Contextual predictability and phonetic attention
Publication date: July 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 75Author(s): Jonathan MankerAbstractThe interaction of contextual, high-level linguistic knowledge and the listener’s attention to low-level phonetic details has been the subject of a large body of research in speech perception for several decades. In the current paper, I investigate this interaction by considering the specific phenomenon of word predictability and its role in modulating the listener’s attention to subphonemic details of the acoustic signal. In the first experiment, subjects are presented with a discrimination task in which target words ar...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - June 21, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: May 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 74Author(s): (Source: Journal of Phonetics)
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 30, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Plasticity of native phonetic and phonological domains in the context of bilingualism
Publication date: July 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 75Author(s): Esther de Leeuw, Chiara CelataAbstractThe main point of this introduction, and therefore of the special issue, is to reveal and emphasise research findings which show that the domains of phonetics and phonology are malleable in adult native speech within the context of bilingualism. The manuscripts reveal this general finding through examination of a wide range of bilinguals using various methodologies. We believe that this finding is important for our understanding of the human capacity for language.Firstly, it is important because most humans sp...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 30, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Statistical distributions of consonant variants in infant-directed speech: Evidence that /t/ may be exceptional
Publication date: July 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 75Author(s): Laura Dilley, Jessica Gamache, Yuanyuan Wang, Derek M. Houston, Tonya R. BergesonAbstractStatistical distributions of phonetic variants in spoken language influence speech perception for both language learners and mature users. We theorized that patterns of phonetic variant processing of consonants demonstrated by adults might stem in part from patterns of early exposure to statistics of phonetic variants in infant-directed (ID) speech. In particular, we hypothesized that ID speech might involve greater proportions of canonical /t/ pronunciations ...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 25, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Spontaneous nasalization after glottal consonants in Thai
Publication date: July 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 75Author(s): Sarah E. Johnson, Marissa Barlaz, Ryan K. Shosted, Brad P. SuttonAbstractSpontaneous nasalization is the emergence of distinctive nasalization in contexts lacking an historical etymological nasal. In Thai, low and mid-low vowels nasalize after /h/ and to a lesser degree after /ʔ/. It has been reasoned that nasalization after /h/ may occur because breathiness and nasalization are acoustically similar; both introduce higher energy at low frequencies and increase spectral tilt. Glottal consonants may generally facilitate nasalization because aerodyn...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 25, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Influence of coda stop features on perceived vowel duration
Publication date: July 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 75Author(s): Chelsea SankerAbstractFour experiments tested what cues contribute to English speakers’ perception of vowel duration. Listeners categorized the duration of vowels as ‘long’ or ‘short’ for stimuli produced with voiced, voiceless, breathy voiced, or voiceless aspirated stop codas. Listeners demonstrated a strong ability to perceive vowel duration, though perception was continuous rather than categorical. There were several interacting factors influencing perceived vowel duration, based on expectations set by the presence of particular coda...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 18, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Cue-shifting between acoustic cues: Evidence for directional asymmetry
Publication date: July 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 75Author(s): Meng Yang, Megha SundaraAbstractPrevious research shows that experience with co-varying cues is neither sufficient nor necessary for listeners to integrate them perceptually. Auditory Enhancement theorists explain this by positing that listeners integrate two cues more readily if the cues enhance each other’s percept. To isolate the role of enhancement from that of experience, we forced English adult listeners to shift attention between two enhancing cues that they do not use phonemically, pitch and breathiness, by reversing the informativeness ...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 17, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Formant dynamics of Spanish vocalic sequences in related speakers: A forensic-voice-comparison investigation
This study investigates the dynamic acoustic properties of 19 vocalic sequences of Standard Peninsular Spanish, showing their potential for forensic voice comparison. Parametric curves (polynomials and discrete cosine transform) were fitted to the formant trajectories of the 19 Spanish vocalic sequences of 54 male speakers, comprising monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, non-twin brothers and unrelated speakers. Using the curve-fitting estimated coefficients as input to a multivariate-kernel-density formula, cross-validated likelihood ratios were calculated to express the probability of obtaining the observed di...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - May 10, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Intonational structure mediates speech rate normalization in the perception of segmental categories
Publication date: May 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 74Author(s): Jeremy SteffmanAbstractThe question of if and to what extent listeners’ perceptual phonetic categories are sensitive to prosodically driven variability has been a topic of interest in the literature. The present study reports on two experiments which address this question in light of recent research. In Experiment 1, listeners categorized a VOT continuum as /p/ or /b/ in a target syllable (/pɑ/ or /bɑ/). The target was placed in a carrier phrase where the duration and f0 of the pre-target syllable were manipulated. Results suggest listeners are...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - April 20, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Language change and linguistic inquiry in a world of multicompetence: Sustained phonetic drift and its implications for behavioral linguistic research
Publication date: May 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 74Author(s): Charles B. ChangAbstractLinguistic studies focusing on monolinguals have often examined individuals with considerable experience using another language. Results of a methodological review suggest that conflating ostensibly ‘multicompetent’ individuals with monolinguals is still common practice. A year-long longitudinal study of speech production demonstrates why this practice is problematic. Adult native English speakers recently arrived in Korea showed significant changes in their production of English stops and vowels (in terms of voice onset...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - April 12, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Alignment of f0 peak in different pitch accent types affects perception of metrical stress
Publication date: May 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 74Author(s): Katharina Zahner, Sophie Kutscheid, Bettina BraunAbstractIn intonation languages, pitch accents are associated with stressed syllables, therefore accentuation is a sufficient cue to the position of metrical stress in perception. This paper investigates how stress perception in German is affected by different pitch accent types (with different f0 alignments). Experiment 1 showed more errors in stress identification when f0 peaks and stressed syllables were not aligned – despite phonological association of pitch accent and stressed syllable. Errone...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - April 7, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Acoustic correlates of word stress in Papuan Malay
Publication date: May 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 74Author(s): Constantijn KalandAbstractThe current study investigates acoustic correlates of word stress in Papuan Malay. This language is claimed to exhibit word stress, although empirical evidence is lacking. Moreover, related languages have been shown not to have stress, counter to earlier claims. Studies on stress in Austronesian languages have furthermore struggled to separate phrase level intonation phenomena from word level stress. The current study investigates a set of twelve potential acoustic correlates of stress, covering spectral, temporal and ampl...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - March 25, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Twenty-eight years of vowels: Tracking phonetic variation through young to middle age adulthood
We describe acoustic properties of vowels produced by eleven talkers based on naturalistic speech samples spanning a period of 28 years, from ages 21 to 49. We find that the position of vowels in F1/F2 space shifts towards the periphery with increasing talker age. Based on Generalized Additive Mixed Effects models, we show that this shift is not fully attributable to changes in vowel duration or to segmental context. We discuss the implications of our results for research on aging and speech, and for research in which durational shortening and spectral characteristics of vowels are assumed to reflect a unitary process of...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - March 12, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: March 2019Source: Journal of Phonetics, Volume 73Author(s): (Source: Journal of Phonetics)
Source: Journal of Phonetics - March 5, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
Acoustic correlates of anticipatory and progressive [ATR] harmony processes in Ethiopian Komo
In this study, we investigated the acoustic correlates of the [ATR] feature in Komo using recordings from twelve native speakers collected in the field. Our aims were to describe the acoustic signature of the feature, evaluate acoustic evidence for the claim that both assimilatory processes indeed involve [ATR] spreading, and explore individual variability in the realization of the feature. The results of linear mixed effects models indicated that, in both processes, [+ATR] vowels featured lower F1 values, less periodicity, and a relatively pronounced first harmonic. The anticipatory process was also cued by duration diffe...
Source: Journal of Phonetics - March 1, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research
