1,329 research outputs found

    Analysing Changes in the Acoustic Features of the Human Voice to Detect Depression amongst Biological Females in Higher Education

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    Depression significantly affects a large percentage of the population, with young adult females being one of the most at-risk demographics. Concurrently, there is a growing demand on healthcare, and with sufficient resources often unavailable to diagnose depression, new diagnostic methods are needed that are both cost-effective and accurate. The presence of depression is seen to significantly affect certain acoustic features of the human voice. Acoustic features have been found to exhibit subtle changes beyond the perception of the human auditory system when an individual has depression. With advances in speech processing, these subtle changes can be observed by machines. By measuring these changes, the human voice can be analysed to identify acoustic features that show a correlation with depression. The implementation of voice diagnosis would both reduce the burden on healthcare and ensure those with depression are diagnosed in a timely fashion, allowing them quicker access to treatment. The research project presents an analysis of voice data from 17 biological females between the ages of 20-26 years old in higher education as a means to detect depression. Eight participants were considered healthy with no history of depression, whilst the other nine currently had depression. Participants performed two vocal tasks consisting of extending sounds for a period of time and reading back a passage of speech. Six acoustic features were then measured from the voice data to determine whether these features can be utilised as diagnostic indicators of depression. The main finding of this study demonstrated one of the acoustic features measured demonstrates significant differences when comparing depressed and healthy individuals.<br/

    Language Proficiency and Sonorant Devoicing in English Plosive-Sonorant Clusters

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    This article explores the timing of phonetic voicing in plosive-sonorant clusters in English. VOT was measured in two groups of Czech learners with different proficiency levels and a native English control group. The hypothesis was that cross-language differences in the implementation of the voicing contrast would be reflected in lower devoicing by the non-native speakers, modulated by proficiency. 24 participants read a text with plosive-sonorant clusters (such as in plan or troops). The study found that less proficient speakers exhibited smaller degrees of devoicing compared to more proficient speakers, who however did not differ from the native controls. In line with the absence of devoicing in Czech secondary-school textbooks, the results provide insight into the interplay between language proficiency and pronunciation details in L2 acquisition. The research was supported by the European Regional Development Fund-Project ‘Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World’ (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734). The study was created within the Charles University programme ‘Cooperatio’, scientific field Linguistics

    Acquiring a second language during childhood: a case study of the acquisition of English by a child Kazakh speaker

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    In this dissertation, we document a child Kazakh speaker’s acquisition of English as her second language. In particular, we focus on this child’s development of the English segments |f, v, Ξ, Ă°, Éč, ʃ, ʧ|, and her acquisition of the English copula be, third person singular -s, and past tense -ed. We begin with detailed, longitudinal description of the developmental patterns that the child displayed through her acquisition of each of these segments and morphemes over an approximately two-year period. Building on our data descriptions, we entertain a feature-based approach to analyze the patterns observed. We analyze the child’s acquisition of English consonants by following the Phonological Interference Hypothesis by Brown (1998), as well as the feature redistribution and recombination theory by Martinez, Goad & Dow (2021).These models highlight the possibilities of maximal transfer of the L1 features, and the possibilities of feature recombination in the course of L2 acquisition. Similarly, we analyze the child’s acquisition of inflectional morphology through the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) by Prévost & White (2000), which highlights both the presence of syntactic features in the child’s interlanguage grammar and the difficulties inherent to the morphological expression of these features in speech. As we will see, however, feature-based analyses do not enable an account for all of the facts. The data highlights the need to consider other factors, including language-specific ‘surface’ knowledge. Concerning segmental development, we show the need to consider phonetic features, which define the precise motor articulations required in the production of speech sounds. Likewise, concerning morphological development, we show the need to consider of language-specific aspects of morphological expressions in spoken forms, in relation to the underlying syntactic knowledge

    Phonological and phonetic factors affecting the early consonantal development in Setswana

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    This dissertation focuses on the phonological and phonetic development of three typically developing children of age ranging between 1;10 and 3;02 who are learning Setswana as their first language. We provide a detailed analysis of these children’s early speech development patterns, with a primary focus on the potential origins of these patterns. The aim is not to provide normative data, but to understand early patterns of phonological development in Setswana, whose acquisition by young children is relatively under-documented within the literature. Our data display the following trends: (1) early acquisition of obstruent stops, nasals, and N̩ C sequences: (2) production of fricatives through various substitution patterns (e.g. stopping, affrication as well as debuccalization); (3) simplification of target affricates (e.g. deaffrication, deaspiration and delabialization). Non-lateral affricates also yielded fewer errors (and earlier mastery) than their lateral counterparts, whose production displayed patterns of delateralization and velarization to velar [k], in addition to deaffrication. The target approximants |j, w| and |l, r| were generally acquired early, with the exception of the rhotic |r|, whose production was the most variable of all consonants documented in this study, also characterized by the lowest accuracy rates for all the children. We analyze these phenomena through current models of phonological emergence (MacWhinney 2015), as conceived within the area of phonology through the A-map model (McAllister Byun, Inkelas & Rose 2016). We highlight how the substitution patterns observed in the data can be captured through a consideration of the auditory properties of the target speech sounds, combined with an understanding of the types of articulatory gestures involved in the production of these sounds. These considerations in turn highlight some of the most central aspects of the challenges faced by the child toward learning these auditory-articulatory mappings. Beyond theoretical issues, this dissertation sets an initial foundation towards developing speech-language pathology materials and services for Setswana learning children, an emerging area of public service in Botswana

    Retroreflection and waterfalls: speaking and singing in extreme acoustic environments.

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    This is a cross-disciplinary thesis consisting of both acoustics science research and practice-led research focused on improvised music performance. In very different ways, both types of research focus on how a person’s surrounding environment affects voice production. The thesis describes two experiments: a behavioural laboratory talking experiment and singing practice experiment with research outcomes including an original framework for singing practice and a recorded work of ensemble improvised music. Key aspects of both experiments are (i) vocal production response to the acoustic environment, (ii) acoustics that optimise the environment for a singer or talker, and (iii) the acoustic environment created by a retroreflective array whereby sound is reflected back to the person. The experiments can be summarised as follows: 1. A behavioural laboratory experiment A talking experiment that investigates how the sound of one’s own voice (autophony), with alterations in gain and spectral balance, influences conversational speech production. The experiment addressed the question: can acoustic treatments with a frequency bias, like a retroreflective array, influence voice production, optimising a room for comfortable conversing? 2. A practice-led singing experiment A singing experiment was completed in three stages. Stage one (i) was the design of a practice framework that facilitated the discovery and creative development of singing techniques and musical materials. The design incorporated empirical research about autophony and voice production response to room reflections and environment sound and an approach to skill acquisition based on the ecological dynamics theory called the constraints-led approach. Stage two (ii) was fifteen-months of recorded self-regulated singing practice within the practice framework. Stage three (iii) applied the vocal skills and musical materials discovered and developed in stage two to recorded ensemble improvisation

    The Impact of Vowel Inventory Size and Linguistic Environment when Learning Two Languages: The Case of English and Greek

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    Producing phonemic contrasts in two typologically different languages, can prove a difficult task for speakers of those languages, even experienced ones (for instance, Boersma & Escudero, 2008; Kivistö-de Souza & Carlet, 2014), from birth or otherwise. This thesis discusses the effects of linguistic environment and phonemic inventories in the production of British English vowels. Greek and English were chosen as a language pair for further investigation, due to the fact that their vocalic inventories differ significantly in terms of the number of phonemes each has, the phonemic categories identified, as well as the vowel features in each. In order to explore the role of the linguistic environment, groups of bilingual Greek - English children based in the United Kingdom and in Greece took part in the first round of experiments. In order to explore further the role of phonemic inventories a group of native Greek second language learners of English also took part in the same set of tasks. The productions of British English vowels and vowel contrasts by each participant group was assessed by a series of speech production tasks analysing acoustic properties of the vowel categories in question. Bilingual children in Greece performed in a similar manner to monolingual controls, however, children raised in the UK deviated from monolingual norms. Quality of input and amount of exposure to each language in the two linguistic environments seem to be predicting factors for vowel production outcomes. Native Greek second language learners of English produced British English vowels similarly to monolingual controls when it came to both spectral and temporal cues. This could be attributed to the amount of experience second language learners had with English throughout their lifespan
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