title: Involvement of head movement in speech production and its implications for language pathology.
abstract: Analysis of head movement during speech, monitored by the polarized light goniometer, showed that head movement accompanies speech almost continuously in a manner specific to the concomitant, suprasegmental speech features. Thus initiation of speech after long pauses was accompanied by wide, linear movements (PS). The termination of speech in a pause (terminal juncture) was accompanied by movements of medium amplitudes and frequencies (OM). Sharp, intense movements (RM) were indicative of a peak in loudness, and often of a major phonetic stress. Finally, a speech disturbance was accompanied by movement if it involved a sharp prosodic transition. We suggest that these correlations indicate that head movement may have a role in speech production, regulating the many degrees of freedom and the dissipation of energy in speech. Furthermore, head movements may play a role in linguistic processing through the generative functions of stress, prominence, and orienting responses. Implications for speech pathology, especially dysphasia, are discussed.
mesh_terms: D001037:Aphasia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005868:Gestures; D006257:Head; D006801:Humans; D007697:Kinesics; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D013062:Speech Articulation Tests; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D013068:Speech Production Measurement