Purpose: Vocal fold asymmetry creates irregular entrainments and modulations in voice, which may lead to rough perceptual quality. The presence of asymmetry can also cause mid-phonation bifurcations where a small change in the phonatory system causes a drastic change in vibration pattern, resulting in transitions in and out of rough voice. This…

Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to examine the impact of instruction order on the speech production response when adopting higher effort speaking styles, specifically loud and clear speech. Method: Speech intensity, lip aperture range, and speech rate data were collected from 24 talkers who repeated the utterance "Buy Bobby a…

Purpose: Previous studies have investigated the effects of the inability to produce hand gestures on speakers' prosodic features of speech; however, the potential effects of encouraging speakers to gesture have received less attention, especially in naturalistic settings. This study aims at investigating the effects of encouraging the production…

Purpose: This study investigated the efficacy of ultrasound biofeedback compared to a traditional acoustic input-only method in the second-language (L2) production training of English tense-lax vowel contrasts (/i-[near-close near-front unrounded vowel]/ and /e-[open-mid front unrounded vowel]/). The relationship between the degrees of production…

Purpose: This study aimed to (a) relate temporal patterning of articulation to functional speech outcomes in neurologically healthy and impaired speakers, (b) identify changes in temporal patterning of articulation in neurologically impaired speakers, and (c) evaluate how these changes can be modulated by speaking rate manipulation. Method:…

Purpose: Talkers typically use a slow speaking rate when producing clear speech, a speaking style that has been widely shown to improve intelligibility over conversational speech in difficult communication environments. With training, however, talkers can learn to produce a form of clear speech at normal speaking rates that provides young…

Purpose: This study examines the effect of age on language use with an automated analysis of digitized speech obtained from semistructured, narrative speech samples. Method: We examined the Cookie Theft picture descriptions produced by 37 older and 76 young healthy participants. Using modern natural language processing and automatic speech…

Children are known to be fast learners due to their neural plasticity. Learning a non-native language (L2) requires the mastering of new production patterns. In classroom settings, learners are not only exposed to the acoustic input, but also to the unfamiliar grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the L2 orthography. We tested how 9-10-year-old…

Purpose: We investigated whether rhythm discrimination is mainly driven by the native language of the listener or by the fundamental design of the human auditory system and universal cognitive mechanisms shared by all people irrespective of rhythmic patterns in their native language. Method: In multiple experiments, we asked participants to listen…

Onomatopoeia are frequently identified amongst infants' earliest words (Menn & Vihman, 2011), yet few authors have considered why this might be, and even fewer have explored this phenomenon empirically. Here we analyze mothers' production of onomatopoeia in infant-directed speech (IDS) to provide an input-based perspective on these forms.…

Research attempting to understand the intermediate stages of first-language acquisition and disordered speech has led to the discovery of covert contrast. A covert contrast is a statistically reliable difference between phonemes that is produced by a language learner, but in a way that cannot be heard readily by a listener of the target language.…

Purpose: This study investigates the production of voiceless alveolar and postalveolar fricatives and affricates by bilingual and monolingual children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants (CIs) and their peers with normal hearing (NH). Method: Fifty-four children participated in our study, including 12 Spanish-English bilingual CI users (M…

The speech of second language learners is often influenced by phonetic patterns of their first language. This can make them difficult to understand, but sometimes for listeners of the same first language to a lesser extent than for native listeners. The present study investigates listeners' awareness of the accent by asking whether accented speech…

Terminal changes in fundamental frequency provide the most salient acoustic cues to declarative questions, but adults sometimes identify such questions from pre-terminal cues. In the present study, adults and 7- to 10-year-old children judged a single speaker's adult- and child-directed utterances as questions or statements in a gating task with…

Purpose: The objective was to investigate acoustic cue processing in lexical-tone recognition by pediatric cochlear-implant (CI) recipients who are native Mandarin speakers. Method: Lexical-tone recognition was assessed in pediatric CI recipients and listeners with normal hearing (NH) in 2 tasks. In Task 1, participants identified naturally…