Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare changes in acoustic and kinematic measures of articulation across soft, comfortable, and loud speech conditions. There were 19 participants, 9 male and 10 female, with age ranging from 20 to 34 with a median age of 25. Each participant had electromagnetic sensors glued to their tongue, jaw, and lips. It was anticipated that the acoustic measures would accurately reflect the kinematic measures of speech as articulation changed across the intensity levels. Vowel space area (VSA) and vowel articulation index (VAI) were computed from the three corner vowels, /α, i, u/. Articulatory-acoustic vowel space (AAVS), a sentence-level acoustic measure, was computed from the continuous formant histories for all voiced segments in a sentence. Kinematic-vowel space area (KVSA), kinematic-vowel articulation index (KVAI), and articulatory-kinematic vowel space (AKVS) were the kinematic equivalents of the acoustic measures, and were newly developed for the present study. Stroke metrics based on the speed history of the lingual movements were also used to reveal average kinematic features of the articulatory gestures in each participant's speech. The data revealed that the isolated acoustic and kinematic measures that used corner vowels (VSA, VAI. KVSA, KVAI) did not change significantly with intensity. The sentence-level continuous measures of articulatory working space (AAVS and AKVS) increased as speech intensity increased. The other sentence-level kinematic metrics also changed significantly with speech intensity, including increases in hull volume, onset speed, peak speed, mean speed, and distance. Stroke duration decreased as speech intensity increased. These findings suggest that measures based on isolated corner vowels are not as reflective as continuous measures of changes in articulatory movement in speech.

Degree

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Communication Disorders

Rights

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