Compensation to articulatory perturbation: perceptual data.
The perceptual adequacy of vowels, stop consonants, and fricatives produced under conditions of articulatory perturbation was explored. In a previous study [McFarland and Baum, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97, 1865-1873 (1995)], acoustic analyses of segments produced in two subtests (immediate compensation and postconversation) revealed small but significant changes in spectral characteristics of vowels and consonants under bite-block as compared to normal conditions. For the vowels only, adaptation increased subsequent to a period of conversation with the bite block in place, suggesting that compensation may develop over time and that consonants may require a longer period of adaptation. The present follow-up investigation examined whether the acoustic differences across conditions were perceptually salient. Ten listeners performed an identification and a quality rating task for stimuli from the earlier acoustic study. Results revealed reductions in identification scores and quality ratings for a subset of the vowels and consonants in the bite-block conditions relative to the normal condition in the immediate compensation subtest. In the postconversation subtest, quality ratings for the fricatives in the bite-block condition remained low as compared to those in the normal condition. Perceptual results are compared to the previous acoustic data gathered on these stimuli.
Baum
S R
SR
School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada. INSR@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA
McFarland
D H
DH
Diab
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement