Links Between Production and Perception in Speech

言语产生和感知之间的联系

基本信息

批准号：
8523824
负责人：
Douglas H Whalen
金额：
$ 70.71万
依托单位：
HASKINS LABORATORIES, INC.
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
1996
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
1996-05-01 至 2017-07-31
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Coordinated actions of the many components of the vocal tract during speech produce a complex acoustic signal. Because the main signal is sound, it is often assumed that we can find the important aspects of that sound, without regard to the speech gestures that gave rise to it. Some acoustic signatures, however, were only discovered (on the previous cycle of this grant) by making predictions from the way the tongue moves. Although previous researchers had claimed that perceptual recovery of such gestural information is impossible, it turns out that, for the regions useful for speech, there are enough constraints to make the computation solvable. The current research will extend those results from vowels to the more critical consonants, and to show that listeners make use of the signatures of the articulation. Two main classes of theories, gestural and acoustic, differ in their treatment of how this acoustic evidence is learned. Acoustic theories attribute it to learning during babbling, while gestural theories assert that the constraints of the vocal tract are sufficient. The gestural hypothesis that listeners make use of all aspects of a gesture predicts that even unfamiliar information will be used, while the acoustic theory leads us to expect that prior experience is needed. We have found that unusual gestural correlates, such as a puff of air, are used perceptually as well, despite not being learned. A second aim of the research is to expand those findings to even more unusual sources of information (e.g., visual evidence of a flickering of a candle near the speaker's mouth). These air puffs, called aspiration, are not used by all languages, however, and we will test whether active, linguistic use of aspiration is necessary for using these gestural cues. These results will shape our understanding of the fundamental organization of speech and its learning. Learning a second language, whether it is English or one of the worlds's many other languages, is often hampered by difficulty with the new sounds the other language uses. This project has as a third aim to apply the results of the basic studies addressing its first two aims to exploration of new ways of training language learners in producing novel sounds. To the extent that speech perception is tightly linked to production, then providing feedback on production of the sounds that are imperfectly learned should increase success. Here, the feedback will be provided by ultrasound images of the tongue during difficult sounds. An example for those learning English is the mastery of the /l/ and /r/ sounds. For English speakers learning another language, an example is the trilled /r/ of Spanish. The studies proposed here are expected to provide new ways of improving second language learning.

描述（由申请人提供）：语音期间许多组成部分的协调作用产生复杂的声学信号。由于主要信号是声音，因此通常假定我们可以找到该声音的重要方面，而无需考虑引起它的语音手势。然而，仅通过舌头移动方式进行预测，才发现了一些声学签名（在这笔赠款的上一个周期中）。尽管以前的研究人员声称不可能对这种手势信息进行感知恢复，但事实证明，对于对语音有用的区域，有足够的限制以使计算可解决。当前的研究将将这些结果从元音扩展到更关键的辅音，并表明听众利用表达的签名。手势和声学的两种主要理论在对这种声学证据的了解方面有所不同。声学理论将其归因于在胡言乱语中的学习，而手势理论则断言声音的约束就足够了。听众利用手势的各个方面的手势假设预测，即使是陌生的信息也将被使用，而声学理论则使我们期望需要先前的经验。我们发现，尽管没有学习，但在感知上也使用了异常的手势相关性，例如空气浮肿。该研究的第二个目的是将这些发现扩展到更加异常的信息来源（例如，视觉证据表明说话者嘴附近蜡烛闪烁）。这些空气泡芙（称为抽吸）并非所有语言都使用，我们将测试是否有必要使用这些手势提示，对吸气的语言使用是必要的。这些结果将影响我们对言语及其学习的基本组织的理解。学习第二语言，无论是英语还是世界上许多其他语言之一，通常都会因其他语言使用的新声音而受到阻碍。该项目的第三个目标是运用基础研究的结果，该研究涉及其前两个目的，以探索新的语言学习者制作新颖声音的方法。在某种程度上，语音感知与生产紧密相关，然后提供有关声音的产生的反馈，这些声音是不完美的，应该会增加成功。在这里，反馈将在困难的声音中通过舌头的超声图像提供。学习英语的人的一个例子是 / l /和 / r /声音的精通。对于说英语的人学习另一种语言，一个例子是西班牙语的颤音 / r /。预计此处提出的研究将提供改进第二语言学习的新方法。