Convergence in voice fundamental frequency during synchronous speech

Joint speech behaviours where speakers produce speech in unison are found in a variety of everyday settings, and have clinical relevance as a temporary fluency-enhancing technique for people who stutter. It is currently unknown whether such synchronisation of speech timing among two speakers is also accompanied by alignment in their vocal characteristics, for example in acoustic measures such as pitch. The current study investigated this by testing whether convergence in voice fundamental frequency (F0) between speakers could be demonstrated during synchronous speech. Sixty participants across two online experiments were audio recorded whilst reading a series of sentences, first on their own, and then in synchrony with another speaker (the accompanist) in a number of between-subject conditions. Experiment 1 demonstrated significant convergence in participants’ F0 to a pre-recorded accompanist voice, in the form of both upward (high F0 accompanist condition) and downward (low and extra-low F0 accompanist conditions) changes in F0. Experiment 2 demonstrated that such convergence was not seen during a visual synchronous speech condition, in which participants spoke in synchrony with silent video recordings of the accompanist. An audiovisual condition in which participants were able to both see and hear the accompanist in pre-recorded videos did not result in greater convergence in F0 compared to synchronisation with the pre-recorded voice alone. These findings suggest the need for models of speech motor control to incorporate interactions between self- and other-speech feedback during speech production, and suggest a novel hypothesis for the mechanisms underlying the fluency-enhancing effects of synchronous speech in people who stutter.

Effects of Repeated Exposure to Synthetic and Digitized Natural Speech by Individuals With Aphasia

Purpose Technological supports provide multimodal presentation of text, which may increase understandability of written materials by people with aphasia (PWA). Extant literature reveals that digitized natural speech and synthetic computer-generated speech within these supports are comprehensible by PWA at discrete time points; however, understandability following repeated exposure is unexplored. This pilot study evaluated understanding of, and preference regarding, synthetic and digitized natural speech during and following repeated exposures by PWA. Method This multiple–case-study project included four adults with aphasia. Participants independently completed various listening tasks in a single digitized natural speech condition and one of two synthetic speech conditions across a 2-week period. Participants completed sessions to evaluate maintenance effects and generalization to novel stimuli and an untrained synthetic voice condition 1 week and 1 month following daily practice. Results Study participants demonstrated understandability evident by at- or near-ceiling performance during baseline, practice, and follow-up sessions in the digitized natural condition and one synthetic speech condition. Individuals with mild aphasia achieved relatively consistent performance during independent practice, whereas performance of individuals with moderate aphasia fluctuated in both conditions. All four participants demonstrated variable understanding during generalization and maintenance tasks at follow-up time points. Participants most frequently indicated preference for digitized natural speech over either synthetic speech condition. Conclusions Findings hold important clinical implications when considering feasibility of utilizing these speech forms as compensatory strategies for PWA. Further research is needed to more fully understand the effects of repeated exposure to synthetic speech on comprehension among PWA.

Il costrutto allocutivo a Nando! in romanesco: fonologia, morfologia, sintassi, semantica, pragmatica

Both proper names and common nouns, when used as terms of address in Romanesco, can be preceded by the particle a (a Nando! ‘Hey, Fernando!’) and undergo truncation of the poststress material ((a) dottó’! ‘Hey, doc!’). The article presents a panchronic study of this construction in Romanesco, showing how and when truncation and the vocative particle a first arose and providing a synchronic analysis of the conditions under which they occur today. Vocative truncation is widespread in Central-Southern Italo-Romance, where it obeys conditions that vary subtly across time and space and that the article will touch upon based on the studies available to date. These conditions will be described in detail for Romanesco, showing that they are hierarchically organized and involve all levels of linguistic analysis: the list includes (a) a part-of-speech condition, (b) a condition referring to the syntactic constituent, (c) a semantic/pragmatic condition, (d) one of prosodic minimality, and finally (e) one of lexical semantics, relative to the animacy/definiteness hierarchy. Also the occurrence of the a particle is subject to conditions which are syntactic-textual, pragmatic and phonological in nature and which identify preferences rather than clear-cut (un)grammaticality, contrary to those that constrain truncation.

LINGUA-COGNITIVE ASPECT OF METAPHORIC EUPHEMIZATION

The article is about lingua-cognitive research of metaphoric euphemisms, and it gives scientific substantiation for creation of complex lingua-cognitive and logical mixture of objective metaphoric legality in subjective relation and speech condition.

Lingua-Cognitive Aspect Of Metaphoric Euphemization

The article is about lingua-cognitive research of metaphoric euphemisms, and it gives scientific substantiation for the creation of complex lingua-cognitive and a logical mixture of objective metaphoric legality in subjective relation and speech condition

Modality-specific dysfunctional neural processing of social-abstract and non-social-concrete information in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is characterized by marked communication dysfunctions encompassing potential impairments in the processing of social-abstract and non-social-concrete information, especially in everyday situations where multiple modalities are present in the form of speech and gesture. To date, the neurobiological basis of these deficits remains elusive. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 17 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and 18 matched controls watched videos of an actor speaking, gesturing (unimodal), and both speaking and gesturing (bimodal) about social or non-social events in a naturalistic way. Participants were asked to judge whether each video contains person-related (social) or object-related (non-social) information. When processing social-abstract content, patients showed reduced activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) only in the gesture but not in the speech condition. For non-social-concrete content, remarkably, reduced neural activation for patients in the left postcentral gyrus and the right insula was observed only in the speech condition. Moreover, in the bimodal conditions, patients displayed improved task performance and comparable activation to controls in both social and non-social content. To conclude, patients with schizophrenia displayed modality-specific aberrant neural processing of social and non-social information, which is not present for the bimodal conditions. This finding provides novel insights into dysfunctional multimodal communication in schizophrenia, and may have potential therapeutic implications.

Effects of Rate Manipulation on Intelligibility in Children With Cerebral Palsy

Purpose We evaluated the effects of a speech supplementation strategy to reduce rate and improve intelligibility in children with cerebral palsy. Method Twenty-five children with cerebral palsy ( M age = 12.08 years) completed a structured speaking task in 2 speech conditions: habitual speech and slow speech. Fifteen children had mild intelligibility deficits; 10 had moderate–severe intelligibility deficits. In each condition, children repeated utterances of 2–7 words in length. In the habitual speech condition, children used their natural and unaltered speaking rate. In the slow speech condition, children were cued to insert pauses between words. Intelligibility ratings were obtained from orthographic transcriptions by unfamiliar adult listeners ( n = 100). Speech rate, in words per minute, was measured for each utterance. Results All children, regardless of severity group, were able to reduce their rate of speech when implementing the slow speech strategy. Only children in the moderate–severe group showed an improvement in intelligibility when implementing the slow speech strategy. Although there was considerable individual variability, there was a greater improvement in intelligibility for longer utterances compared to shorter ones. Conclusion A slow speech strategy may be beneficial for children with moderate–severe intelligibility deficits who speak in longer utterances. Future studies should seek to further examine the clinical feasibility of slow speech for children with reduced intelligibility.

A CRÍTICA DAS PRÁTICAS NO DIZER DO REPÓRTER

A presente reflexão trabalha pistas ofertadas por jornalistas no esforço de, pela crítica, problematizar o regime das práticas. De modo aproximado, amplia a compreensão sobre o jornalismo, os sujeitos e as mediações, a partir de textos em que jornalistas examinam como os acontecimentos se engendram ao mesmo tempo em que elaboram uma crítica articulada à experiência e ao lugar de fala. Os “textos” analisados foram recolhidos no Twitter e no Facebook em perfis pessoais de jornalistas brasileiros e perpassam as negociações nas redações, os constrangimentos enfrentados, a preferência pelas versões das agências, a dependência das fontes oficiais e de seus enredos, os erros ou elementos negligenciados no processo de produção. Evidenciam a decisão do jornalista em dar a ver a “si mesmo” e às práticas jornalísticas, que se naturalizam sem serem suficientemente expostas e refletidas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Jornalismo; Práticas jornalísticas; Crítica. ABSTRACT This study analyzes clues left by journalists in their effort through criticism to problematize the practices regime. This study aims to contribute to the comprehension about journalism, the subjects and the mediations, based on texts in which journalists examine how events are engendered at the same time that they produce an articulated criticism of the experience and the speech condition. The “texts” analyzed were collected in personal Twitter and Facebook accounts by Brazilian journalists. These texts are pervaded by the negotiations in the newsrooms, the embarrassments faced, and the preference for the agencies versions, the dependency of official sources and its plots, the mistakes or elements neglected in the production process. It is evidenced the decision of the journalists of showing “themselves”, and the journalistic practices that are naturalized without being adequately exposed and reflected. KEYWORDS: Journalism; Journalistic practices; Criticism. RESUMEN La presente reflexión discute pistas ofertadas por los periodistas en el esfuerzo de, por la crítica, problematizar el régimen de las prácticas. De modo aproximado, amplia la comprensión sobre el periodismo, los sujetos y las mediaciones, a partir de textos en que los reporteros examinan como los acontecimientos se engendran al mismo tiempo en que elaboran una crítica articulada hacia la experiencia y el lugar de habla. Los “textos” analizados fueron elegidos en Twitter y en Facebook en perfiles personales de periodistas brasileros y tratan de las negociaciones en las redacciones, a veces de situaciones vergonzosas enfrentadas, la preferencia por las versiones de las agencias, la dependencia de las fuentes oficiales y de sus enredos, los errores o elementos olvidados en el proceso de producción. Evidencian la decisión del periodista en dejar verse a “sí mismo” y las prácticas periodísticas, que se naturalizan sin suficientemente ser expuestas y reflexionadas. PALABRAS CLAVE: Periodismo, Prácticas periodísticas; Crítica.

How Much Information Do People With Aphasia Convey via Gesture?

Purpose People with aphasia (PWA) face significant challenges in verbally expressing their communicative intentions. Different types of gestures are produced spontaneously by PWA, and a potentially compensatory function of these gestures has been discussed. The current study aimed to investigate how much information PWA communicate through 3 types of gesture and the communicative effectiveness of such gestures. Method Listeners without language impairment rated the information content of short video clips taken from PWA in conversation. Listeners were asked to rate communication within a speech-only condition and a gesture + speech condition. Results The results revealed that the participants' interpretations of the communicative intentions expressed in the clips of PWA were significantly more accurate in the gesture + speech condition for all tested gesture types. Conclusion It was concluded that all 3 gesture types under investigation contributed to the expression of semantic meaning communicated by PWA. Gestures are an important communicative means for PWA and should be regarded as such by their interlocutors. Gestures have been shown to enhance listeners' interpretation of PWA's overall communication.