Does the MMR vaccine cause autism? How uncritical acceptance of information can have disastrous consequences.

One of the most damaging medical controversies in several decades has been sparked by the publication of a fraudulent paper in 1998 claiming that a link between autism and the administration of the MMR vaccine had been found.  The crisis is proving to be very difficult to remedy, as vaccination rates plummeted and have still not fully recovered.  Fueled by media attention and ill-informed celebrity spokespeople, this poorly conducted study has received dangerous amounts of attention and support.  Even with ever-increasing scientific evidence against the claim, the lack of skepticism and critical analysis of research has resulted in children being put in danger of preventable diseases by leaving them unvaccinated

Vowel duration issue in Civili

The main goal of this article is to define the problem of vowel duration in Civili (H12a). It shows that the so-called Civili vowel-length desperately needs to be re-examined, because previous works on the sound system of this language hardly explain a number of phonological phenomena, such as vowel lengthening, on the basis of data at hand. Demonstrating the problem in question, the author first reviews previous works that all identify a vowel lengthening in Civili. From different analyses the complexity of the phenomenon is found out by observing differences from an analysis to another, and by regarding difficulties the different phonologists came up against. Then, the problem is also seen through the weakness of each analysis results. This eventually shows more aspects of the vowel duration issue, and leads the author to make a clear distinction between vowel length and vowel lengthening that can be all regarded as only vowel duration. Finally, the article shares a possible way for a solution through an experimental approach of the Civili sound system

Adding a Third Vowel

Begin with a 2-vowel word in which the two vowels are different. Insert, or attach at the beginning or the end, a third different vowel to make a 3-vowel word

Non-native contrasts in Tongan loans

We present three case studies of marginal contrasts in Tongan loans from English, working with data from three speakers. Although Tongan lacks contrasts in stress or in CC vs. CVC sequences, secondary stress in loans is contrastive, and is sensitive to whether a vowel has a correspondent in the English source word; vowel deletion is also sensitive to whether a vowel is epenthetic as compared to the English source; and final vowel length is sensitive to whether the penultimate vowel is epenthetic, and if not, whether it corresponds to a stressed or unstressed vowel in the English source. We provide an analysis in the multilevel model of Boersma (1998) and Boersma & Hamann (2009), and show that the loan patterns can be captured using only constraints that plausibly are needed for native-word phonology, including constraints that reflect perceptual strategies

Model of the Classification of English Vowels by Spanish Speakers

A number of models of single language vowel classification based on formant representations have been proposed. We propose a new model that explicitly predicts vowel perception by second language (L2) learners based on the phonological map of their native language (Ll). The model represents the vowels using polar coordinates in the F l-F2 formant space. Boundaries bisect the angles made by two adjacent category centroids. An L2 vowel is classified with the closest Ll vowel with a probability based on the angular difference of the L2 vowel and the Ll vowel boundary. The polar coordinate model is compared with other vowel classification models, such as the quadratic discriminant analysis method used by Hillenbrand and Gay vert [J. Speech Hear. Research, 36, 694-700, 1993] and the logistic regression analysis method adopted by Nearey [J. Phonetics, 18, 347-373, 1990]. All models were trained on Spanish vowel data and tested on English vowels. The results were compared with behavioral data obtained by Flege [Q. J. Exp. Psych., 43 A(3), 701-731 (1991)] for Spanish monolingual speakers identifying English vowels. The polar coordinate model outperformed the other models in matching its predictions most closely with the behavioral data.National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (R29 02852); Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Forming New Vowel Categories in Second Language Speech: The Case of Polish Learners' Production of English /I/ and /e/

The paper concentrates on formation of L2 English vowel categories in the speech of Polish learners. More specifically, it compares distribution of two English categories - /I/ and /e/ relative to neighbouring Polish vowels. 43 participants recorded Polish and English vowels in a /bVt/ context. First two formants were measured at a vowel midpoint and plotted on a vowel plane. The results reveal that while a separate /I/ category is formed fairly effectively in Polish learners pronunciation of English, a category of /e/ is almost completely subsumed by a Polish vowel /ϵ

Effects of deafness on acoustic characteristics of American English tense/lax vowels in maternal speech to infants

Recent studies have demonstrated that mothers exaggerate phonetic properties of infant-directed (ID) speech. However, these studies focused on a single acoustic dimension (frequency), whereas speech sounds are composed of multiple acoustic cues. Moreover, little is known about how mothers adjust phonetic properties of speech to children with hearing loss. This study examined mothers’ production of frequency and duration cues to the American English tense/lax vowel contrast in speech to profoundly deaf (N = 14) and normal-hearing (N = 14) infants, and to an adult experimenter. First and second formant frequencies and vowel duration of tense (/i/, /u/) and lax (/I/, /ʊ/) vowels were measured. Results demonstrated that for both infant groups mothers hyperarticulated the acoustic vowelspace and increased vowel duration in ID speech relative to adult-directed speech. Mean F2 values were decreased for the /u/ vowel and increased for the /I/ vowel, and vowelduration was longer for the /i/, /u/, and /I/ vowels in ID speech. However, neither acoustic cue differed in speech to hearing-impaired or normal-hearing infants. These results suggest that both formant frequencies and vowel duration that differentiate American English tense/lx vowel contrasts are modified in ID speech regardless of the hearing status of the addressee

Vowel Symmetry

Arrange the letters of the alphabet in columns of two

Finding the Most Uniform Changes in Vowel Polygon Caused by Psychological Stress

Using vowel polygons, exactly their parameters, is chosen as the criterion for achievement of differences between normal state of speaker and relevant speech under real psychological stress. All results were experimentally obtained by created software for vowel polygon analysis applied on ExamStress database. Selected 6 methods based on cross-correlation of different features were classified by the coefficient of variation and for each individual vowel polygon, the efficiency coefficient marking the most significant and uniform differences between stressed and normal speech were calculated. As the best method for observing generated differences resulted method considered mean of cross correlation values received for difference area value with vector length and angle parameter couples. Generally, best results for stress detection are achieved by vowel triangles created by /i/-/o/-/u/ and /a/-/i/-/o/ vowel triangles in formant planes containing the fifth formant F5 combined with other formants