Links Between Production and Perception in Speech

言语产生和感知之间的联系

• 批准号: 8523824
• 负责人: Douglas H Whalen
• 金额: $ 70.71万
• 依托单位: HASKINS LABORATORIES, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-05-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8523824
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Adopted; Affect; Air; Attention; Auditory; Competence; Complex; Cues; Educational process of instructing; Event; Feedback; German population; Gestures; Goals; Grant; Instruction; Jaw; Joints; Judgment; Knowledge; Koreans; Language; Language Development; Learning; Linguistics; Link; Liquid substance; Measurement; Measures; Methods; Modality; Movement; Nature; Neck; Oral cavity; Perception; Process; Production; Recovery; Research; Research Personnel; Shadowing (Histology); Shapes; Signal Transduction; Source; Specific qualifier value; Speech; Speech Acoustics; Speech Perception; Stimulus; Tactile; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Tongue; Ultrasonography; Vision; Visual; experience; haptics; improved; language training; novel; sound; success; theories; uptake; visual feedback; visual information

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Coordinated actions of the many components of the vocal tract during speech produce a complex acoustic signal. Because the main signal is sound, it is often assumed that we can find the important aspects of that sound, without regard to the speech gestures that gave rise to it. Some acoustic signatures, however, were only discovered (on the previous cycle of this grant) by making predictions from the way the tongue moves. Although previous researchers had claimed that perceptual recovery of such gestural information is impossible, it turns out that, for the regions useful for speech, there are enough constraints to make the computation solvable. The current research will extend those results from vowels to the more critical consonants, and to show that listeners make use of the signatures of the articulation. Two main classes of theories, gestural and acoustic, differ in their treatment of how this acoustic evidence is learned. Acoustic theories attribute it to learning during babbling, while gestural theories assert that the constraints of the vocal tract are sufficient. The gestural hypothesis that listeners make use of all aspects of a gesture predicts that even unfamiliar information will be used, while the acoustic theory leads us to expect that prior experience is needed. We have found that unusual gestural correlates, such as a puff of air, are used perceptually as well, despite not being learned. A second aim of the research is to expand those findings to even more unusual sources of information (e.g., visual evidence of a flickering of a candle near the speaker's mouth). These air puffs, called aspiration, are not used by all languages, however, and we will test whether active, linguistic use of aspiration is necessary for using these gestural cues. These results will shape our understanding of the fundamental organization of speech and its learning. Learning a second language, whether it is English or one of the worlds's many other languages, is often hampered by difficulty with the new sounds the other language uses. This project has as a third aim to apply the results of the basic studies addressing its first two aims to exploration of new ways of training language learners in producing novel sounds. To the extent that speech perception is tightly linked to production, then providing feedback on production of the sounds that are imperfectly learned should increase success. Here, the feedback will be provided by ultrasound images of the tongue during difficult sounds. An example for those learning English is the mastery of the /l/ and /r/ sounds. For English speakers learning another language, an example is the trilled /r/ of Spanish. The studies proposed here are expected to provide new ways of improving second language learning.

描述（由申请人提供）：语音过程中声道的许多组成部分的协调动作产生复杂的声学信号。由于主要信号是声音，因此通常假设我们可以找到该声音的重要方面，而不考虑引起该声音的语音手势。然而，一些声学特征只是通过根据舌头运动的方式进行预测而发现的（在本次资助的前一个周期）。尽管之前的研究人员声称这种手势信息的感知恢复是不可能的，但事实证明，对于对语音有用的区域，有足够的约束来使计算可解决。目前的研究将把这些结果从元音扩展到更关键的辅音，并表明听众会利用发音的特征。手势理论和声学理论这两个主要类别在处理如何学习声学证据方面有所不同。声学理论将其归因于牙牙学语期间的学习，而手势理论则断言声道的限制就足够了。听众利用手势的各个方面的手势假设预测，即使是不熟悉的信息也会被使用，而声学理论则让我们预期需要先前的经验。我们发现，不寻常的手势关联，例如一股空气，尽管没有被学习，但也可以在感知上使用。该研究的第二个目标是将这些发现扩展到更不寻常的信息来源（例如，说话者嘴边蜡烛闪烁的视觉证据）。然而，并非所有语言都会使用这些被称为送气的吹气声，我们将测试使用这些手势提示是否需要主动地在语言上使用送气。这些结果将塑造我们对言语基本组织及其学习的理解。学习第二语言，无论是英语还是世界上许多其他语言之一，常常会因难以理解另一种语言使用的新发音而受到阻碍。该项目的第三个目标是将前两个目标的基础研究成果应用于探索训练语言学习者发出新颖声音的新方法。在某种程度上，语音感知与生成紧密相关，那么对未完全学习的声音的生成提供反馈应该会增加成功率。在这里，在困难的声音期间将通过舌头的超声图像提供反馈。对于学习英语的人来说，一个例子就是掌握 /l/ 和 /r/ 的发音。对于学习另一种语言的英语人士来说，一个例子是西班牙语的颤音/r/。这里提出的研究有望提供改进第二语言学习的新方法。