Effects of bite blocks and hearing status on vowel production.
This study explores the effects of hearing status and bite blocks on vowel production. Normal-hearing controls and postlingually deaf adults read elicitation lists of /hVd/ syllables with and without bite blocks and auditory feedback. Deaf participants' auditory feedback was provided by a cochlear prosthesis and interrupted by switching off their implant microphones. Recording sessions were held before prosthesis was provided and one month and one year after. Long-term absence of auditory feedback was associated with heightened dispersion of vowel tokens, which was inflated further by inserting bite blocks. The restoration of some hearing with prosthesis reduced dispersion. Deaf speakers' vowel spaces were reduced in size compared to controls. Insertion of bite blocks reduced them further because of the speakers' incomplete compensation. A year of prosthesis use increased vowel contrast with feedback during elicitation. These findings support the inference that models of speech production must assign a role to auditory feedback in error-based correction of feedforward commands for subsequent articulatory gestures.
Lane
Harlan
H
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, USA. lane@neu.edu
Denny
Margaret
M
Guenther
Frank H
FH
Matthies
Melanie L
ML
Menard
Lucie
L
Perkell
Joseph S
JS
Stockmann
Ellen
E
Tiede
Mark
M
Vic
Jennell
J
Zandipour
Majid
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003638:Deafness / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010700:Phonetics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014705:Verbal Behavior