Idiosyncratic use of bottom-up and top-down information leads to differences in speech perception flexibility: Converging evidence from ERPs and eye-tracking

Available online 8 October 2021.Listeners generally categorize speech sounds in a gradient manner. However, recent work, using a visual analogue scaling (VAS) task, suggests that some listeners show more categorical performance, leading to less flexible cue integration and poorer recovery from misperceptions (Kapnoula et al., 2017, 2021). We asked how individual differences in speech gradiency can be reconciled with the well-established gradiency in the modal listener, showing how VAS performance relates to both Visual World Paradigm and EEG measures of gradiency. We also investigated three potential sources of these individual differences: inhibitory control; lexical inhibition; and early cue encoding. We used the N1 ERP component to track pre-categorical encoding of Voice Onset Time (VOT). The N1 linearly tracked VOT, reflecting a fundamentally gradient speech perception; however, for less gradient listeners, this linearity was disrupted near the boundary. Thus, while all listeners are gradient, they may show idiosyncratic encoding of specific cues, affecting downstream processing.This project was supported by NIH Grant DC008089 awarded to BM. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 793919, awarded to EK. This work was partially supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 program and by the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation SEV-2015-0490

Analysis and correction of the helium speech effect by autoregressive signal processing

SIGLELD:D48902/84 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

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

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/

An Experimental Evaluation of Stop-Plosive and Fricative Consonant Intelligibility by Tracheoesophageal Speakers in Quiet and Noise

Despite functional levels of postlaryngectomy communication, individuals who undergo total laryngectomy and tracheoesophageal (TE) puncture voice restoration continue to experience significant communication difficulties in noisy environments. In an effort to identify and further characterize TE speakers’ intelligibility in noise, the current auditory perceptual study investigated stop-plosive and fricative intelligibility of TE speech in quiet and in the presence of multi-talker noise. Eighteen listeners evaluated monosyllabic consonant-vowel-consonant words produced by 14 TE speakers using an open-response paradigm. Our findings indicate that overall intelligibility was significantly lower in noise. Further examination showed a differential effect of noise on intelligibility according to manner and phoneme position. While overall error patterns remained consistent across conditions, voicing distinction was affected differentially according to manner and position. The present investigation provides valuable insight into the difficulties faced by TE speakers in noisy speaking environments, as well as a basis for optimization of counseling and postlaryngectomy voice rehabilitation

Models and analysis of vocal emissions for biomedical applications

This book of Proceedings collects the papers presented at the 3rd International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications, MAVEBA 2003, held 10-12 December 2003, Firenze, Italy. The workshop is organised every two years, and aims to stimulate contacts between specialists active in research and industrial developments, in the area of voice analysis for biomedical applications. The scope of the Workshop includes all aspects of voice modelling and analysis, ranging from fundamental research to all kinds of biomedical applications and related established and advanced technologies

Hate Speech, Offensive Speech, and Public Discourse in America

In this article, Professor Eberle discusses several limitations on governmental power to regulate public discourse. After examining the United States Supreme Court decisions of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paula nd Wisconsin v. Mitchell, Professor Eberle concludes that government should refrain from regulating speech itself. Rather, any restrictions should focus strictly on the problematic conduct underlying the speech which justifies regulation. Professor Eberle also concludes that the Court has implicitly recognized two distinct subcategories of content discrimination and viewpoint discrimination. Both subcategories are presumptively unconstitutional and nominally subject to conventional strict scrutiny. The Court, however, finds viewpoint discrimination more dangerous to public discourse. Therefore, the Court has in practice applied a heightened review to instances of viewpoint discrimination under the guise of conventional strict scrutiny. This heightened scrutiny explains decisions, like R.A.V., in which the Court invalidated seemingly constitutional statutes regulating public discours

Time and information in perceptual adaptation to speech

Presubmission manuscript and supplementary files (stimuli, stimulus presentation code, data, data analysis code).Perceptual adaptation to a talker enables listeners to efficiently resolve the many-to-many mapping between variable speech acoustics and abstract linguistic representations. However, models of speech perception have not delved into the variety or the quantity of information necessary for successful adaptation, nor how adaptation unfolds over time. In three experiments using speeded classification of spoken words, we explored how the quantity (duration), quality (phonetic detail), and temporal continuity of talker-specific context contribute to facilitating perceptual adaptation to speech. In single- and mixed-talker conditions, listeners identified phonetically-confusable target words in isolation or preceded by carrier phrases of varying lengths and phonetic content, spoken by the same talker as the target word. Word identification was always slower in mixed-talker conditions than single-talker ones. However, interference from talker variability decreased as the duration of preceding speech increased but was not affected by the amount of preceding talker-specific phonetic information. Furthermore, efficiency gains from adaptation depended on temporal continuity between preceding speech and the target word. These results suggest that perceptual adaptation to speech may be understood via models of auditory streaming, where perceptual continuity of an auditory object (e.g., a talker) facilitates allocation of attentional resources, resulting in more efficient perceptual processing.NIH NIDCD (R03DC014045