Age Differences in Sequential Speech Production: Articulatory and Physiological Factors

Bilodeau-Mercure, Mylène; Tremblay, Pascale

doi:10.1111/jgs.14491

Cited by 39 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…[30], for example, found that older speakers with longer average vowel durations also tended to produce more acoustically distinct vowels. From an articulatory viewpoint, there is evidence that the slower speech is not imputable to constrained lip, jaw movements in older adults [31]- [32]. According to [32], indeed, older adults would reduce speech rate to compensate the decrease in lip and jaw stiffness when asked to produce speech at fast and very fast rates.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Ageing on Speech Rhythm: A Study on Zurich German

Pellegrino

Dellwo

2018

Speech Prosody 2018

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Speech segmental and suprasegmental characteristics vary considerably across the life span, for example, due to degenerative changes in speech production mechanisms and neuro-muscolar control. A great deal of research on the acoustic correlates of adult speakers' voice has focussed on changes in voice quality, vowel formant patterns, f0, amplitude and speech rate. Only little attention has been paid on speech rhythm variability due to advancing age. Here we quantified between-language rhythmic variability in terms of the durational characteristics of consonantal and vocalic intervals (henceforth CV intervals). We compared the segmental durational variability of two groups of Zurich German speakers. Group 1: 16 young adults, aged from 18 to 32 years; group 2: 10 older adults, aged from 66 to 81 years. For both groups we analyzed 20 sentences in Zurich German from the TEVOID Corpus. Between-speaker durational variability across age was quantified through a variety of interval-based metrics: segment rate, %V, deltaC, deltaV, VarcoC, VarcoV, rPVI-C and nPVI-V. Results showed that rhythmic differences between younger and older adults are largely accountable for by speech rate differences. Segment rate, %V and raw measures of CV interval durational variability (deltaV, deltaC and r-PVI-C) showed effects between younger and older adults. Rate normalized metrics (VarcoC, VarcoV and n-PVI-V) did not differ significantly between the two age-groups. AbstractSpeech segmental and suprasegmental characteristics vary considerably across the life span, for example, due to degenerative changes in speech production mechanisms and neuro-muscolar control. A great deal of research on the acoustic correlates of adult speakers' voice has focussed on changes in voice quality, vowel formant patterns, f0, amplitude and speech rate. Only little attention has been paid on speech rhythm variability due to advancing age.Here we quantified age-related rhythmic variability in terms of the durational characteristics of consonantal and vocalic intervals (henceforth CV intervals). We compared the segmental durational variability of two groups of Zurich German speakers. Group 1: 16 young adults, aged from 18 to 32 years; group 2: 10 older adults, aged from 66 to 81 years. For both groups we analyzed 20 sentences in Zurich German from the TEVOID Corpus. Between-speaker durational variability across age was quantified through a variety of interval-based metrics: segment rate, %V, deltaC, deltaV, VarcoC, VarcoV, rPVI-C and nPVI-V.Results showed that rhythmic differences between younger and older adults are largely accountable for by speech rate differences. Segment rate, %V and raw measures of CV interval durational variability (deltaV, deltaC and r-PVI-C) showed effects between younger and older adults. Rate normalized metrics (VarcoC, VarcoV and n-PVI-V) did not differ significantly between the two age-groups.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Ageing on Speech Rhythm: A Study on Zurich German

Pellegrino

Dellwo

2018

Speech Prosody 2018

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“…A first aim of this study is therefore to investigate changes in articulation rate across communicative conditions in older adults and young adult controls. Even when speaking without interference, differences in articulation rate across the lifespan have been documented in a number of studies (e.g., Duchin and Mysak, 1987;Jacewicz, Fox and Wei, 2010;Bilodeau-Mercure and Tremblay, 2016;Bóna, 2014;Smiljanić and Gilbert, 2017a). For example, a lifespan study showed that articulation rate measured from spontaneous speech monologues increased from childhood into adulthood and did not peak until adults were in their mid-40s (Jacewicz et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clear speech adaptations in spontaneous speech produced by young and older adults

Hazan

Tuomainen

Kim

et al. 2018

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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The study investigated the speech adaptations by older adults with and without age-related hearing loss made to communicate effectively in challenging communicative conditions. Acoustic analyses were carried out on spontaneous speech produced during a problem-solving task (diapix) carried out by talker pairs in different listening conditions. There were 83 talkers of Southern British English. 57 talkers were older adults (OA) aged 65-84: 30 with normal hearing (OANH) and 27 (OAHL) with presbycusis (mean PTA .250-4kHz: 27.7 dB HL). 26 talkers were younger adults (YA) aged 18-26 with normal hearing. Participants were recorded while completing the diapix task with a conversational partner (YA of the same sex) when (a) both talkers heard normally (NORM), (b) the partner had a simulated hearing loss (HLS) and (c) both talkers heard babble noise (BAB2). Irrespective of hearing status, there were age-related differences in some acoustic characteristics of YA and OA speech produced in NORM, most likely linked to physiological factors. In challenging conditions, while OANH talkers typically patterned with YA talkers, OAHL talkers made adaptations more consistent with an increase in vocal effort. Our study suggests that even mild presbycusis in healthy older adults can affect the speech adaptations made to maintain effective communication.PACS number: 43.70 Mn I.

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“…Nevertheless, in view of findings on the articulatory and acoustic variability across age, the slowing down of speech rate in Chomsky's speech might be accounted for reasons other than diminished orofacial strength or neuro-muscular degeneration. From an articulatory viewpoint, there is evidence that the slower speech is not imputable to constrained lip or jaw movements in older adults (Bilodeau-Mercure & Tremblay, 2016;Mefferd & Corder, 2014). According to Bilodeau-Mercure and Tremblay (2016), indeed, older adults reduce their speech rate to compensate for the decrease in lip and jaw stiffness when asked to produce speech at fast and very fast rates.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of healthy aging on within-speaker rhythmic variability: A case study on Noam Chomsky

Pellegrino

2019

loquens

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Speech rhythm varies noticeably from language to language, and within the same language as a function of numerous linguistic, prosodic and speaker-dependent factors, among which is the speaker’s age. Cross-sectional studies comparing the acoustic characteristics of young and old voices have documented that healthy aging affects speech rhythm variability. This kind of studies, however, presents one fundamental limitation: They group together people with different life experiences, healthy conditions and aging rate. This makes it very difficult to disentangle the effect of aging from that of other factors when interpreting the rhythmic differences between younger and older adults. In the present paper, we overcame such difficulty by tracing rhythmic variability within one single individual longitudinally. We examined 5 public talks held by Noam Chomsky, from when he was 40 to when he was 89. Within-speaker rhythmic variability was quantified through a variety of rate measures (segment/consonant and vowel rate) and rhythmic metrics (%V, %Vn, nPVI-V, n-PVI-C). The results showed that physiological aging affected speech rate measures, but not the durational characteristics of vocalic and consonantal intervals. More longitudinal data from numerous speakers of the same language are necessary to identify generalizable patterns in age-related rhythmic variability.

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Age Differences in Sequential Speech Production: Articulatory and Physiological Factors

Cited by 39 publications

References 28 publications

The Effect of Ageing on Speech Rhythm: A Study on Zurich German

The Effect of Ageing on Speech Rhythm: A Study on Zurich German

Clear speech adaptations in spontaneous speech produced by young and older adults

The effect of healthy aging on within-speaker rhythmic variability: A case study on Noam Chomsky

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