This paper reviews data collection practices in electromagnetic articulography (EMA) studies, with a focus on sensor placement. We first introduce electromagnetic articulography as a method. We then ...focus on existing data collection practices. Our overview is based on a literature review of 905 publications from a large variety of journals and conferences, identified through a systematic keyword search in Google Scholar. The review shows that experimental designs vary greatly, which in turn may limit researchers’ ability to compare results across studies. Finally, we describe an EMA data collection procedure that includes an articulatory-driven strategy for determining where to position sensors on the tongue without causing discomfort to the participant. We also evaluate three approaches for preparing (NDI Wave) EMA sensors reported in the literature with respect to the duration the sensors remain attached to the tongue: 1) attaching out-of-the-box sensors, 2) attaching sensors coated in latex, and 3) attaching sensors coated in latex with an additional latex flap. Results indicate no clear general effect of sensor preparation type on adhesion duration. A subsequent exploratory analysis reveals that sensors with the additional flap tend to adhere for shorter times than the other two types, but that this pattern is inverted for the most posterior tongue sensor.
The Impact of Alcohol on L1 versus L2 Offrede, Tom F.; Jacobi, Jidde; Rebernik, Teja ...
Language and speech,
09/2021, Letnik:
64, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Alcohol intoxication is known to affect many aspects of human behavior and cognition; one of such affected systems is articulation during speech production. Although much research has revealed that ...alcohol negatively impacts pronunciation in a first language (L1), there is only initial evidence suggesting a potential beneficial effect of inebriation on articulation in a non-native language (L2). The aim of this study was thus to compare the effect of alcohol consumption on pronunciation in an L1 and an L2. Participants who had ingested different amounts of alcohol provided speech samples in their L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English), and native speakers of each language subsequently rated the pronunciation of these samples on their intelligibility (for the L1) and accent nativelikeness (for the L2). These data were analyzed with generalized additive mixed modeling. Participants’ blood alcohol concentration indeed negatively affected pronunciation in L1, but it produced no significant effect on the L2 accent ratings. The expected negative impact of alcohol on L1 articulation can be explained by reduction in fine motor control. We present two hypotheses to account for the absence of any effects of intoxication on L2 pronunciation: (1) there may be a reduction in L1 interference on L2 speech due to decreased motor control or (2) alcohol may produce a differential effect on each of the two linguistic subsystems.
Članek na primeru slovenščine obravnava priljubljeno tematiko morebitnega medsebojnega vpliva glasbe in jezika, in sicer s primerjavo prozodije slovenskega govora in melodično-ritmičnih značilnosti ...slovenske ljudske pesmi. Analiza nakaže morebitne povezave med tonemskostjo in obsegom intervalov, predvidljivostjo naglasov in ritmičnimi poudarki ter, nasploh, povezanost različnih dialektov in njihove glasbene tradicije. Članek tako predstavi preliminarno raziskavo na področju opazovanih podobnosti med točno določenim jezikom in glasbo. Četudi je zaradi manka primerjalnih raziskav za ostale jezike težko zagotoviti, da rezultati niso le naključni, raziskava predstavlja obetaven prvi poskus takšne primerjave.
Purpose: This study compares two electromagnetic articulographs manufactured by Northern Digital, Inc.: the NDI Wave System (from 2008) and the NDI Vox-EMA System (from 2020). Method: Four ...experiments were completed: (1) comparison of statically positioned sensors; (2) tracking dynamic movements of sensors manipulated using a motor-driven LEGO apparatus; (3) tracking small and large movements of sensors mounted in a rigid bar manipulated by hand; and (4) tracking movements of sensors rotated on a circular disc. We assessed spatial variability for statically positioned sensors, variability in the transduced Euclidean distances between sensor pairs, and missing data rates. For sensors tracking circular movements, we compared the fit between fitted ideal circles and actual trajectories. Results: The average sensor pair tracking error (i.e., the standard deviation of the Euclidean distances) was 1.37 mm for the WAVE and 0.12 mm for the VOX during automated trials at the fastest speed, and 0.35 mm for the WAVE and 0.14 mm for the VOX during the tracking of large manual movements. The average standard deviation of the fitted circle radii charted by manual circular disc movements was 0.72 mm for the WAVE sensors and 0.14 mm for the VOX sensors. There was no significant difference between the WAVE and the VOX in the number of missing frames. Conclusions: In general, the VOX system significantly outperformed the WAVE on measures of both static precision and dynamic accuracy (automated and manual). For both systems, positional precision and spatial variability were influenced by the sensors' position relative to the field generator unit (worse when further away).
The purpose of this study was to quantify sentence-level articulatory kinematics in individuals treated for oral squamous cell carcinoma (ITOC) compared to control speakers while also assessing the ...effect of treatment site (jaw vs. tongue). Furthermore, this study aimed to assess the relation between articulatory-kinematic measures and self-reported speech problems.
Articulatory-kinematic data from the tongue tip, tongue back, and jaw were collected using electromagnetic articulography in nine Dutch ITOC and eight control speakers. To quantify articulatory kinematics, the two-dimensional articulatory working space (AWS; in mm
), one-dimensional anteroposterior range of motion (AP-ROM; in mm), and superior-inferior range of motion (SI-ROM in mm) were calculated and examined. Self-reported speech problems were assessed with the Speech Handicap Index (SHI).
Compared to a sex-matched control group, ITOC showed significantly smaller AWS, AP-ROM, and SI-ROM for both the tongue tip and tongue back sensor, but no significant differences were observed for the jaw sensor. This pattern was found for both individuals treated for tongue and jaw tumors. Moderate nonsignificant correlations were found between the SHI and the AWS of the tongue back and jaw sensors.
Despite large individual variation, ITOC showed reduced one- and two-dimensional tongue, but not jaw, movements compared to control speakers and treatment for tongue and jaw tumors resulted in smaller tongue movements. A larger sample size is needed to establish a more generalizable connection between the AWS and the SHI. Further research should explore how these kinematic changes in ITOC are related to acoustic and perceptual measures of speech.
This study investigates how surgical intervention for speech pathology (specifically, as a result of oral cancer surgery) impacts the performance of an automatic speaker verification (ASV) system. ...Using two recently collected Dutch datasets with parallel pre and post-surgery audio from the same speaker, NKI-OC-VC and SPOKE, we assess the extent to which speech pathology influences ASV performance, and whether objective/subjective measures of speech severity are correlated with the performance. Finally, we carry out a perceptual study to compare judgements of ASV and human listeners. Our findings reveal that pathological speech negatively affects ASV performance, and the severity of the speech is negatively correlated with the performance. There is a moderate agreement in perceptual and objective scores of speaker similarity and severity, however, we could not clearly establish in the perceptual study, whether the same phenomenon also exists in human perception.
We present an articulatory synthesis framework for the synthesis and manipulation of oral cancer speech for clinical decision making and alleviation of patient stress. Objective and subjective ...evaluations demonstrate that the framework has acceptable naturalness and is worth further investigation. A subsequent subjective vowel and consonant identification experiment showed that the articulatory synthesis system can manipulate the articulatory trajectories so that the synthesised speech reproduces problems present in the ground truth oral cancer speech.
This document outlines a PROSPERO pre-registered protocol for a systematic review regarding articulatory changes in speech following oral or orophayrngeal cancer treatment. Treatment of tumours in ...the oral cavity may result in physiological changes that could lead to articulatory difficulties. The tongue becomes less mobile due to scar tissue and/or potential (postoperative) radiation therapy. Moreover, tissue loss may create a bypass for airflow or limit constriction possibilities. In order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the speech problems, information regarding the movement of the articulators is needed since perceptual or acoustic information provide only indirect evidence of articulatory changes. Therefore, this systematic review will review studies that directly measured the articulatory movements of the tongue, jaw, and lips following treatment for oral or oropharyngeal cancer.