Articulatory and Acoustic Correlates of Contrastive Focus in Congenitally Blind Adults and Sighted Adults

Ménard, Lucie; Leclerc, Annie; Tiede, Mark

doi:10.1044/2014_jslhr-s-12-0395

Cited by 23 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This pattern was also found in our previous studies of speech production in blind speakers [16,17,23]. Furthermore, as expected, vowels produced in the fast speech condition were significantly shorter than those produced in the normal speech condition (F[1,17] = 68.75; p < 0.01; η 2 = 0.79).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 70%

“…These results can be interpreted in the light of the multimodal cues that speakers transmit to their perceivers while they move their lips and jaw during speech production. We have reported elsewhere [17,23] that visible articulatory gestures (lip and jaw movements) are more heavily weighted in the phonological representations of sighted speakers, compared to their blind peers. When required to enhance distinctiveness, such as in a clear speech condition, sighted speakers increase the amplitude of lip and jaw movements more than blind speakers, presumably to enhance audiovisual perceptual saliency.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maintaining Distinctiveness at Increased Speaking Rates: A Comparison between Congenitally Blind and Sighted Speakers

Ménard

Côté

Trudeau-Fisette³

2016

Folia Phoniatr Logop

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Objectives: The effects of increased speaking rates on vowels have been well documented in sighted adults. It has been reported that in fast speech, vowels are less widely spaced acoustically than in their citation form. Vowel space compression has also been reported in congenitally blind speakers. The objective of the study was to investigate the interaction of vision and speaking rate in adult speakers. Patients and Methods: Contrast distances between vowels were examined in conversational and fast speech produced by 10 congenitally blind and 10 sighted French-Canadian adults. Acoustic analyses were carried out. Results: Compared with the sighted speakers, in the fast speaking condition, the blind speakers produced more vowels with contrast along the height, place of articulation, and rounding features located within the auditory target regions typical of French vowels. Conclusion: Blind speakers relied more heavily than sighted speakers on auditory properties of vowels to maintain perceptual distinctiveness.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintaining Distinctiveness at Increased Speaking Rates: A Comparison between Congenitally Blind and Sighted Speakers

Ménard

Côté

Trudeau-Fisette³

2016

Folia Phoniatr Logop

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“…The difference in identification slopes likely suggests that sighted speakers display finer abilities to perceptually follow the decreasing values of the frication noise, compared to blind speakers, in this specific set of syllables. In blind speakers, the reduced ability to perceptually follow the falling movement of the frication noise may be the consequence, at the perceptual level, of a limited control in producing the rounding gesture, a visually and auditory cued gesture [10,12,13]. Also, this might suggest that, in relating F2 changes to their perceptual consequences, sighted speakers have acquired more categorical representations because they have associated some of these changes with lip rounding gestures that are visible.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participants were Quebec French congenitally blind adults who had taken part in previous speech perception and production experiments conducted in our laboratory [10,12,13]. Age-matched sighted adults were also tested.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Congenital Visual Deprivation on the Auditory Perception of Anticipatory Labial Coarticulation

Ménard

Cathiard

Troille³

et al. 2015

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Objective: It has been shown previously that congenitally blind francophone adults had higher auditory discrimination scores than sighted adults. It is unclear, however, if, compared to their sighted peers, blind speakers display an increased ability to detect anticipatory acoustic cues. In this paper, this ability is investigated in both speaker groups. Methods: Using the gating paradigm, /izi/ and /izy/ sequences were truncated to include a variable duration of the vowel. The sequences were used as stimuli in an auditory identification test. Seventeen congenitally blind adults (9 females and 8 males) and 17 sighted controls were recruited. Their task was to identify the second vowel of the sequence. Results: Results show that all participants could reliably identify the rounded vowel prior to its acoustic onset, but steeper identification slopes were found for sighted listeners than for blind listeners. Conclusion: The difference in identification slopes likely suggests that sighted speakers display finer abilities to perceptually follow the decreasing values of the frication noise, compared to blind speakers.

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“…The SonoSite 180 Plus ultrasound system was used to synchronously record the articulatory values. This non-invasive technique has been shown to be very suitable for phonetic studies, since it provides a view of the global tongue contour in the mid-sagittal or coronal plane (Ménard et al, 2012;Ménard, Perrier, & Aubin, 2013;Ménard, Leclerc, & Tiede, 2014). A head-probe stabilisation system was used to prevent head movements relative to the ultrasound probe (Articulate Instruments Ltd., East Lothian, UK).…”

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring consequences of short- and long-term deafness on speech production: A lip-tube perturbation study

Turgeon

Prémont

Trudeau-Fisette

et al. 2015

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics

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Studies have reported strong links between speech production and perception. We aimed to evaluate the role of long- and short-term auditory feedback alteration on speech production. Eleven adults with normal hearing (controls) and 17 cochlear implant (CI) users (7 pre-lingually deaf and 10 post-lingually deaf adults) were recruited. Short-term auditory feedback deprivation was induced by turning off the CI or by providing masking noise. Acoustic and articulatory measures were obtained during the production of /u/, with and without a tube inserted between the lips (perturbation), and with and without auditory feedback. F1 values were significantly different between the implant OFF and ON conditions for the pre-lingually deaf participants. In the absence of auditory feedback, the pre-lingually deaf participants moved the tongue more forward. Thus, a lack of normal auditory experience of speech may affect the internal representation of a vowel.

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Articulatory and Acoustic Correlates of Contrastive Focus in Congenitally Blind Adults and Sighted Adults

Abstract: These results suggest that implementation of prosodic focus is affected by congenital visual deprivation. The authors discuss how these findings can be interpreted in the framework of the perception-for-action-control theory.

Cited by 23 publications

References 39 publications

Maintaining Distinctiveness at Increased Speaking Rates: A Comparison between Congenitally Blind and Sighted Speakers

Maintaining Distinctiveness at Increased Speaking Rates: A Comparison between Congenitally Blind and Sighted Speakers

Effects of Congenital Visual Deprivation on the Auditory Perception of Anticipatory Labial Coarticulation

Exploring consequences of short- and long-term deafness on speech production: A lip-tube perturbation study

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