1,780 research outputs found
Adaptation of respiratory patterns in collaborative reading
International audienceSpeech and variation of respiratory chest circumferences of eight French dyads were monitored while reading texts with increasing constraints on mutual synchrony. In line with previous research, we find that speakers mutually adapt their respiratory patterns. However a significant alignment is observed only when speakers need to perform together, i.e. when reading in alternation or synchronously. From quiet breathing to listening, to speech reading, we didn't find the gradual asymmetric shaping of respiratory cycles generally assumed in literature (e.g. from symmetric inhalation and exhalation phases towards short inhalation and long exhalation). In contrast, the control of breathing seems to switch abruptly between two systems: vital vs. speech production. We also find that the syllabic and the respiratory cycles are strongly phased at speech onsets. This phenomenon is in agreement with the quantal nature of speech rhythm beyond the utterance, previously observed via pause durations
The interplay of linguistic structure and breathing in German spontaneous speech
International audienceThis paper investigates the relation between the linguistic structure of the breath group and breathing kinematics in spontaneous speech. 26 female speakers of German were recorded by means of an Inductance Plethysmograph. The breath group was defined as the interval of speech produced on a single exhalation. For each group several linguistic parameters (number and type of clauses, number of syllables, hesitations) were measured and the associated inhalation was characterized. The average duration of the breath group was ~3.5 s. Most of the breath groups consisted of 1-3 clauses; ~53% started with a matrix clause; ~24% with an embedded clause and ~23% with an incomplete clause (continuation, repetition, hesitation). The inhalation depth and duration varied as a function of the first clause type and with respect to the breath group length, showing some interplay between speech-planning and breathing control. Vocalized hesitations were speaker-specific and came with deeper inhalation. These results are informative for a better understanding of the interplay of speech-planning and breathing control in spontaneous speech. The findings are also relevant for applications in speech therapies and technologies
Is breathing sensitive to the communication partner?
International audienceThis paper investigates breathing profiles in eleven female speakers (subjects) when talking successively with the same two females (partners). Breathing kinematics of the two inter-locutors was recorded synchronously by means of two Induct-ance Plethysmographs. In order to understand the implication of breathing in dialogue, we analyzed changes in breathing pauses according to the main dialogue events (listening, back-channels, turns start and turns continuation). Breathing and syllable rates were also compared among partners and sub-jects. The duration of inhalations and related pauses was re-duced before a turn continuation in comparison to a turn start. The delay between speech offset in a breathing cycle and the onset of the next inhalation increased when a speaker and a listener swap roles as compared to a speaker who continued the turn. This was observed for both partners and subjects. The partners differed in their breathing and articulation rates but the two rates were not clearly correlated. In agreement with previous works, the current study shows that breathing kine-matics is strongly linked to dialogue events. However, it doesn't show any clear effect of partner on speaker's breath-ing. This last result is discussed relative to methodological as-pects
The phonetics of speech breathing : pauses, physiology, acoustics, and perception
Speech is made up of a continuous stream of speech sounds that is interrupted by pauses and breathing. As phoneticians are primarily interested in describing the segments of the speech stream, pauses and breathing are often neglected in phonetic studies, even though they are vital for speech. The present work adds to a more detailed view of both pausing and speech breathing with a special focus on the latter and the resulting breath noises, investigating their acoustic, physiological, and perceptual aspects. We present an overview of how a selection of corpora annotate pauses and pause-internal particles, as well as a recording setup that can be used for further studies on speech breathing. For pauses, this work emphasized their optionality and variability under different tempos, as well as the temporal composition of silence and breath noise in breath pauses. For breath noises, we first focused on acoustic and physiological characteristics: We explored alignment between the onsets and offsets of audible breath noises with the start and end of expansion of both rib cage and abdomen. Further, we found similarities between speech breath noises and aspiration phases of /k/, as well as that breath noises may be produced with a more open and slightly more front place of articulation than realizations of schwa. We found positive correlations between acoustic and physiological parameters, suggesting that when speakers inhale faster, the resulting breath noises were more intense and produced more anterior in the mouth. Inspecting the entire spectrum of speech breath noises, we showed relatively flat spectra and several weak peaks. These peaks largely overlapped with resonances reported for inhalations produced with a central vocal tract configuration. We used 3D-printed vocal tract models representing four vowels and four fricatives to simulate in- and exhalations by reversing airflow direction. We found the direction to not have a general effect for all models, but only for those with high-tongue configurations, as opposed to those that were more open. Then, we compared inhalations produced with the schwa-model to human inhalations in an attempt to approach the vocal tract configuration in speech breathing. There were some similarities, however, several complexities of human speech breathing not captured in the models complicated comparisons. In two perception studies, we investigated how much information listeners could auditorily extract from breath noises. First, we tested categorizing different breath noises into six different types, based on airflow direction and airway usage, e.g. oral inhalation. Around two thirds of all answers were correct. Second, we investigated how well breath noises could be used to discriminate between speakers and to extract coarse information on speaker characteristics, such as age (old/young) and sex (female/male). We found that listeners were able to distinguish between two breath noises coming from the same or different speakers in around two thirds of all cases. Hearing one breath noise, classification of sex was successful in around 64%, while for age it was 50%, suggesting that sex was more perceivable than age in breath noises.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – Projektnummer 418659027: "Pause-internal phonetic particles in speech communication
Traces of the invisible: how an alternative reading of The Sleeping Beauty fashioned a bookwork heightening awareness of the role of the anesthetist
This article discusses a Leverhulme residency undertaken by the author Julie Brixey-Williams in 2003-4 at the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. Notions of medical visibility were explored through practice-led investigations under the umbrella title Traces of the Invisible, that concentrated on making concrete, visible responses to the hidden or intangible elements of the anesthetist’s working life, in areas such as sleep, breath, pain and genetic markers. Rosebud is a unique nine-foot concertina bookwork created after reading the entire story of The Sleeping Beauty into an anesthetic machine. This essay expands upon the concepts and material responses that led to the making of the book, with particular reference to how the book’s structure forms a relationship to language and the body-as-site, whilst operating as a sculptural object that raises the visibility of the anesthetic profession. Fairy tales and their telling, including stories of enchanted sleep, transformational qualities, magical languages and shaman healers, will be examined alongside
Vibration
Physiological and biomechanical responses of humans to vibrations during manned space flight and threshold data on tolerances to various vibrational modes and condition
The analysis of breathing and rhythm in speech
Speech rhythm can be described as the temporal patterning by which speech events, such as vocalic onsets, occur. Despite efforts to quantify and model speech rhythm across languages, it remains a scientifically enigmatic aspect of prosody. For instance, one challenge lies in determining how to best quantify and analyse speech rhythm. Techniques range from manual phonetic annotation to the automatic extraction of acoustic features. It is currently unclear how closely these differing approaches correspond to one another. Moreover, the primary means of speech rhythm research has been the analysis of the acoustic signal only. Investigations of speech rhythm may instead benefit from a range of complementary measures, including physiological recordings, such as of respiratory effort. This thesis therefore combines acoustic recording with inductive plethysmography (breath belts) to capture temporal characteristics of speech and speech breathing rhythms. The first part examines the performance of existing phonetic and algorithmic techniques for acoustic prosodic analysis in a new corpus of rhythmically diverse English and Mandarin speech. The second part addresses the need for an automatic speech breathing annotation technique by developing a novel function that is robust to the noisy plethysmography typical of spontaneous, naturalistic speech production. These methods are then applied in the following section to the analysis of English speech and speech breathing in a second, larger corpus. Finally, behavioural experiments were conducted to investigate listeners' perception of speech breathing using a novel gap detection task. The thesis establishes the feasibility, as well as limits, of automatic methods in comparison to manual annotation. In the speech breathing corpus analysis, they help show that speakers maintain a normative, yet contextually adaptive breathing style during speech. The perception experiments in turn demonstrate that listeners are sensitive to the violation of these speech breathing norms, even if unconsciously so. The thesis concludes by underscoring breathing as a necessary, yet often overlooked, component in speech rhythm planning and production
The Limited Effect of Graphic Elements in Video and Augmented Reality on Children’s Listening Comprehension
There is currently significant interest in the use of instructional strategies in learning environments thanks to the emergence of new multimedia systems that combine text, audio, graphics and video, such as augmented reality (AR). In this light, this study compares the effectiveness of AR and video for listening comprehension tasks. The sample consisted of thirty-two elementary school students with different reading comprehension. Firstly, the experience, instructions and objectives were introduced to all the students. Next, they were divided into two groups to perform activities—one group performed an activity involving watching an Educational Video Story of the Laika dog and her Space Journey available by mobile devices app Blue Planet Tales, while the other performed an activity involving the use of AR, whose contents of the same history were visualized by means of the app Augment Sales. Once the activities were completed participants answered a comprehension test. Results (p = 0.180) indicate there are no meaningful differences between the lesson format and test performance. But there are differences between the participants of the AR group according to their reading comprehension level. With respect to the time taken to perform the comprehension test, there is no significant difference between the two groups but there is a difference between participants with a high and low level of comprehension. To conclude SUS (System Usability Scale) questionnaire was used to establish the measure usability for the AR app on a smartphone. An average score of 77.5 out of 100 was obtained in this questionnaire, which indicates that the app has fairly good user-centered design
WRITING UTOPIA NOW: Utopian Poetics In The Work Of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
This thesis examines Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s DICTEE (1982), Audience Distant Relative (1977) and Reveillé dans la Brume (Awakened in the Mist) (1977). The premise of the thesis is an exploration of the various ways in which these works both
perform and gesture toward the possibility of a ‘utopian’ experience of nonalienation. In Cha’s vocabulary, this takes the form of ‘interfusion’ and is related to the role of the artist as alchemist. Cha employs formal and linguistic innovations in her text, mail art and performance works to invite active participation from her readers and audience in a gesture toward embodied intersubjectivity. Her grappling with the challenges relating to the articulation of subjectivity place her work at the centre of contemporary critical debates around subjectivity and innovative poetics. In particular, recent scholarship on race and the poetic avant-garde has called for cross-disciplinary approaches to reading DICTEE as a text that explores the intersections of subjectivity and its performance in contemporary innovative poetics. Developing a theory of Utopian Poetics from my reading of Ernst Bloch’s utopian philosophy, I explore the ways in which DICTEE and Cha’s other works perform a yearning for non-alienated subjectivity that remains necessarily open and incomplete.
My reading of DICTEE, in particular, is primarily informed by my own practices of yoga and meditation, and these practices form the basis of both my scholarly and creative engagements with this research. This scholarly thesis comprises Part 1 of a two-part submission. Part 2 comprises my own creative experiments with UtopianPoetics
Fillers in Spoken Language Understanding: Computational and Psycholinguistic Perspectives
Disfluencies (i.e. interruptions in the regular flow of speech), are
ubiquitous to spoken discourse. Fillers ("uh", "um") are disfluencies that
occur the most frequently compared to other kinds of disfluencies. Yet, to the
best of our knowledge, there isn't a resource that brings together the research
perspectives influencing Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) on these speech
events. This aim of this article is to synthesise a breadth of perspectives in
a holistic way; i.e. from considering underlying (psycho)linguistic theory, to
their annotation and consideration in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and
SLU systems, to lastly, their study from a generation standpoint. This article
aims to present the perspectives in an approachable way to the SLU and
Conversational AI community, and discuss moving forward, what we believe are
the trends and challenges in each area.Comment: To appear in TAL Journa
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