This study explored the extent and discriminatory potential of interspeaker variation in creaky voice in Dutch men.
Intervals of creaky voice for 30 speakers were manually segmented and annotated ...from a corpus of spontaneous speech data. For each speaker, at least 1500 syllables were analyzed. Total creakiness was calculated based on the proportion of creaky syllables. Creaky intervals were categorized into subtypes based on the degree of periodicity. Furthermore, acoustic measurements were taken from the intervals and tested for speaker-discriminating capacity by means of a linear discriminant analysis (LDA).
Speakers differed in what percentage of syllables they realized with creaky voice, with a range of roughly 0–5% of all syllables. They likewise differed in the proportion with which they used different subtypes of creaky voice, such that some speakers have very distinctive profiles. The LDA resulted in correct classifications of creaky intervals to speakers at a rate above chance level.
Interspeaker variation in creaky voice in Dutch male speech was confirmed and allowed for moderate speaker classification on the basis of speech acoustics.
IAFPA 2022 conference report Nuttall, Bryony; Tomic, Kristina
The international journal of speech, language and the law,
10/2022, Letnik:
29, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The 30th annual conference of the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) took place in Prague on July 11-13, 2022. This year's conference was organized by Charles ...University's Institute of Phonetics and sponsored by Projekt KREAS. In total, the conference consisted of three plenary talks, 20 oral presentations and 30 poster presentations across two and a half days. The plenary talks were given by world-renowned academics and researchers. The first was Professor Francis Nolan from the University of Cambridge, who presented 'Will forensic speech scientists still need ears?' The second keynote presentation was from Dr.Susanne Fuchs from the Leibniz-Centre of General Linguistics in Berlin. The final talk was given by Dr Petr Schwarz from the Brno University of Technology on 'Current trends in voice biometry research and industrial efforts'.
Human speech perception results from neural computations that transform external acoustic speech signals into internal representations of words. The superior temporal gyrus (STG) contains the ...nonprimary auditory cortex and is a critical locus for phonological processing. Here, we describe how speech sound representation in the STG relies on fundamentally nonlinear and dynamical processes, such as categorization, normalization, contextual restoration, and the extraction of temporal structure. A spatial mosaic of local cortical sites on the STG exhibits complex auditory encoding for distinct acoustic-phonetic and prosodic features. We propose that as a population ensemble, these distributed patterns of neural activity give rise to abstract, higher-order phonemic and syllabic representations that support speech perception. This review presents a multi-scale, recurrent model of phonological processing in the STG, highlighting the critical interface between auditory and language systems.
Because of restrictions on in-person research due to COVID-19, researchers are now relying on remotely recorded data to a much greater extent than in the past. Given the change in methodology, it is ...important to know how remote recording might affect acoustic measurements, either because of different recording devices used by participants and consultants or because of the software used to make recordings. This study investigates audio signal fidelity across different inperson recording equipment and remote recording software when compared to solid-state digital audio. We show that equipment choice and software can have a large effect on acoustic measurements, including those of frequency, duration, and noise. The issues do not just reflect decreased reliability; some measurements are systematically shifted in particular recording conditions. These results show the importance of carefully considering and documenting equipment choices, particularly for crosslinguistic or cross-speaker comparisons. We close with a framework for researchers to use in deciding what types of recording may be most appropriate.
•There is some evidence that whispered vowels are produced with a shorter back cavity than voiced vowels.•Intrinsic vowel durations along with formant frequencies have a role in differentiating vowel ...height in both speech modes.•Relative duration is the only viable cue for voicing in whispered fricatives: Same- place voiceless fricatives are longer than voiced fricatives both in voiced and whispered speech.•Place of articulation has a significant effect on source strength, both in voiced and whispered fricatives.•The same first front cavity resonance frequency shifts with the place of articulation can be observed in whispered and voiced fricatives.
The acoustic signal attributes of whispered speech potentially carry sufficiently distinct information to define vowel spaces and to disambiguate consonant place and voicing, but what these attributes are and the underlying production mechanisms are not fully known. The purpose of this study was to define segmental cues to place and voicing of vowels and sibilant fricatives and to develop an articulatory interpretation of acoustic data.
Seventeen speakers produced sustained sibilants and oral vowels, disyllabic words, sentences and read a phonetically balanced text. All the tasks were repeated in voiced and whispered speech, and the sound source and filter analysed using the following parameters: Fundamental frequency, spectral peak frequencies and levels, spectral slopes, sound pressure level and durations. Logistic linear mixed-effects models were developed to understand what acoustic signal attributes carry sufficiently distinct information to disambiguate /i, a/ and /s, ʃ/.
Vowels were produced with significantly different spectral slope, sound pressure level, first and second formant frequencies in voiced and whispered speech. The low frequencies spectral slope of voiced sibilants was significantly different between whispered and voiced speech. The odds of choosing /a/ instead of /i/ were estimated to be lower for whispered speech when compared to voiced speech. Fricatives’ broad peak frequency was statistically significant when discriminating between /s/ and /ʃ/.
First formant frequency and relative duration of vowels are consistently used as height cues, and spectral slope and broad peak frequency are attributes associated with consonantal place of articulation. The relative duration of same-place voiceless fricatives was higher than voiced fricatives both in voiced and whispered speech. The evidence presented in this paper can be used to restore voiced speech signals, and to inform rehabilitation strategies that can safely explore the production mechanisms of whispering.
Minjaee is the general name of some dialects of Luri that are known as Khorramabadi, Balageriveie, Silakhori, Boroujerdi, Malayeri, and so on. This study presents the acoustic parameters such as the ...first formant frequency and second formant frequency of Minjaee Luri monophthongs. As well it aims at studying the effect of gender and syllable (open and close) on these parameters. Finally, it is possible to obtain the vowel space diagram of Khorramabadi and Balageriveie dialects. The acoustic parameters of Minjaee Luri vowels /i/, /ɪ/, /ʏ/, /e/, /ø/, /a/, /ə/, /u/, /o/, /ɑ/, have been studied according to totally 1217 phonetic samples, produced by 18 participants (12 males and 6 females). Phonetic samples were analyzed by using PRAAT and the results were analyzed by SPSS. The study results were reported in two parts of descriptive and analytical statistics. According to the first formant frequency, vowels /a/ and /i/ are the highest and lowest vowels, respectively. Vowel /i/ shows the highest second formant frequency and is the frontest vowel in this dialect. While vowel /a/ in males and vowel /o/ in females are the most back ones. The vowel roundedness was investigated; it reduces the second formant of vowels. Men’s first and second formant frequencies are lower than women’s.
In their article in Elm-e Zaban (Volume 7, Issue 11) titled “Acoustic Analysis of Glottal Stop Occurrence before Initial Vowels in Persian Words”, Navab Safavi et al report the findings of their ...research on the acoustic features of the glottal stop before the word-initial vowels in the Persian language and try to answer the question whether this sound is a phoneme or not. The research is based on the recorded pronunciation of some non-words with the CVCV syllable structure and also 30 Persian words with word-initial glottal stops (or “vowels” as the authors argue). The authors suggest that the criteria for the existence of the glottal stop consonant in the word group are not verified and conclude that a full glottal stop with the characteristics of a consonant does not exist before the word-initial vowels in the Persian language. It seems that this acoustic research suffers from weaknesses in terms of assumptions, critique of previous studies, methodology, conclusion, and references. The most serious weakness is the confusion between the realms of phonology and phonetics, and the lack of distinction between the status and characteristics of the two branches of linguistics. This reply takes up a number of phonological and methodological issues which challenge the main conclusions of the authors.
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