title: Compensation for a lip-tube perturbation in 4-year-olds: Articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual data analyzed in comparison with adults.
abstract: The nature of the speech goal in children was investigated in a study of compensation strategies for a lip-tube perturbation. Acoustic, articulatory, and perceptual analyses of the vowels /y/ and /u/ produced by ten 4-year-old French speakers and ten adult French speakers were conducted under two conditions: normal and with a large tube inserted between the lips. Ultrasound and acoustic recordings of isolated vowels were made in the normal condition before any perturbation, for each of the trials in the perturbed condition, and in the normal condition after the perturbed trials. Data revealed that adult participants moved their tongues in the perturbed condition more than children did. The perturbation was generally at least partly compensated for during the perturbed trials in adults, but children did not show a typical learning effect. In particular, unsystematic improvements were observed during the sequence of perturbed trials, and after-effects were not clear in the articulatory domain. This suggests that children may establish associative links between multisensory phonemic representations and articulatory maneuvers, but those links may mainly rely on trial-to-trial, error-based feedback correction mechanisms rather than on the internal model of the speech production apparatus, as they are in adults.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de phonétique, Université du Québec à Montréal, Department of Linguistics, Center for Research on Brain, Language, and Music 320, Sainte-Catherine East, Montréal, H2X 1L7, Canada.
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ménard
authors.affiliation: GIPSA-Lab, Département Parole et Cognition, Grenoble, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Perrier
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de phonétique, Université du Québec à Montréal, Department of Linguistics, Center for Research on Brain, Language, and Music 320, Sainte-Catherine East, Montréal, H2X 1L7, Canada.
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aubin
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D056228:Feedback, Sensory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008046:Lip / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D010700:Phonetics; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014059:Tongue / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D014463:Ultrasonography; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult