screening of speech motor development in children based on the sequential motion rate

BackgroundMotor skills in children have traditionally been examined via challenging speech tasks such as syllable repetition, and calculating the syllabic rate using a stopwatch or by inspecting the oscillogram followed by a laborious comparison of the scores on a look-up table representing the typical performances of children of the given age and sex. As the commonly used performance tables are over-simplified to allow for manual scoring, we raise the question of whether a computational model of motor skills development could be more informative, and could allow for the automated screening of children to detect underdeveloped motor skills. MethodsWe recruited a total of 275 children aged four to 15 years. All the participants were native Czech speakers with no history of hearing or neurological impairments. We recorded each child's performance of/pa/-/ta/-/ka/syllable repetition. Various parameters of diadochokinesis (DDK; DDK rate, DDK regularity, voice onset time [VOT] ratio, syllable, vowel and VOT duration) were investigated in the acoustic signals using supervised reference labels. Female and male participants were analyzed separately by comparing younger, middle, and older age groups of children via ANOVA. Finally, we implemented a fully automated model that estimated the developmental age of a child based on the acoustic signal, and evaluated its accuracy using Pearson's correlation coefficient and normalized root-mean-squared errors (RMSEs). ResultsThe DDK rate reflected the ages of the children proportionally (p < 0.001). Other DDK parameters also showed strong sensitivity to age (p < 0.001), with the exception of VOT duration, which had a smaller effect (p = 0.091). The effect of age was found to be sex specific for the syllable length (p < 0.001) and DDK rate (p = 0.003). We observed that females spoke more slowly and had a longer VOT at preschool age (p < 0.001). The DDK rate obtained via the automated algorithm was strongly correlated with the reference (p < 0.001, Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.97), with a low normalized RMSE of 3.77%. ConclusionsAs children develop their motor skills, they are capable of shortening the vowels to increase the rate of syllabic repetitions. The nonlinear development in childhood and adolescence, with a steady state in adulthood, follows a logistic function for the DDK rate. This study demonstrates that the development of motor skills can be examined sensitively and more appropriately by a fully automated noninvasive procedure that also accounts for the dispersion of values within age brackets.

The Effect of Cue-specific Lexical Competitors on Hyperarticulation of VOT and F0 Contrasts in Korean Stops

As is known, the fundamental frequencies (F0) of the vowels following aspirated or lenis stops have become associated with the aspirated~lenis stop contrast while Voice Onset Time (VOT) values of them became merged in Seoul Korean. Previous studies found the effects of age, gender, lexical frequency, and vowel height. However, although lexical competition has been demonstrated to affect the trajectory of sound change regarding contrastivity, it has not been considered in this context. The present study examines the effects of lexical competition on this sound change. Through a production experiment, analyses demonstrate that the aspirated~lenis contrast is hyperarticulated in minimal pairs for both VOT and F0, but only in aspirated stops with following high vowels. Moreover, speakers advanced in the sound change produce lower F0 values for lenis stops with following non-high vowels if an aspirated competitor exists. We find that the F0 distinction in lenis stops is more hyperarticulated in speakers advanced in the sound change, but that speakers appear to hyperarticulate VOT regardless of how much of a VOT contrast they normally produce themselves. This may be related to the fact that VOT is still a robust cue to the aspirated~lenis distinction in much of the speech community.

Effect of Initial /s/ on The Voice Onset Time (vot) of following Stops in Bahdini Kurdish

Effect of Initial /s/ on The Voice Onset Time (vot) of following Stops in Bahdini Kurdish

Voice Onset Time in a language without voicing contrast: An acoustic analysis of Blackfoot oral stops

This paper presents an acoustic analysis of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in oral stop consonants in Blackfoot, an Algonquian language without contrastive voicing. We focus on VOT as one of the key temporal acoustic correlates of voicing and investigate VOT variation in relation to (i) place of articulation (labial vs. alveolar vs. velar); (ii) length (long vs. short), quality (/a/ vs. /o/), and accent pattern (accented vs. unaccented) of the following vowel; (iii) word position (initial vs. medial); (iv) gender; and (v) age. We analyzed 2096 stop consonant tokens produced by 13 participants, who completed two different tasks: an English-to-Blackfoot translation task and a picture naming task. The key findings are as follows: (i) Blackfoot stop consonants fall into the short-lag range that overlaps with the English voiced category, with mean VOT values ranging from 11.6–32.7 ms; (ii) VOT values become progressively longer as the place of articulation moves to more posterior positions; (iii) VOT values are longer before high vowels than before low vowels; (iv) VOT values are longer before long vowels than before short vowels; (v) no statistically significant effect was found for the linguistic factors word position and accent pattern; (vi) no statistically significant effect was found for the socio-indexical factors age and gender; and (vii) no statistically significant effect was found for the experimental factor task type. The implications of our findings for the Blackfoot writing system and ongoing work on language documentation and revitalization are briefly discussed.

Phonotactic Probabilities and Sub-syllabic Segmentation in Language Learning

High phonotactic probabilities are known to exert a facilitative effect on word learning in children and adults in their first language. The present study was designed to investigate the role of phonotactic probabilities when learning a foreign language. Focusing on Austrian and Korean learners of English, we investigated two hypotheses related to phonotactic frequency effects: (1) High-frequency segments have more deeply entrenched phonetic representations, with more automatized pronunciation patterns, rendering phonetic learning of homophonous segments more difficult; (2) High-frequency segments are associated with higher phonetic variability in the first language, which can facilitate phonetic learning in a foreign language. Additionally, the locus of phoneme/ bigram frequency effects was analyzed in relation to left-branching and right-branching syllable structure in German and Korean. We found that proximity to English voice-onset time is correlated with phoneme and bigram frequencies in the first language, but results varied by learner group. Sub-syllabic segmentation of the first language was also shown to be an influential factor. Our study is grounded in research on frequency effects and combines its central premise with phonetic learning in a foreign language. The results show a tight relationship between first language statistical probabilities and phonetic learning in a foreign language.

Ghebi Stops: Inventory, Distribution and Voice Onset Time (VOT)

This study focuses on the Ghebi dialect spoken in Pakistan's northwest. The study primarily examines stops of the Ghebi dialect at word initial, medial, and final positions while also investigating the Voice Onset Time (VOT) values of Ghebi stops. Through the analysis of minimal pairs, 16 plosive sounds have been discerned in Ghebi, characterized by a four-way voicing contrast and articulated at four distinct locations. The voiceless unaspirated plosives consist of /p, t̪, ʈ, k/, while the voiceless aspirated plosives include /ph, t̪ʰ, ʈʰ, kʰ/. Voiced unaspirated plosives are represented by /b, d̪, ɖ, g/, whereas voiced aspirated plosives feature /bʰ, d̪ʰ, ɖʰ, gʰ/. VOT values were quantified using PRAAT, with voiceless stops exhibiting shorter VOT values. It was found that /ʈ/ has the shortest VOT value, while /ɖ/ has the longest VOT value. This present study will greatly contribute to the documentation and exploration of the Ghebi dialect.

Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Speech in Adult Patients With Repaired Cleft Palate.

To explore the speech outcomes of adult patients with repaired cleft palate through subjective perception evaluation and objective acoustic analysis, and to compare the differences in pronunciation characteristics between speakers with complete velopharyngeal closure (VPC) and velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) patients. Subjective evaluation indicators included speech intelligibility, nasality and consonant missing rate, for objective acoustic analysis, we used speech sample normalization and objective acoustic parameters included normalized vowel formants, voice onset time and the analysis of 3-dimensional spectrogram and spectrum, were carried out on speech samples produced by 3 groups of speakers: (a) speakers with velopharyngeal competence after palatorrhaphy (n=38); (b) speakers with velopharyngeal incompetence after palatorrhaphy (n=70), (c) adult patients with cleft palate (n=65) and (d) typical speakers (n=30). There was a highly negative correlation between VPC grade and speech intelligibility (ρ=-0.933), and a highly positive correlation between VPC and nasality (ρ=0.813). In subjective evaluation, the speech level of VPI patients was significantly lower than that of VPC patients and normal adults. Although the nasality and consonant loss rate of VPC patients were significantly higher than that of normal adults, the speech intelligibility of VPC patients was not significantly different from that of normal adults. In acoustic analysis, patients with VPI still performed poorly compared with patients with VPC. The speech function of adult cleft palate patients is affected by abnormal palatal structure and bad pronunciation habits. In subjective evaluation, there was no significant difference in speech level between VPC patients and normal adults, whereas there was significant difference between VPI patients and normal adults. The acoustic parameters were different between the 2 groups after cleft palate repair. The condition of palatopharyngeal closure after cleft palate can affect the patient's speech.

Speech and gait abnormalities in motor subtypes of de-novo Parkinson's disease.

To investigate the presence and relationship of temporal speech and gait parameters in patients with postural instability/gait disorder (PIGD) and tremor-dominant (TD) motor subtypes of Parkinson's disease (PD). Speech samples and instrumented walkway system assessments were acquired from a total of 60 de-novo PD patients (40 in TD and 20 in PIGD subtype) and 40 matched healthy controls. Objective acoustic vocal assessment of seven distinct speech timing dimensions was related to instrumental gait measures including velocity, cadence, and stride length. Compared to controls, PIGD subtype showed greater consonant timing abnormalities by prolonged voice onset time (VOT) while also shorter stride length during both normal walking and dual task, while decreased velocity and cadence only during dual task. Speaking rate was faster in PIGD than TD subtype. In PIGD subtype, prolonged VOT correlated with slower gait velocity (r=-0.56, p=0.01) and shorter stride length (r=-0.59, p=0.008) during normal walking, whereas relationships were also found between decreased cadence in dual task and irregular alternating motion rates (r=-0.48, p=0.04) and prolonged pauses (r=-0.50, p=0.03). No correlation between speech and gait was detected in TD subtype. Our findings suggest that speech and gait rhythm disorder share similar underlying pathomechanisms specific for PIGD subtype.

Voice Onset Time in Children With and Without Vocal Fold Nodules.

Voice onset time (VOT) of voiceless consonants provides information on the coordination of the vocal and articulatory systems. This study examined whether vocal-articulatory coordination is affected by the presence of vocal fold nodules (VFNs) in children. The voices of children with VFNs (6-12 years) and age- and gender-matched vocally healthy controls were examined. VOT was calculated as the time between the voiceless stop consonant burst and the vocal onset of the vowel. Measures of the average VOT and VOT variability, defined as the coefficient of variation, were calculated. The acoustic measure of dysphonia, cepstral peak prominence (CPP), was also calculated. CPP provides information about the overall periodicity of the signal, with more dysphonic voices having lower CPP values. There were no significant differences in either average VOT or VOT variability between the VFN and control groups. VOT variability and average VOT were both significantly predicted by the interaction between Group and CPP. There was a significant negative correlation between CPP and VOT variability in the VFN group, but no significant relationship was found in the control group. Unlike previous studies with adults, there were no group differences in average VOT or VOT variability in this study. However, children with VFNs who were more dysphonic had increased VOT variability, suggestive of a relationship between dysphonia severity and control of vocal onset during speech production.

Exploring the Onset of Phonetic Drift in Voice Onset Time Perception

Recent exposure to a second or foreign language (FL) can influence production and/or perception in the first language (L1), a phenomenon referred to as phonetic drift. The smallest amount of FL exposure shown to effect drift in perception is 1.5 h. The present study examined L1 perception at earlier timepoints of FL exposure, to determine whether the phonetic system is able to resist FL influence at an incipient stage. In a longitudinal pre-test/post-test design, L1 English listeners were exposed to Tagalog under different conditions varying in attention directed to the voice onset time (VOT) plosive contrast in the FL; they then completed an identification task on L1 tokens from VOT continua. In every condition, the likelihood of “voiceless” identifications decreased. This change indicates a shift towards a longer VOT crossover point between “voiced” and “voiceless”, consistent with dissimilatory drift in perception. Listeners in a control condition, however, displayed a similar, albeit less lasting, change in L1 judgments, suggesting that the change arose partly from a task effect. We conclude by discussing directions for future research on phonetic drift in perception.

Prosodic and Segmental Aspects of Pronunciation Training and Their Effects on L2

Some studies on training effects of pronunciation instruction have claimed that the training of prosodic features has effects at the segmental level and that the training of segmental features has effects at the prosodic level, with greater effects reported when prosody is the main focus of training. This paper revisits this claim by looking at the effects of pronunciation training on Italian learners of German. In a pre-post-test design, we investigate acoustic changes after training in learners’ productions of two features regarded as prosodic and two features regarded as segmental. The prosodic features were the pitch excursion of final rises in yes–no questions and the reduction in schwa epenthesis in word-final closed syllables. The segmental features were final devoicing and voice onset time (VOT) in plosives. We discuss the results for three groups (with segmental training, with prosody training, and with no pronunciation training). Our results indicate that there are positive effects of prosody-oriented training on the production of segments, especially when training focuses on syllable structure and prosodic prominence (stress and accent). They also indicate that teaching segmental and prosodic aspects of pronunciation together is beneficial.