Labeling expressive speech in L2 Italian: the role of prosody in auto-and external annotation

The present study is intended to compare two approaches of labeling expressive corpora: auto-annotation and annotation by external lay listeners. These two methods have been applied to the semi-spontaneous emotional speech produced by Chinese learners of L2 Italian, involved in the CardTask, a moodinduction procedure that allows us to control the context of interaction, preserving the spontaneity of reactions. The emotional responses to the stimuli presented in the task were the object of an auto-annotation session. The same samples were then administered only in the auditory mode to 20 Italian and 20 Chinese lay listeners. The results of perceptual tests have underlined some similarities and differences between both auto- and external annotation, and between the ratings given by external Italian and Chinese listeners. The labels chosen by native Italians were similar to those selected in the auto-annotation session, particularly in the case of anxiety, fear and disgust. The correspondence between the results of the two annotation methods may be ascribed to the different prosodic patterns characterizing the emotional states. The results of the annotation made by Chinese listeners show that they found it hard to give a specific emotional label to utterances produced in a second language relying solely on prosodic patterns

“Young” and “Old” Voices: the prosodic auto-transplantation technique for speaker’s age recognition

The present study is intended to figure out the extent to which prosody and intonation affect listeners’ ability to estimate the speaker’s age. The performance of a 40-year old anchorman and another by the same speaker at the age of 80 were spectroacoustically analyzed in order to identify the prosodic features of a “young” and an “old” voice. The results of the analysis have shown significant differences between the two voices on a suprasegmental level. To test the effects of these differences on a perceptual level, through the prosodic transplantation technique, the F0 values and the durations of segments and silences were transferred from the “young” to the “old” voice and viceversa. Two age recognition tests, based on original and transplanted voices, were administered to Italian listeners. The results of perceptual tests have confirmed the strict relationship between some rhythmic and prosodic features and the speaker’s age and have demonstrated the effectiveness of the transplantation technique. With advancing age, articulation rate and speech rate slow down, voice register rises and tonal range widens. Moreover, the “old” voice is also characterized by a higher percentage of vocalic portion which determines a shift of the Italian rhythm towards the isomoraic pattern

Transplanting Credibility into a Foreign Voice. An Experiment on Synthesized L2 Italian

This study intends to verify through perceptual tests conducted on original and artificially modified speech whether a relationship exists among the degree of comprehensibility of an utterance, the foreign accent and the credibility of the message. Four bizarre-but-true news read in Italian by four non-native speakers were artificially modified with Praat and WaveSurfer. Each piece of news was transplanted, so that segmental and prosodic features of a text read by a native speaker were transferred onto the same text uttered by a non-native speaker. The corpus was administered to 265 native Italian listeners, who were requested to indicate the degree of comprehensibility, the level of foreign accent and the truthfulness of each item. The results point out the existence of a close inverse relationship between comprehensibility and credibility. The presence of foreign accent, providing an impediment to the understanding of the message, tends to create an attitude of distrust in the listener. The most important features for the foreign accent reduction are the suprasegmental ones and, in particular, the durations of the phones and the pitch movement

Imitation/self-imitation in computer-assisted prosody training for Chinese learners of L2 Italian.

Recent studies on L2 acquisition, speech synthesis and automatic identification of foreign accents argue for a major role of prosody in the perception of non-native speech. Research on the relationship between pronunciation improvement and student/teachers’ voice similarities has also shown that the better the match between the learners' and native speakers' voices in terms of f0 and articulation rate, the more positive the impact on pronunciation training. This study investigates the effects of imitation and self-imitation on the acquisition of L2 suprasegmental patterns. Degree of foreign accent, improvements in intelligibility, and effectiveness of communication were measured to determine the success of each technique. For this purpose, a prosodic transplantation technique and a computer-assisted learning methodology were used. Recent studies on L2 acquisition, speech synthesis and automatic identification of foreign accents argue for a major role of prosody in the perception of non-native speech. Research on the relationship between pronunciation improvement and student/teachers’ voice similarities has also shown that the better the match between the learners' and native speakers' voices in terms of f0 and articulation rate, the more positive the impact on pronunciation training. This study investigates the effects of imitation and self-imitation on the acquisition of L2 suprasegmental patterns. Degree of foreign accent, improvements in intelligibility, and effectiveness of communication were measured to determine the success of each technique. For this purpose, a prosodic transplantation technique and a computer-assisted learning methodology were used

VtoV: a perceptual cue for rhythm identification

Current metrics for the quantification of speech rhythm take into account parameters not easily detectable by listeners. To overcome this limit, in this study we propose a new model based on a parameter that account for listeners' ability to discriminate between different rhythmic patterns. Starting from the results of a spectro-acoustic analysis conducted on singing, we found that Perceptual Centres align close to Vowel Onset Points (VOP). To test the perceptual relevance of interval between two consecutive VOPs, that we call VtoV intervals, we analyzed a multilingual corpus of TV news, advertisings and recited speech. The signal was segmented into vocalic/consonantal portions and into VtoV intervals. The standard deviation of all parameters was calculated. The results of the analysis show that VtoV is a crucial parameter both to classify languages on a rhythmic basis and to account for intra-linguistic speech style variations

Speech Rhythm Variation in Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease: A Study on Different Speaking Tasks

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) usually reveal speech disorders and, among other symptoms, the alteration of speech rhythm. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to test the validity of two acoustic parameters—%V, vowel percentage and VtoV, the mean interval between two consecutive vowel onset points—for the identification of rhythm variation in early-stage PD speech and (2) to analyze the effect of PD on speech rhythm in two different speaking tasks: reading passage and monolog. A group of 20 patients with early-stage PD was involved in this study and compared with 20 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs). The results of the acoustic analysis confirmed that %V is a useful cue for early-stage PD speech characterization, having significantly higher values in the production of patients with PD than the values in HC speech. A simple speaking task, such as the reading task, was found to be more effective than spontaneous speech in the detection of rhythmic variations