title: Direct and octave-shifted pitch matching during nonword imitations in men, women, and children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate whether children, women, and men match the speaker's fundamental frequency (F0) during nonword imitation directly when the target F0 is within the responders' vocal ranges and at octave-shifted levels when the target is outside their vocal ranges, and to evaluate the role of a history of speech sound disorder (SSD) in the adult participants.
  
  
  METHODS
  Observational.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nonword sets spoken by a man and a woman were imitated by 14 men, 21 women, and 19 children. Approximately half of the adults and two-thirds of the children had a history of SSD. F0 in the imitations was compared with that in the targets and in the participants' nonimitated control word productions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When the target F0 was within the responders' vocal ranges, the imitations approximated the target F0. Men imitating a woman's voice approximated F0 levels one octave below the target F0. Children imitating a man's voice approximated F0 levels one octave above the target F0. Women imitating a man's voice approximated the target F0 at a ratio of 1.5 known as the perfect fifth in music. A history of SSD did not influence the results.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study replicates previous findings showing that target F0 was a salient aspect of the stimuli that was imitated along with the targets' segmental and prosodic components without explicit prompting. It is the first to show F0 convergence not only directly but also at relevant target/imitation intervals including the octave interval.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Electronic address: bvpeter@u.washington.edu.
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Peter
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
authors.forename: Bronsyn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
authors.forename: Kyle
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Middleton
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
authors.forename: Kiersten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McKibben
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009146:Music; D010699:Phonation / Q000502:physiology*; D010898:Pitch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D066229:Speech Sound Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D014831:Voice / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Direct pitch matching; Nonword imitation; Octave equivalence; Octave-shifted pitch matching; Perfect fifth; Phonetic convergence; Speech sound disorder