How do listeners extract the linguistic features of speech sounds from the acoustic signal?
Speech sounds can be defined as those that belong to a language and convey meaning. While the distinction of such sounds from other auditory stimuli such as the slamming of a door comes easily, it is not immediately clear why this should be the case. It was initially thought that speech was processed in a phoneme-by-phoneme fashion; however, this theory became discredited due to the development of technology that produces spectrograms of speech. Research using spectrograms in an attempt to identify invariant features of formant frequency patterns for each phoneme have revealed several problems with this theory, including a lack of invariance in phoneme
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Each speech signal contains information across multiple frequencies which, when charted on a spectrogram, tend to form bands known as formants. Initial attempts to understand speech perception assumed that each phoneme we perceive would have an invariant formant pattern. While it was recognised that an extended, steady state formant resulted in perception of vowel sounds while formant transitions resulted in perception of consonants, this was the limit to the pursuit of invariant pattern identification. It was discovered that phonemes are not produced one after the other, but are instead produced in parallel - coarticulation. We begin to enunciate a phoneme before we have finished articulating the preceding one, increasing the potential rapidity of speech production. Therefore there is not a consistent acoustic signal each time a certain phoneme is produced. The exact acoustic signal will be modified depending on the preceding and subsequent phonemes that make up a word, a process called …show more content…
While the range of possible formant transitions is continuous, perception of consonants relies on the identification of each formant transition as belonging to a category. This mode of perception is known as categorical perception and was initially identified by Liberman et al. in the early 1950s. They found that when participants were presented with a range of synthetic phonemes, varying only in voice-onset-time on a continuous scale, they tended to recognise each stimulus as one of two phonemes (or categories) rather than as a range of slightly different phonemes. It was suggested that this might not reflect an inability to discriminate speech sounds within a category but rather of a tendency to group such sounds into the already pre-existing categories. In order to test this, Liberman et al (1957) carried out follow up studies, in which participants were presented with two synthetic phonemes and asked to identify which was identical to a sample stimulus. They found that participants had a high success rate when the difference between two phonemes was across a category boundary, but that they performed at chance level when the phonemes differed by the same voice-onset-time but both lay within the same category. This grouping of physically different stimuli into perceptual categories is unique to perception of speech sounds; this phenomenon is not observed when a listener is
The next speaker, Dr. Gottlieb investigated the hearing aspect of our senses. He investigated the interaction between our heari...
Session #1: The speech language pathologist (SLP) modeled and role-played different types of voice tone. According to Jed Baker (2003), when demonstrat...
Seikel, J. A., King, D. W., & Drumright, D. G. (2010). 12. Anatomy & physiology for speech,
Jahshan, C., Wynn, J. K., & Green, M. F. (2013). Relationship between auditory processing and
Throughout the many forms and language of literature, responders are able to create and visualise images within their mind. It is through the power of the images one creates, that enables reader’s understandings to be questioned and furthermore, structures meaning towards the array of experiences being evoked. This is, ‘The Distinctively Visual’.
...tion. In true recognition, there was more activity in temporal lobe on left hemisphere, which store sounds of words.
How people see and hear language is evidenced in audio recordings, the way people speak and writings. (Gee & Hayes, 2011). Upon studying the accommodation theory (Giles & Coupland, 1973) people can observe that when people talk, people either move together or away from each other. People can also use a different register when talking or maintain their own register. (Giles & Coupland, 1973). According to Halliday (1975) there are seven purposes that language has for children. He states further that children are driven to develop their language since language serves some purpose for them, for example physical, psychological and social needs. (Halliday, 1975). When observing people, people are able to see and hear language.
Three coordinate systems are utilized when attempting to locate a specific sound. The azimuth coordinate determines if a sound is located to the left or the right of a listener. The elevation coordinate differentiates between sounds that are up or down relative to the listener. Finally, the distance coordinate determines how far away a sound is from the receiver (Goldstine, 2002). Different aspects of the coordinate systems are also essential to sound localization. For example, when identifying the azimuth in a sound, three acoustic cues are used: spectral cues, interaural time differences (ITD), and interaural level differences (ILD) (Lorenzi, Gatehouse, & Lever, 1999). When dealing with sound localizaton, spectral cues are teh distribution of frequencies reaching teh ear. Brungart and Durlach (1999) (as seen in Shinn-Cunning, Santarelli, & Kopco, 1999) believed that as the ...
Phonological awareness (PA) involves a broad range of skills; This includes being able to identify and manipulate units of language, breaking (separating) words down into syllables and phonemes and being aware of rhymes and onset and rime units. An individual with knowledge of the phonological structure of words is considered phonologically aware. A relationship has been formed between Phonological awareness and literacy which has subsequently resulted in Phonological awareness tasks and interventions.This relationship in particular is seen to develop during early childhood and onwards (Lundberg, Olofsson & Wall 1980). The link between PA and reading is seen to be stronger during these years also (Engen & Holen 2002). As a result Phonological awareness assessments are currently viewed as both a weighted and trusted predictor of a child's reading and spelling and ability.
Helfer (1998) recognized the slowing of our temporal perceptual processes with increasing age. He suggested that this leads to auditory deformity, especially in the instance of time compressed speech. Speech comprehension requires rapid processing of stimuli that is not always completed in time-compressed speech because of the shortening of phonemes and a decrease in pauses. Helfer went a step further by taking into account that hearing is not just auditory but it is also visual, in that we use cues like looking at the person's mouth or facial expression while having a conversation.
Auditory processing is the process of taking in sound through the ear and having it travel to the language portion of the brain to be interpreted. In simpler terms, “What the brain does with what the ear hears”(Katz and Wilde, 1994). Problems with auditory processing can affect a student’s ability to develop language skills and communicate effectively. “If the sounds of speech are not delivered to the language system accurately and quickly, then surely the language ability would be compromised” (Miller, 2011). There are many skills involved in auditory processing which are required for basic listening and communication processes. These include, sensation, discrimination, localization, auditory attention, auditory figure-ground, auditory discrimination, auditory closure, auditory synthesis, auditory analysis, auditory association, and auditory memory. (Florida Department of Education, 2001) A person can undergo a variety of problems if there is damage in auditory processing . An auditory decoding deficit is when the language dominant hemisphere does not function properly, which affects speech sound encoding. (ACENTA,2003) Some indicators of a person struggling with an auditory decoding deficit would be weakness in semantics, difficulty with reading and spelling, and frequently mishearing information. Another problem associated with auditory processing is binaural integration/separation deficit. This occurs in the corpus callosum and is a result of poor communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. (ACENTA,2003) A person with this will have difficulty performing tasks that require intersensory and/or multi-sensory communication. They may have trouble with reading, spelling, writi...
Metalinguistic awareness refers to ‘the ability to manipulate linguistic units and reflect upon structural properties of language’ (Kuo et al, 2011). Since it is not a unitary component (Bialystok, 2001), research always classifies it into subcomponents. The majority of research deals with specific aspects of linguistic structure. Thus, dividing metalinguistic awareness into four components: lexical, phonological, syntactic and semantic awareness (Chin & Wigglesworth, 2007).
... role of infant-directed speech with a computer model. Acoustical Society of America, 4(4), 129-134.
...e dominant than the effect of audiovisual (i.e. phonetic) change. This could be justified by the results revealing mainly an visual MMN result on audiovisual data. Furthermore, in addition to the preceding statement, only the SOAs in which the visual stimulus preceded the auditory stimulus were tested in the EEG-experiment. This visual change effect could have overruled the lagging audiovisual effect. In prior research, neither a visual MMN nor an auditory MMN was elicited when the audiovisual MMN was found (Colin, Radeau, & Deltenre, 2001; Colin et al., 2002; Saint-amour et al., 2007).
Phonological awareness is students understanding of sound awareness of being able to hear the sound as and continues stream know as phones. Children at a young age should be learning and understand the basic concepts of English has a streamline and be able to break down the sound components. As teachers, it is important to understand the most efficient and engaging of teaching to their students, reading and writing.