Word Duration Research Articles

Integrating speech in time depends on temporal expectancies and attention

Sensory information that unfolds in time, such as in speech perception, relies on efficient chunking mechanisms in order to yield optimally-sized units for further processing. Whether or not two successive acoustic events receive a one-unit or a two-unit interpretation seems to depend on the fit between their temporal extent and a stipulated temporal window of integration. However, there is ongoing debate on how flexible this temporal window of integration should be, especially for the processing of speech sounds. Furthermore, there is no direct evidence of whether attention may modulate the temporal constraints on the integration window. For this reason, we here examine how different word durations, which lead to different temporal separations of sound onsets, interact with attention. In an Electroencephalography (EEG) study, participants actively and passively listened to words where word-final consonants were occasionally omitted. Words had either a natural duration or were artificially prolonged in order to increase the separation of speech sound onsets. Omission responses to incomplete speech input, originating in left temporal cortex, decreased when the critical speech sound was separated from previous sounds by more than 250 msec, i.e., when the separation was larger than the stipulated temporal window of integration (125–150 msec). Attention, on the other hand, only increased omission responses for stimuli with natural durations. We complemented the event-related potential (ERP) analyses by a frequency-domain analysis on the stimulus presentation rate. Notably, the power of stimulation frequency showed the same duration and attention effects than the omission responses. We interpret these findings on the background of existing research on temporal integration windows and further suggest that our findings may be accounted for within the framework of predictive coding.

The influence of speech rate and accent on access and use of semantic information.

Circumstances in which the speech input is presented in sub-optimal conditions generally lead to processing costs affecting spoken word recognition. The current study indicates that some processing demands imposed by listening to difficult speech can be mitigated by feedback from semantic knowledge. A set of lexical decision experiments examined how foreign accented speech and word duration impact access to semantic knowledge in spoken word recognition. Results indicate that when listeners process accented speech, the reliance on semantic information increases. Speech rate was not observed to influence semantic access, except in the setting in which unusually slow accented speech was presented. These findings support interactive activation models of spoken word recognition in which attention is modulated based on speech demands.

Modelling the Interplay of Multiple Cues in Prosodic Focus Marking

Focus marking is an important function of prosody in many languages. While many phonological accounts concentrate on fundamental frequency (F 0 ), studies have established several additional cues to information structure. However, the relationship between these cues is rarely investigated. We simultaneously analyzed five prosodic cues to focus—F 0 range, word duration, intensity, voice quality, the location of the F 0 maximum, and the occurrence of pauses—in a set of 947 simple Subject Verb Object (SVO) sentences uttered by 17 native speakers of Finnish. Using random forest and generalized additive mixed modelling, we investigated the systematicity of prosodic focus marking, the importance of each cue as a predictor, and their functional shape. Results indicated a highly consistent differentiation between narrow focus and givenness, marked by at least F 0 range, word duration, intensity, and the location of the F 0 maximum, with F 0 range being the most important predictor. No cue had a linear relationship with focus condition. To account for the simultaneous significance of several predictors, we argue that these findings support treating multiple prosodic cues to focus in Finnish as correlates of prosodic phrasing. Thus, we suggest that prosodic phrasing, having multiple functions, is also marked with multiple cues to enhance communicative efficiency.

Complementary length in vowel–consonant sequences: Acoustic and perceptual evidence for a sound change in progress in Bavarian German

This study is concerned with the Bavarian German dialect feature of complementary length in vowel plus consonant sequences according to which tense (long) vowels always precede lenis stops (short closure) and lax (short) vowels always precede fortis stops (long closure). The study investigates whether a vowel length contrast is developing before fortis stops due to dialect leveling. We measured vowel and consonant duration in trochaic words differing only in vowel length which were read by 40 older and younger Bavarian and Saxon (control group) German speakers. Older Bavarians distinguished tense and lax vowels by means of vowel to vowel plus consonant ratios that indicate an inverse timing pattern. Saxons and younger Bavarians signal the tense–lax distinction independently of the following stop length. A perception test showed that this sound change in progress also affects perception. We argue for a contact-induced change which is triggered by external as opposed to internal factors.

Lähtökielen sanansisäisten soinnittomien klusiilien edustus kantasuomen balttilaislainoissa

In this article I intend to outline the rules determining when the word-internal Baltic tenuis consonants k, t and p appear as the single stops k, t, p and when they appear as the geminates kk, tt, pp in old Baltic loanwords in proto-Finnic. I will critically assess the Baltic loan etymologies which contain tenuis consonants, at which point the Baltic origins of the Finnish words kukkura, lapa, mytyri and patistaa will be rejected and the suggested loan etymologies of the Finnish words hako, latu, mättää and äes as well as Est. matta and uba will be shown to be uncertain. Words of certain Baltic origin include Fin. ativo, kypärä, kavuta, ketara, lapio, nepaa, rainta, ratas, toe, vakka and ätelä, and those of probable Baltic origin include Fin. huttu, kääppä, makka(ra), mäkärä, oas, as well as Est. hakata and SEst. nakadaq. In addition to these, I will present completely new Baltic loan etymologies for the Finnish words kukka- ~ kukku- and lappa. In all certain and probable loanwords, Baltic tenuis consonants are found as geminates in disyllabic nominal stems and as single stops in trisyllabic nominal stems. This substitution rule may be the result of the overall impression that the target-language speakers get of the duration of the source-language words. When a Baltic verb was borrowed, a proto-Finnic verbal affix was added to the borrowed stem, so that further ways of substituting the duration of the word form were not needed.

Thematic role predictability and planning affect word duration

Thematic role predictability and planning affect word duration

A Modeling Study of the Effects of Vocal Tract Movement Duration and Magnitude on the F2 Trajectory in CV Words

This study used a computational vocal tract model to investigate the relationship of diphthong duration and vocal tract movement magnitude to measures of the F2 trajectory in CV words. Three words (bough, boy, and buy) were simulated on the basis of an adult female vocal tract model, in which the model parameters were estimated from audio recordings of a female talker. Model parameters were then modified to generate 35 simulations of each word corresponding to 7 different durations and 5 movement magnitude settings. In addition, these simulations were repeated with vocal tract lengths representative of an adult male and an approximately 6-year-old child. On the basis of univariate analysis, measures of frequency predicted changes in magnitude, and temporal measures predicted changes in speaking rate consistent with the hypothesis. The combined effects of duration and magnitude showed that F2 was more sensitive to changes in magnitude at shorter word durations compared with longer word durations. This finding held across words and vocal tract length. Results suggest that there is an interaction between duration and magnitude that affects the slope of the F2 trajectory. The next step is to relate kinematics to F2 trajectory output using real speakers.

Effects of spoken Thai word-durations on brain recognition processing: An auditory event-related potential study

The present study investigated the effects of spoken Thai word-durations on auditory event-related potentials (aERPs) and reaction time (RT) in a recognition task. Thirty healthy graduate students were recruited. Stimuli were monosyllabic words recorded at short (421.1 ± 82.6 ms), normal (635.8 ± 99.8 ms), and long (847.0 ± 130.3 ms) durations. Participants listened to ten blocks of word stimuli that included a study phase and test phase in each block. In each study phase, participants were instructed to memorize six randomly presented words (the targets; three short-duration and three long-duration). In the test phase, they were instructed to indicate whether words matched the targets from the study phase. Stimuli in the test phase were presented at normal word duration and included the 6 test-phase targets and 14 new randomly presented words (non-targets). Reaction time and aERPs (P300 and N400 components) were analyzed. Performance accuracy and P300 amplitude were higher for target words with long durations than for those with short durations. However, there were no significant differences between short-target and long-target words for either reaction time or the N400 component. Additionally, we found that long-target words elicited high P300 and N400 amplitudes in the fronto-central and frontal areas, respectively. This study demonstrated that a longer than normal word duration can facilitate word processing and recognition. Additionally, our results indicate that ERPs can be used to develop valuable clinical tests that evaluate frontal lobe function and help improve instructional media for speech recognition.

Temporal structure of repetition disfluencies in American English

A repetition disfluency involves an interruption in the flow of speech followed by a restart, leading to repetition of one or more words. We analyzed the temporal structure of one-word, two-word, and three-word repetition disfluencies in the Switchboard Corpus (none-word = 30546, ntwo-word = 8102, nthree-word = 1606). Comparing durations of words preceding an interruption point to their repeated counterparts, we find that repetition is typically accompanied by prolongation, which mainly influences the last word preceding the interruption point. When prolongation does not provide enough time for planning upcoming speech—as there seems to be a temporal limit to prolongation—the speaker repeats parts of the utterance just produced. Our results demonstrate that the number of words repeated is determined both by word duration and by co-occurrence relations between words. Mixed effects logistic regression analysis revealed that longer words are less likely to be repeated (z=-24.45, p<.0001). However, the number...

How salient are onomatopoeia in the early input? A prosodic analysis of infant-directed speech

Onomatopoeia are frequently identified amongst infants' earliest words (Menn & Vihman, 2011), yet few authors have considered why this might be, and even fewer have explored this phenomenon empirically. Here we analyze mothers' production of onomatopoeia in infant-directed speech (IDS) to provide an input-based perspective on these forms. Twelve mothers were recorded interacting with their 8-month-olds; onomatopoeic words (e.g. quack) were compared acoustically with their corresponding conventional words (duck). Onomatopoeia were more salient than conventional words across all features measured: mean pitch, pitch range, word duration, repetition, and pause length. Furthermore, a systematic pattern was observed in the production of onomatopoeia, suggesting a conventionalized approach to mothers' production of these words in IDS.

Duration, Pitch, and Loudness in Kunqu Opera Stage Speech

Kunqu is a special type of opera within the Chinese tradition with 600 years of history. In it, stage speech is used for the spoken dialogue. It is performed in Ming Dynasty's mandarin language and is a much more dominant part of the play than singing. Stage speech deviates considerably from normal conversational speech with respect to duration, loudness and pitch. This paper compares these properties in stage speech conversational speech. A famous, highly experienced female singer's performed stage speech and reading of the same lyrics in a conversational speech mode. Clear differences are found. As compared with conversational speech, stage speech had longer word and sentence duration and word duration was less variable. Average sound level was 16 dB higher. Also mean fundamental frequency was considerably higher and more varied. Within sentences, both loudness and fundamental frequency tended to vary according to a low-high-low pattern. Some of the findings fail to support current opinions regarding the characteristics of stage speech, and in this sense the study demonstrates the relevance of objective measurements in descriptions of vocal styles.

An investigation of discourse cohesion in Indian male-female causal narration

Over the recent decades, the role of gender in discourse has been an intriguing arena of investigation in sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis. Phonological, grammatical and semantic features have been pointed out that male and female discourse can be identified by a number of researchers. Significant differences in English language between male and female appear on grammatical and syntactical level, where men’s discourse is asserted to be more direct and less hedged than women’s discourse (Key, 1975). It is argued that women use features such as reduplicated forms, intensifiers, modal constructions and tag questions more regularly than men. While using vocabulary, women are asserted to employ different emotionally colored and vigorous adjectives, whilst men use forms that highlight masculinity, for instance barbed, bristly, and lusty, etc. The present study seeks to propose and assess parameters for investigating narrative discourse difference in cross-gender interactions between Indian male/female speakers. The parameter focused are the discourse cohesion under macro-proposition, presence or absence of transitional elements, total number of words and total time taken under micro-proposition of oral narrative discourse on a topic “profession”. The quantitative approach of T-unit analysis was used to extract these parameters of narrative discourse. The data was statistically analyzed and results indicated no significant difference between the male and female participants’ productivity and efficiency of discourse coherence. But there exist an increased word counts and duration taken to complete the narrative discourse by female participants compared to male participants. This could be because of the poor working memory capacity in females, requiring more words and time to narrate on a topic compared to male participants.

Effects of Word Frequency and Transitional Probability on Word Reading Durations of Younger and Older Speakers

High-frequency units are usually processed faster than low-frequency units in language comprehension and language production. Frequency effects have been shown for words as well as word combinations. Word co-occurrence effects can be operationalized in terms of transitional probability (TP). TPs reflect how probable a word is, conditioned by its right or left neighbouring word. This corpus study investigates whether three different age groups-younger children (8-12 years), adolescents (12-18 years) and older (62-95 years) Dutch speakers-show frequency and TP context effects on spoken word durations in reading aloud, and whether age groups differ in the size of these effects. Results show consistent effects of TP on word durations for all age groups. Thus, TP seems to influence the processing of words in context, beyond the well-established effect of word frequency, across the entire age range. However, the study also indicates that age groups differ in the size of TP effects, with older adults having smaller TP effects than adolescent readers. Our results show that probabilistic reduction effects in reading aloud may at least partly stem from contextual facilitation that leads to faster reading times in skilled readers, as well as in young language learners.

Contrast-marking prosodic emphasis in Williams syndrome: results of detailed phonetic analysis.

Past reports on the speech production of individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) suggest that their prosody is anomalous and may lead to challenges in spoken communication. While existing prosodic assessments confirm that individuals with WS fail to use prosodic emphasis to express contrast, those reports typically lack detailed phonetic analysis of speech data. The present study examines the acoustic properties of speech prosody, aiming for the future development of targeted speech interventions. The study examines the three primary acoustic correlates of prosodic emphasis (duration, intensity, F0) and determines whether individuals with WS have difficulty in producing all or a particular set of the three prosodic cues. Speech produced by 12 individuals with WS and 12 chronological age (CA)-matched typically developing individuals were recorded. A sequential picture-naming task elicited production of target phrases in three contexts: (1) no contrast: gorilla with a racket → rabbit with a balloon; (2) contrast on the animal: fox with a balloon → rabbit with a balloon; and (3) contrast on the object: rabbit with a ball → rabbit with a balloon. The three acoustic correlates of prosodic prominence (duration, intensity and F0) were compared across the three referential contexts. The two groups exhibited striking similarities in their use of word duration and intensity for expressing contrast. Both groups showed the reduction and enhancement of final lengthening, and the enhancement and reduction of intensity difference for the animal contrast and for the object contrast conditions, respectively. The two groups differed in their use of F0: the CA group produced higher F0 for the animal than for the object regardless of the context, and this difference was enhanced when the animal noun was contrastive. In contrast, the WS group produced higher F0 for the object than for the animal when the object was contrastive. The present data contradict previous assessment results that report a lack of prosodic skills to mark contrast in individuals with WS. The methodological differences that may account for this variability are discussed. The present data suggest that individuals with WS produce appropriate prosodic cues to express contrast, although their use of pitch may be somewhat atypical. Additional data and future speech comprehension studies will determine whether pitch modulation can be targeted for speech intervention in individuals with WS.

Inflected words in production: Evidence for a morphologically rich lexicon.

Current evidence suggests that there is a difference between the representations of multimorphemic words in production and perception. In perception, it is widely believed that both whole-word and root representations exist, while in production there is little evidence for whole-word representations. The present investigation demonstrates that whole-word and root frequency independently predict the duration of words suffixed with -ing, -ed, and -s, which reveals that both root and word representations play a role in the production of inflected English words. In a second line of analysis, we find that the number of inflected phonological neighbours independently predicts the duration of monomorphemic words, which extends these results and suggests that whole-word representations exist at the lexical level. Together these results suggest that both root and word representations of inflected words are stored in the lexicon and are relevant for the production of both monomorphemic and multimorphemic words.

Many neighborhoods: Phonological and perceptual neighborhood density in lexical production and perception

Abstract We examine the relationship of lexical representations, pronunciation variation, and word recognition, by investigating effects of two lexical variables: Phonological Neighborhood Density (the number of words that can be formed by a single phoneme substitution, addition, or deletion from the target word), as well as a measure of the perceptual similarity of a target word to other words in the lexicon. We show that perceptual similarity to other words affects recognition, but not production. Phonological Neighborhood Density, on the other hand, affects both word durations and recognition accuracy (words with many neighbors shorten and are difficult recognition targets). We interpret our results as indicating that effects of Phonological Neighborhood Density on pronunciation are not generally due to perceptual similarity of the target to other words. Our results are consistent with a more general line of research demonstrating effects of ‘central’ processes on ‘peripheral’ processes such as articulation, as well as effects of modality-specific properties, such as auditory similarity and motor movements, on measures thought to tap central processes.

The role of metrical information in apraxia of speech. Perceptual and acoustic analyses of word stress

Several factors are known to influence speech accuracy in patients with apraxia of speech (AOS), e.g., syllable structure or word length. However, the impact of word stress has largely been neglected so far. More generally, the role of prosodic information at the phonetic encoding stage of speech production often remains unconsidered in models of speech production. This study aimed to investigate the influence of word stress on error production in AOS. Two-syllabic words with stress on the first (trochees) vs. the second syllable (iambs) were compared in 14 patients with AOS, three of them exhibiting pure AOS, and in a control group of six normal speakers. The patients produced significantly more errors on iambic than on trochaic words. A most prominent metrical effect was obtained for segmental errors. Acoustic analyses of word durations revealed a disproportionate advantage of the trochaic meter in the patients relative to the healthy controls. The results indicate that German apraxic speakers are sensitive to metrical information. It is assumed that metrical patterns function as prosodic frames for articulation planning, and that the regular metrical pattern in German, the trochaic form, has a facilitating effect on word production in patients with AOS.

Acoustic Comfort in Atria Covered by Novel Structural Skins

In large rooms, where many people gather such as atria, food courts or restaurants, relatively high noise levels can occur, due to so called “Lombard effect”. The “Lombard effect” is a reflex of vocal chords that relates to changes of the voice characteristics in noisy background. Typically an increase of the vocal intensity, the fundamental voice frequency, and the word duration will occur. Noise levels in an enclosed place are influenced not only by the amount and character of sound sources present, but also by the overall reverberation of sound in the space.This article deals with the investigation of the acoustic conditions in three large gathering places covered by glass and foils. We focus on the investigation of the influence of the amount and position of sound absorption in atria on their reverberation time and on the occurrence of various sound phenomena, such as flutter echoes, focusing of sound etc. Results of the measurements are used for calibration of acoustical models. Different architectural solutions simulated in ray-based software are compared.

A predictive model for diagnosing stroke-related apraxia of speech

Diagnosis of the speech motor planning/programming disorder, apraxia of speech (AOS), has proven challenging, largely due to its common co-occurrence with the language-based impairment of aphasia. Currently, diagnosis is based on perceptually identifying and rating the severity of several speech features. It is not known whether all, or a subset of the features, are required for a positive diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to assess predictor variables for the presence of AOS after left-hemisphere stroke, with the goal of increasing diagnostic objectivity and efficiency. This population-based case-control study involved a sample of 72 cases, using the outcome measure of expert judgment on presence of AOS and including a large number of independently collected candidate predictors representing behavioral measures of linguistic, cognitive, nonspeech oral motor, and speech motor ability. We constructed a predictive model using multiple imputation to deal with missing data; the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (Lasso) technique for variable selection to define the most relevant predictors, and bootstrapping to check the model stability and quantify the optimism of the developed model. Two measures were sufficient to distinguish between participants with AOS plus aphasia and those with aphasia alone, (1) a measure of speech errors with words of increasing length and (2) a measure of relative vowel duration in three-syllable words with weak–strong stress pattern (e.g., banana, potato). The model has high discriminative ability to distinguish between cases with and without AOS (c-index=0.93) and good agreement between observed and predicted probabilities (calibration slope=0.94). Some caution is warranted, given the relatively small sample specific to left-hemisphere stroke, and the limitations of imputing missing data. These two speech measures are straightforward to collect and analyse, facilitating use in research and clinical settings.

Responses to Intensity-Shifted Auditory Feedback During Running Speech.

Responses to intensity perturbation during running speech were measured to understand whether prosodic features are controlled in an independent or integrated manner. Nineteen English-speaking healthy adults (age range = 21-41 years) produced 480 sentences in which emphatic stress was placed on either the 1st or 2nd word. One participant group received an upward intensity perturbation during stressed word production, and the other group received a downward intensity perturbation. Compensations for perturbation were evaluated by comparing differences in participants' stressed and unstressed peak fundamental frequency (F0), peak intensity, and word duration during perturbed versus baseline trials. Significant increases in stressed-unstressed peak intensities were observed during the ramp and perturbation phases of the experiment in the downward group only. Compensations for F0 and duration did not reach significance for either group. Consistent with previous work, speakers appear sensitive to auditory perturbations that affect a desired linguistic goal. In contrast to previous work on F0 perturbation that supported an integrated-channel model of prosodic control, the current work only found evidence for intensity-specific compensation. This discrepancy may suggest different F0 and intensity control mechanisms, threshold-dependent prosodic modulation, or a combined control scheme.