Doctoral Dissertation Research: The production and perception of breathy voice during nasal sounds

博士论文研究：鼻音期间呼吸声的产生和感知

• 批准号: 1627041
• 负责人: Marc Garellek
• 金额: $ 0.54万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1627041&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; production; perception

Language users often adjust or enhance their speech to be better understood in different contexts, such as when speaking in a loud room, or to a person with an accent, or when speaking on the phone. The study of speech enhancement strategies addresses important questions about human language, including how language is perceived by listeners and represented in the mind. Answering these questions is also vital to both speech therapy and speech technology. For speech therapy, this understanding can improve methods used in diagnosis and treatment of disordered speech. For speech technology, this understanding can improve speech recognition and synthesis, which are both used daily by the public, such as when calling a company's customer service. Knowledge of the way we enhance speech also helps researchers understand how and why languages change over time. This understanding is crucial for educating the public on linguistic diversity, change, and preservation.This research seeks to understand what enhancements occur when making nasal sounds, which are found in almost all languages of the world, including American English. Nasality is a common feature associated with an individual's voice: in any language, some speakers sound more nasal than others. This research focuses on how the voice is used to make sounds nasal. First, the researchers investigate whether speakers of American English and Brazilian Portuguese produce nasals with voice adjustments from the larynx. Second, they investigate how the perception of voice influences the perception of nasal sounds. These two languages differ in their use of nasal sounds, and so together they provide a better understanding of how different types of nasal sounds are made in different languages. This knowledge will help clarify how this particular type of sound is produced and perceived, which has the potential to improve techniques used to treat disordered speech as well as software used in speech recognition and synthesis.

语言使用者经常调整或增强他们的语音，以便在不同的环境中更好地理解，例如在吵闹的房间里说话时，或对有口音的人说话时，或在电话里说话时。语音增强策略的研究解决了有关人类语言的重要问题，包括听众如何感知语言以及如何在大脑中表达语言。回答这些问题对于言语治疗和言语技术也至关重要。对于言语治疗来说，这种理解可以改进用于诊断和治疗言语障碍的方法。对于语音技术来说，这种理解可以改进语音识别和合成，这两者都是公众日常使用的，例如在致电公司的客户服务时。了解我们增强言语的方式也有助于研究人员了解语言如何以及为何随着时间的推移而变化。这种理解对于教育公众有关语言多样性、变化和保护的知识至关重要。这项研究旨在了解在发出鼻音时会发生什么增强，这种鼻音存在于世界上几乎所有语言中，包括美式英语。鼻音是与个人声音相关的一个常见特征：在任何语言中，有些说话者听起来比其他人更鼻音。这项研究的重点是如何利用声音发出鼻音。首先，研究人员调查了说美式英语和巴西葡萄牙语的人是否会通过喉部的声音调整来产生鼻音。其次，他们研究了声音感知如何影响鼻音感知。这两种语言在鼻音的使用上有所不同，因此将它们结合起来可以更好地理解不同语言中不同类型的鼻音是如何发出的。这些知识将有助于阐明这种特定类型的声音是如何产生和感知的，这有可能改进用于治疗语音紊乱的技术以及用于语音识别和合成的软件。