Prosody Assessment Toolbox

语言是由多个器官产生的，如肺、声带和舌头，所有这些器官都能调节 随着时间的推移，声音会越来越响亮。这种调制模式的一些特征传达了语音片段的身份：什么是 说。互补的，超段的，特征指的是它是如何说的。这些功能可以具有交流性 函数，在这种情况下，我们使用术语韵律。这些交际功能的范围从语言到 功能(例如，词汇重音)，语用功能(例如，社交适当的语气；或传达怀疑)， 情感功能(例如，尖叫以表达愤怒)。超段功能并不总是具有 沟通功能，如由声带损伤引起的声音嘶哑。 异常的接受性或表现性韵律出现在包括自闭症在内的一系列障碍中 谱系障碍(ASD)、轻度认知障碍(MCI)、唐氏综合征(DS)、构音障碍、帕金森氏症 疾病，抑郁症，精神分裂症，失语症，阿尔茨海默病，脑外伤，语言障碍，双相情感障碍， 多动症和创伤后应激障碍。 这些韵律异常和潜在的脑功能障碍的特征在很大程度上仍然是 未知。这种知识的缺乏，尽管对韵律的研究很少，但可能会对大脑造成影响 在一大组疾病中，功能障碍可能只有一个原因：“目前用于评估的工具 韵律缺陷比用于临床评估语言其他方面的缺陷晚了几十年。 (Diehl，J.J.和Paul，R.(2009)。韵律障碍的评估和治疗与神经学理论 韵律。《国际言语-语言病理学杂志》，11(4)，287-292)。最发达的 语音交流中的韵律元素分析仪器(PEPS-C)，计算机辅助的 2-选择接受性任务和语音生成任务(得分正确/错误)，虽然是一个重大的飞跃 向前推进，有许多局限性--只是进一步说明了韵律评估的不成熟状态。 基于我们在计算机化韵律评估方面的广泛专业知识，我们建议建立一个系统， 解决了这些缺点。系统执行自动评分和表现力的声学分析 韵律，允许对刺激进行听觉修改，以便对接受性韵律进行详细的感知评估，以及 研究人员可以将其扩展到包括新任务。对患有自闭症(成人)的人进行评估 和儿童)、DS(成人和儿童)或MCI，以及典型的发育对照组。

Speech is generated by multiple organs, such as the lungs, vocal chords, and the tongue, all of which modulate sound over time. Some features of this modulation pattern convey identities of phonetic segments: what is said. Complementary, suprasegmental, features refer to how it is said. These features can have communicative functions, in which case we use the term prosody. These communicative functions range from linguistic functions (e.g., lexical stress), to pragmatic functions (e.g., socially appropriate tone; or conveying doubt), to affective functions (e.g., screaming to convey anger). Suprasegmental features do not always have communicative functions, as, e.g., in hoarseness caused by vocal cord lesions. Abnormal receptive or expressive prosody is present in a wide range of disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), Down’s syndrome (DS), dysarthria, Parkinson’s disease, depression, schizophrenia, aphasia, Alzheimer’s disease, TBI, Language Impairment, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and PTSD. The characteristics of these prosodic abnormalities and underlying brain dysfunction are still largely unknown. This lack of knowledge, despite the important light research on prosody could cast on brain dysfunction in a large set of medical conditions, can have only one cause: “Current instruments for assessing prosodic deficits are decades behind those that are used for clinical assessment of other aspects of language” (Diehl, J. J., & Paul, R. (2009). The assessment and treatment of prosodic disorders and neurological theories of prosody. International journal of speech-language pathology, 11(4), 287-292). The best-developed instrument, Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C), a computer-aided battery of 2-alternative choice receptive tasks and speech generation tasks (scored correct/incorrect), while a major leap forwards, has many limitations – only further illustrating the immature state of the prosody assessment. Building on our broad expertise in computerized prosody assessment, we propose to build a system that addresses these shortcomings. The system performs automated scoring and acoustic analysis of expressive prosody, allows stimuli to be acoustically modified for detailed perceptual assessment of receptive prosody, and can be extended by researchers to include novel tasks. It is evaluated with individuals who have ASD (adults and children), DS (adults and children), or MCI, and a typically developing control group.