This study was designed as a replication and extension of the classic study of vowel acoustics by Peterson and Barney (PB) [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 24, 175–184 (1952)]. Recordings were made of 50 men, 50 women, and 50 children producing the vowels /i, i, eh, æ, hooked backward eh, inverted vee), a, open oh, u, u/ in h–V–d syllables. Formant contours for F1–F4 were measured from LPC spectra using a custom interactive editing tool. For comparison with the PB data, formant patterns were sampled at a time that was judged by visual inspection to be maximally steady. Preliminary analysis shows numerous differences between the present data and those of PB, both in terms of average formant frequencies for vowels, and the degree of overlap among adjacent vowels. As with the original study, listening tests showed that the signals were nearly always identified as the vowel intended by the talker.

The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend the classic study of vowel acoustics by Peterson and Barney (PB) [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 24, 175-184 (1952)]. Recordings were made of 45 men, 48 women, and 46 children producing the vowels /i,I,e, epsilon,ae,a, [symbol: see text],O,U,u, lambda,3 iota/ in h-V-d syllables. Formant contours for F1-F4 were measured from LPC spectra using a custom interactive editing tool. For comparison with the PB data, formant patterns were sampled at a time that was judged by visual inspection to be maximally steady. Analysis of the formant data shows numerous differences between the present data and those of PB, both in terms of average frequencies of F1 and F2, and the degree of overlap among adjacent vowels. As with the original study, listening tests showed that the signals were nearly always identified as the vowel intended by the talker. Discriminant analysis showed that the vowels were more poorly separated than the PB data based on a static sample of the formant pattern. However, the vowels can be separated with a high degree of accuracy if duration and spectral change information is included.

In an earlier study, we evaluated the effectiveness of several acoustic measures in predicting breathiness ratings for sustained vowels spoken by nonpathological talkers who were asked to produce nonbreathy, moderately breathy, and very breathy phonation (Hillenbrand, Cleveland, & Erickson, 1994). The purpose of the present study was to extend these results to speakers with laryngeal pathologies and to conduct tests using connected speech in addition to sustained vowels. Breathiness ratings were obtained from a sustained vowel and a 12-word sentence spoken by 20 pathological and 5 nonpathological talkers. Acoustic measures were made of (a) signal periodicity, (b) first harmonic amplitude, and (c) spectral tilt. For the sustained vowels, a frequency domain measure of periodicity provided the most accurate predictions of perceived breathiness, accounting for 92% of the variance in breathiness ratings. The relative amplitude of the first harmonic and two measures of spectral tilt correlated moderately with breathiness ratings. For the sentences, both signal periodicity and spectral tilt provided accurate predictions of breathiness ratings, accounting for 70%-85% of the variance.

In an earlier study, we evaluated the effectiveness of several acoustic measures in predicting breathiness ratings for sustained vowels spoken by nonpathological talkers who were asked to produce nonbreathy, moderately breathy, and very breathy phonation (Hillenbrand, Cleveland, & Erickson, 1994). The purpose of the present study was to extend these results to speakers with laryngeal pathologies and to conduct tests using connected speech in addition to sustained vowels. Breathiness ratings were obtained from a sustained vowel and a 12-word sentence spoken by 20 pathological and 5 nonpathological talkers. Acoustic measures were made of (a) signal periodicity, (b) first harmonic amplitude, and (c) spectral tilt. For the sustained vowels, a frequency domain measure of periodicity provided the most accurate predictions of perceived breathiness, accounting for 92% of the variance in breathiness ratings. The relative amplitude of the first harmonic and two measures of spectral tilt correlated moderately with breathiness ratings. For the sentences, both signal periodicity and spectral tilt provided accurate predictions of breathiness ratings, accounting for 70%-85% of the variance.

This study examined the French syllables /tu/ (‘‘tous’’) and /ty/ (‘‘tu’’) produced in three speaking tasks by native speakers of American English and French talkers living in the U. S. In a paired-comparison task listeners correctly identified more of the vowels produced by French than American talkers, and more vowels produced by experienced than inexperienced American speakers of French. An acoustic analysis revealed that the American talkers produced /u/ with significantly higher F2 values than the French talkers, but produced /y/ with F2 values equal to those of the French talkers. A labeling task revealed that the /y/ vowels produced by the experienced and inexperienced Americans were identified equally well, but that the experienced Americans produced a more identifiable /u/ than the inexperienced Americans. It is hypothesized that English speakers learn French /y/ rapidly because this vowel is not—like French /u/—judged to be equivalent to a vowel of English. The French and American talkers produced /t/ with equal VOT values of about 55 ms, which is intermediate to values commonly observed for monolingual speakers of French and English. It is hypothesized that the bilingual talkers judged the /t/ of French and English to be equivalent, which affected their perceptual target for French /t/ and ultimately their production of this stop.