bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Urban traffic noise assessment by combining measurement and model results
Authors: Van der Eerden Frits , Graafland Freek , Wessels Peter , Basten Tom
Published: May 2013

A model based monitoring system is applied on a local scale in an urban area to obtain a better understanding of the traffic noise situation. The system consists of a scalable sensor network and an engineering model. A better understanding is needed to take appropriate and cost efficient measures, especially when changes to the local infrastructure are proposed. The monitoring system provides information about the sound level distribution in the area in time and place. This can be used to create dynamic noise maps or to characterize the soundscape in the area. Results of a field test of two weeks in an urban area of 400 by 200 m are used. Three different areas are considered: (1) the main road which is the major source for traffic noise, (2) a quiet street, and (3) a quiet courtyard. The noise level measurements near the main road are compared with the engineering model results. Next, with the use of actual source levels from the measurements, the sound levels in the quiet street and the quiet courtyard are calculated. By comparing the model results with measurements in these areas, the parameters in the model are updated to better reflect the actual situation.
Outdoor sound propagation for high-speed moving sources
Authors: Dragna Didier , Blanc-Benon Philippe , Bongini Estelle , Poisson Franck
Published: May 2013

This paper deals with modeling of sources in motion in time-domain solvers. In the context of transportation noise, acoustic sources are complex. Indeed, they are in motion, and they are generally not compact. Equivalent point sources are often used to simplify the problem. Heuristic methods are then applied to handle acoustic propagation over complex sites. Besides, time-domain solutions of the linearized Euler equations have proved to be an attractive approach to study outdoor sound propagation, and can then be used to validate these models. However, point sources in arbitrary motion are difficult to account for in these approaches. Distributed volume sources can be used instead. First, influence of the spatial support of the source on the acoustic field is investigated. The case of a harmonic source moving at a constant speed is studied. Directivity of a non-compact source is shown to be dramatically different to the one of a point source. Then, simulations of a broadband moving source above an impedance ground surface in a three-dimensional geometry are presented, and ground effect is highlighted.
Evaluation of proposed ASTM standard to measure the normalized insertion loss of doors
Authors: LoVerde John , Dong David W.
Published: May 2013

There is currently no ASTM method for field measurement of the acoustical noise isolation specific to doors. Measurement of the overall noise reduction of the composite wall/door assembly or the Apparent Sound Transmission Class of the door can be attempted using the methods in ASTM E336, but these methods are not well suited to measuring doors. Doors typically have poorly defined source and receiving rooms, such as long and narrow corridors, stairwells, or outdoor spaces, which often do not meet the room requirements of ASTM E336. The sound fields are rarely diffuse, and the measurement locations are not well defined in the ASTM standard. An alternative insertion loss method (i.e., a comparison of the sound pressure levels with the door open and closed) was developed by MJM Acoustical Consultants (Michel Morin, “Research project on the noise isolation provided by access doors in multi-dwelling buildings,” 1993), and a draft ASTM standard has been developed based on this method. A laboratory testing program has been designed evaluate the proposed method and investigate variations in the test method. The results of the laboratory testing program are presented.
Evaluating harmful acoustic impulses
Authors: Fleischer Gerald
Published: May 2013

Noise-induced auditory impairment is widespread, despite many successful efforts to reduce sound emitted by technical equipment. Using accumulated acoustic energy as an indicator for health hazard, as in ISO1999, is insufficient to describe the hazard for impulses. While stimulating a system with many vibrating parts, like the ear, it is more important how the energy is fed into the various components than how much is applied. The Human Ear Model (AHAAH) uses the pressure-time-history of impulses, which is much better. It is based on theoretical assumptions, but it has serious deficits that lead to results that can be extremely wrong. Within another long-term approach the effects on hearing of accidents caused by impulses have been collected and documented. The harmful situations were reenacted thoroughly, to obtain acoustic measurements that can be correlated with the auditory damage, if present. All told, impulses cause three types of notches, at different frequency ranges. Hence, harmful impulses show characteristic footprints in carefully recorded audiograms, and the type of notch depends upon details of the causing impulse. This EPI-approach (Effects of Powerful Impulses) applies to most cases of auditory damage, and it is useful to prevent and understand such injuries.
Free radical formation and scavenging by solutes in the sonolysis of aqueous solutions
Authors: Grieser Franz
Published: May 2013

It has long been known that the primary radicals generated in water (H and OH), on the collapse of acoustic bubbles, largely recombine. It has been estimated that as much as 90% react within the bubble to produce molecular hydrogen, hydrogen peroxide and water [Henglein, Ultrason. Sonochem.2, S115–S121 (1995)]. This high recombination efficiency has been likened to radicals reacting within “spurs” produced by ionizing radiation in water. Several studies have shown that by using high concentrations (100s of mM) of primary radical scavengers, e.g., aliphatic alcohols, iodide, etc., a large number of the primary radicals are able to be captured in acoustically produced hot spot spurs. What is less well examined is the effect the scavengers themselves have on the production of the primary radicals and hence on the radical yields measured. The talk will consider the effect that typical radical scavengers have on active bubble populations in aqueous solutions, and on the production of primary radicals in the presence of added solutes.
Evaluation of the loudness of stationary and non-stationary complex sounds
Authors: Kuwano Sonoko , Hatoh Tadasu , Kato Tohru , Namba Seiichiro
Published: May 2013

In our sound environment, there are various complex sounds including both stationary and non-stationary sounds. It is important to evaluate the loudness of these sounds, to clarify the relation between the loudness and the physical metrics and to estimate the loudness by the physical metrics in order to evaluate and control the sound environment. The temporal patterns of non-stationary sounds in daily life environment, such as road traffic noise, construction noise, speech and music, are different from each other. It would be desirable to evaluate the loudness of both stationary and non-stationary sounds with various temporal and spectral characteristics by the same metric in the evaluation of the loudness. It is needless to say that the metric should have a good relation with the subjective impression. From physical viewpoint, sounds with various temporal patterns including stationary sounds can be measured by a single scale on the basis of energy. In this paper, a single common metric for the evaluation of the loudness of both stationary and non-stationary sounds is examined by conducting psychological experiments.
Rating the dieselness of vehicle noise using different psychoacoustic methods
Authors: Putner Jakob , Fastl Hugo
Published: May 2013

Modern diesel engines meet the demand for high power-engines while strict emission regulations have to be fulfilled. Therefore, diesel engines entered vehicle segments where the expectations on the sound quality are exceptionally high. Sound quality and fuel efficiency are often conflicting goals during the development of a diesel engine. The typical sound character of diesel engines, the so called Dieselness, is an indicator for the overall sound quality of the vehicle noise. Hence, it is desirable to rate the Dieselness of engine sounds. Sounds emitted by gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles in idle condition were rated in psychoacoustic experiments using different methods. First, the method of line length was used as direct scaling procedure to get ratio ratings of the relative Dieselness of the vehicle noises. Second, a direct ranking of the noises has been done with the Random Access method where subjects had to rank the sounds according to their Dieselness. Third, in a paired-comparison test the participants had to judge which of two sounds had more Dieselness, resulting in an indirect scaling. These methods are compared regarding the time the experiments took and the resulting ranking respectively scaling. In addition, a semantic differential test with general adjective pairs was conducted.
Perception of roughness of time-variant sounds
Authors: Sottek Roland , Genuit Klaus
Published: May 2013

Besides loudness, other psychoacoustic parameters like sharpness and roughness, are important for sound quality evaluation. Sharpness considers the relationship between the loudness of high frequency components to total loudness, and roughness evaluates modulation characteristics. While loudness of stationary sounds has been standardized for decades, standards for sharpness of stationary sounds and for loudness of time-varying sounds have been published in 2009 (DIN 45692:2009-08) and 2010 (DIN 45631/A1:2010-03), respectively. In addition, there are several roughness models available, performing more or less well for synthetic and selected technical signals. Currently, a roughness standard is under discussion in a DIN working group. In recent listening tests, the subjects showed consistent overall roughness evaluation of synthetic signals but heterogeneous judgments concerning the more complex technical sounds containing different rough components. The results of the listening test will be discussed and compared with the evaluation by several models like the roughness calculation using the hearing model of Sottek and another approach based on a psychoacoustically weighted modulation spectrum.
Extension of SmEdA to non-resonant transmission
Authors: Maxit Laurent , Ege Kerem , Totaro Nicolas , Guyader Jean-Louis
Published: May 2013

Statistical modal Energy distribution Analysis (SmEdA) may be used as alternative to Statistical Energy Analysis for describing subsystems with low modal overlap. In its original form, SmEdA predicts the power flow exchanged between the resonant modes of different subsystems. In the case of the sound transmission through a thin light structure, it is well-known than the non-resonant response of the structure may have a significant role on the transmission below the critical frequency. In this paper, one presents an extension of SmEdA taking into account the contributions of the non resonant modes of the thin structure. The dual modal formulation (DMF) is used for describing the behavior of two acoustic cavities separated by a thin structure knowing their subsystem modes. A condensation in the DMF equations is achieved on the amplitudes of the non-resonant modes. Using some simplifications, a new coupling scheme between the resonant modes of the three subsystems is obtained. It shows direct couplings of the cavity modes through stiffness elements characterized by the modes shapes of the cavities and the structure, both. Comparisons with reference results show the ability and the interest of the present approach for representing the non-resonant contributions of the structure.
On the energy finite element method for the acoustic design of ships
Authors: Stritzelberger Bernd , Abele Martin , von Estorff Otto
Published: May 2013

To ensure dynamic requirements of technical systems, methods like the finite element method (FEM) are successfully applied. For large structures as ship geometries, such analyses in the acoustic-relevant frequency range are usually not used productively. Highly time consuming investigations are incompatible to the generally single-unit production and short conception phases in ship design. The energy finite element method (EFEM) is a grid-based approach, which has the potential to provide a technique for the evaluation of acoustic characteristics even for major and complex structures at high frequencies. The less time consuming calculations generally result from a smaller number of degrees of freedom at the nodes and, in particular, it is feasible to use coarser grids than in the FEM. The governing equations are similar to that of the static heat conduction. State variables are the time and locally space averaged energy densities of the different wave types. The main focus is on the coupling— not only between the structure and the fluid, but also at junctions within the structure. Preliminary investigations on the reliability of EFEM results will be presented, questioning if the approach is applicable to operative ship design. [This work was done within the collaborative research project EPES.]
Validity of transfer matrix method for prediction of the transmission loss of curved panels
Authors: Abderrazak Mejdi , Franck Sgrad , Noureddine Atalla
Published: May 2013

This paper discusses the modeling of the transmission loss of curved panels with attached sound absorbing materials (foam or fiber) using both analytical and numerical methods. Special attention is devoted to the validity of modeling the problem using the transfer matrix method (TMM) and statistical energy analysis (SEA). Classically, in SEA models the sound package is unwrapped and the TMM is used to calculate its effects in terms of added damping, absorption and insertion loss. A systematic comparison with an efficient FEM/VBEM formulation of the problem is presented to examine validity of this practice and demonstrate its range of applicability and usefulness.
The role of the thyroarytenoid muscle in the regulation of prephonatory glottal opening
Authors: Zhang Zhaoyan , Yin Jun
Published: May 2013

Previous research has demonstrated a positive correlation between the thyroarytenoid muscle activity and the closed quotient, particularly for chest voice production. To understand the physical mechanism behind this correlation, the interaction between the thyroarytenoid and the cricothyroid muscles and the subglottal pressure was investigated using a muscularly controlled vocal fold model. The results showed that activation of the thyroarytenoid muscle stiffened the vocal folds and caused the vocal fold to bulge toward the glottal midline, which makes it possible to maintain intended degree of glottal closure, from fully open to fully closed to tightly compressed, against the varying subglottal pressure. For a constant flow rate, increasing contraction of the thyroarytenoid muscle also led to increased subglottal pressure, thus increasing voice intensity. This function of the thyroarytenoid muscle as a fine regulator of glottal closure is most effective at conditions of low levels of cricothyroid muscle contraction and low-to-middle range of subglottal pressure. At strong cricothyroid muscle contraction or extremely high subglottal pressures, a full-closed prephonatory glottis become impossible. Vibration at this condition is likely to have a small closed quotient and the effects of thyroarytenoid muscle contraction on closed quotient and subglottal pressure are minimal. [Work supported by NIH.]
High-dimensional and low-dimensional models of tissue and fluid movement in airways: How will they converge?
Authors: Titze Ingo R. , Titze Ingo R. , Titze Ingo R.
Published: May 2013

Airways surrounded with soft tissues are used by many species to produce sound. The structure of the airway can become unstable and oscillate at constricted regions such as the vocal folds, the ventricular folds, the aryepiglottic folds, the tongue dorsum, the velum, the tongue tip, or the lips. In modeling these fluid-structure interactions, approaches ranging from simple analytical models to low- and high-dimensional computational models have been used. For voice and speech scientists and practitioners who use these models, major issues are (1) what phenomenon do they explain, (2) how valid are model predictions, (3) what level of accuracy is needed to make a prediction, and (4) how user-friendly are the models? Some criteria will be given for making choices on degrees of freedom, tissue and flow characterization, and benchmarking with measurement to converge on utility and complexity of models.
Comparison of native and non-native consonant articulation with real-time magnetic resonance imaging of the vocal tract
Authors: Tilsen Sam , Xu Bo , Spincemaille Pascal , Srivastava Madhur , Doershuck Peter , Wang Yi
Published: May 2013

This study examines the effects of vocalic context and stress on consonantal articulation using real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) of the vocal tract. A native speaker of English and an L2 English speaker of Mandarin produced eight repetitions of a set of vowel-consonant-vowel sequences in which the target consonants—voiceless stops and nasals—occurred before or after a stressed vowel. Images of the mid-sagittal plane of the vocal tract were acquired with a sampling rate of 8.1 ms and were reconstructed using a variable density golden angle ordered spiral algorithm. Vocal tract variable time-series for each token were extracted from the images by taking the average pixel intensity for each frame in hand-labeled regions of interest. Analyses of variance were conducted on kinematic variables (movement range, velocity, and duration of consonantal closure and release movements) and relative timing of consonantal and vocalic gestural landmarks. The results showed greater effects of stress and vocalic context on articulatory kinematics and timing for the native speaker compared to the non-native speaker. This study demonstrates that rtMRI can be used to assess fine-grained differences in articulation that are likely attributable to language background.
Effects of phonemic variability and language dominance on Canadian French-English bilinguals’ perception of French vowels in various phonological contexts
Authors: Johnson Allison A. , Law Franzo
Published: May 2013

Phonemic variability can cause productions within a category of one language to be mapped onto multiple categories in a different language [Escudero (2009)]. For example, French productions of /ε/ are labeled both as /e/ and /ε/ by monolingual English listeners, likely due to spectral variability in production of French /ε/ [Strange et al. (2009)]. The present study examines how phonemic variability in Canadian French (CF) affects the perceptual tendencies of bilingual Canadian French-English listeners with varying levels of language dominance. Vowel productions by monolingual CF speakers were used in a modified identification task [Law (2011)]. The vowels were word-final in several phonological contexts (preceded by labial, coronal, and back consonants; followed by labial and coronal consonants) in real and nonwords embedded in carrier phrases. A subset of these vowels /e-ε-i-y/ was analyzed for duration, vocalic midpoint, and formant trajectories to examine the relationship between phonemic variation (as a function of phonological environment) and the perception results by bilinguals dominant in either CF or Canadian English (CE). We predict that the performance of CE-dominant listeners will vary in terms of speed and accuracy based on how similar each token is to CE vowel category expectations.
The Nez Perce vowel system: A phonetic analysis
Authors: Nelson Katherine
Published: May 2013

The Nez Perce language, a highly endangered American Indigenous language, has been of great interest in phonology over the years due to its unusual vowel system and vowel harmony process. Nez Perce has five monophthongs and seven diphthongs, all with phonemic length. This system is unusual because rather than /i, e, a, o, u/ as is common, the Nez Perce inventory is /i, æ, a, o, u/. This uncommon inventory leads to two seemingly unrelated dominant, /i, a, o/, and recessive, /i, æ, u/, vowel harmony groups. To date there has been no phonetic analysis of the vowel system. This paper provides an acoustic analysis of the vowels as well as the vowel harmony system. Five native speakers (two males and three females) were used to analyze the vowels and the three female native speakers were used for the vowel harmony study. Results support the current vowel system analysis for Nez Perce. The vowel harmony data lend support to the current advanced tongue root analysis; however, it also poses questions for future research.
Producing whole speech events: Anticipatory lip compression in bilabial stops
Authors: Chiu Chenhao , Gick Bryan
Published: May 2013

Bilabial stops /b/, /p/, and /m/ ostensibly share a common lip constriction. Recent evidence shows that different bilabial stops involve distinct facial muscle activations, suggesting that oral speech movements anticipate aerodynamic conditions [Gick et al. Proc. Acoust. (2012) 2pSC1]. The present study investigates how the lips themselves behave in whole speech events. Existing models of speech production governing only articulatory motions predict that lip compression would respond to changes in aerodynamic conditions rather than anticipating such changes; a model that includes whole events predicts anticipatory activation of lip muscles with concomitant kinematic lip compression, but only in cases where a real increase in air pressure is expected. Lip kinematics were recorded using OptoTrak to trace lip movements of bilabial stops in response to imperative acoustic stimuli. Results show consistent anticipatory lip compression in spoken /b/ and /p/, but not in non-speech jaw opening movements and only sporadic compression in mouthed /b/ and /p/, where air pressure is not expected to increase. Biomechanical simulation using an orofacial model developed within the Artisynth simulation toolkit (www.artisynth.org) confirms anticipatory muscle activations. These findings support a model of speech tasks wherein coordinated body-level muscular systems govern whole speech events.
Spectral discrimination of consonants for English and Chinese Listeners
Authors: Fritz Tatum M. , Liu Chang
Published: May 2013

Previous work in our laboratory showed that Chinese listeners had significantly higher thresholds for vowel formant discrimination than American English listeners, possibly due to a sparse vowel system in Chinese but a crowded vowel space in American English. Considering that the two languages have similar consonant densities (i.e., similar numbers of consonants), we hypothesized that English and Chinese listeners might have similar thresholds of spectral discrimination of consonant stimuli. Thresholds of spectral shift in the English consonant, /s/, were measured in an isolated form and in a VCV context for both English and Chinese listeners. Preliminary results showed that there was no significant difference in consonant discrimination thresholds between the two groups of listeners for either isolated or VCV consonants. These findings support that phonemic density may play an important role in spectral discrimination of speech sounds.
A study of data normalization measured by an electro-magnetic articulograph
Authors: Funatsu Seiya , Fujimoto Masako
Published: May 2013

We investigated the normalization of the data measured using an electro-magnetic articulograph (EMA). The data normalization was needed because the size of the articulator of each subject is different from the sex and/or body size. Moreover, tongue movement range depends upon the speaking styles, clear or unclear. Our experiments were as follows: tongue tip movements during articulation of non-native consonant clusters were measured. Speakers were 2 Japanese and 2 Germans. Speech samples were four nonsense words, bnaht, pnaht, gnaht, knaht. Tongue tip displacement D (mm) and moving time T (ms) between first and second consonant in consonant clusters were measured. Dx (X component of D) was normalized by the difference between maximum value of X (Xmax) and minimum value of X (Xmin) in each utterance, i.e., Dnx = Dx/(Xmax−Xmin). Also, Dy (Y component of D) was normalized, i.e., Dny = Dy/(Ymax−Ymin). Hence, Dn (normalized D) was Dn = (Dnx2+Dny2)1/2. T was normalized by word length L (ms), i.e., Tn = T/L. Before the normalization, the measured data was localized by each speaker on the T-D plane, while the normalized data were not localized on the Tn−Dn plane. Accordingly, it was suggested that this simple normalization method would be effective in this experiment.
The fluctuating-masker benefit for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners with equal audibility at a fixed signal-to-noise ratio
Authors: Jensen Kenneth K. , Bernstein Joshua G.
Published: May 2013

While normal-hearing (NH) listeners demonstrate better speech intelligibility for fluctuating-masker than for stationary-noise conditions, hearing-impaired (HI) listeners generally show little or no fluctuating-masker benefit (FMB). This result has been interpreted in terms of suprathreshold deficits (e.g., reduced spectral or temporal resolution or distorted stream-segregation cues) that limit “dip-listening.” However, reduced FMB for HI listeners might instead be attributable to audibility limitations or to differences between the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) at which NH and HI listeners are tested. This study examined this issue by equalizing stationary-noise performance to allow measurements at a common SNR, equalizing audibility, and presenting identical signals to pairs of NH and HI listeners. Audibility was equalized using linear gain, low-pass filtering (4 kHz) and intensity filtering to remove speech-signal elements below the HI audiometric threshold. Nonsense-syllable identification performance in stationary noise was equalized by adjusting the response set size. Stationary-noise trials (adapting set size) were interleaved with fluctuating-masker trials (adapting SNR), ensuring stable stationary-noise performance throughout the test. Fluctuating maskers included low- and high-rate modulated noise, speech-modulated noise, and an interfering-talker condition. Results were assessed to determine whether and under which conditions the HI listeners demonstrated reduced FMB not attributable to SNR or audibility effects.
Phonetic properties of [v] in Russian, Serbian, and Greek
Authors: Bjorndahl Christina
Published: May 2013

This study examines the phonetic properties of the segment [v] in Greek, Serbian, and Russian. [v] patterns phonologically like an obstruent in Greek, but like a sonorant in Serbian; in Russian, it patterns with both obstruents and sonorants. We test the hypothesis that cross-linguistic differences in the phonological status of [v] correlate with phonetic differences. We report on spectral and durational measures of [v] in four environments: word-initial stressed, word-initial unstressed, word-medial stressed, and word-medial unstressed. Our results show an association between phonological patterning and phonetic realization. Greek tokens of [v] are produced with significantly more high-frequency spectral energy than those in Serbian, suggesting a relation between phonological status and phonetic realization in these two languages. Tokens of Russian [v] exhibit the same relationship to tokens of Serbian [v] in word-initial stressed position; elsewhere, they are produced with relatively little high-frequency spectral energy. Furthermore, the effects of word position and syllable stress are found to be additive in Russian. These results are important because they support the notion that there exist interactions between the phonological status of a segment and its phonetic realization.
Does articulatory setting provide some mechanical advantage for speech motor action?
Authors: Ramanarayanan Vikram , Lammert Adam , Goldstein Louis , Narayanan Shrikanth
Published: May 2013

Articulatory setting postures adopted during speech production are examined with the goal of determining whether setting postures are more mechanically advantageous than rest positions in facilitating motion of vocal tract articulators toward task goals. Articulatory simulations using the Task Dynamics Application (TADA) suggest that setting postures afford large changes with respect to speech tasks for relatively small changes in low-level speech articulators, thus affording greater mechanical advantage as compared to absolute rest postures. This study investigates this hypothesis using real-time Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rtMRI) data of read and spontaneous speech elicited from five healthy speakers of American English. Frames corresponding to inter-speech pauses, speech-ready intervals, and absolute rest intervals were identified and image features were automatically extracted to quantify the vocal tract postures in terms of both task-level constriction variables and articulatory variables. Locally Weighted Regression is then used to estimate the ratio of task velocities to articulator velocities (i.e., the lever or speed ratio) at postures corresponding to the different intervals of interest. Results show substantially higher speed ratios at inter-speech and ready postures as compared to absolute rest postures. [Work supported by NIH.]
An electropalatography study of nasal-trill/lateral sequences in Spanish
Authors: Colantoni Laura , Kochetov Alexei
Published: May 2013

Trills and laterals require relatively precise articulatory and aerodynamic settings that are at least partly incompatible with setting necessary to produce nasal stops. Historically, this incompatibility has often been resolved through assimilation, deletion, or epenthesis in within-word [n+r] and [n+l] clusters (e.g., Romance [nr] > [rr] or [ndr]). It is expected that similar, yet gradient effects would be observed in across-word or hetero-morphemic sequences of nasals and liquids. This study examines the production of Spanish nasal-liquid sequences using electropalatography (EPG). Linguopalatal contact data were collected from nine native speakers of Spanish (representing three dialects) producing various utterances with nasals before /r/ and /l/ (as well as before /n/). The analysis of C1 and C2 using standard EPG indices of constriction location and degree showed that nasals had a more retracted and partly deocclusivized constriction before /r/, and a lowered tongue dorsum before both /r/ and /l/. These differences, clearly reflecting anticipatory coarticulatory effects, were similar across speakers and the three dialects, which differ in the default realization of the final nasal (alveolar or velar). The findings provide evidence for articulatory incompatibility as a source of historical development of combinations of nasals and liquids.
Perception of non-native consonant length in naïve English listeners
Authors: Porretta Vincent , Tucker Benjamin V.
Published: May 2013

English speakers are sensitive to phonetic length [Pickett and Decker (1960)] but do not maintain a phonemic length contrast [Hayes (2002)]. This study examines English speakers’ ability to discriminate and identify intervocalic consonant length in Finnish non-words. The consonants were manipulated for length and half of the participants were given brief written instruction regarding the Finnish length contrast. In an AX discrimination task, participants responded to increasing contrast ratio gradiently; however, the instructed group performed significantly better than the uninstructed group. Proficiency in any second language aids contrast detection in those receiving no instruction. In a forced-choice identification task, participants showed no evidence of boundary effects; however, the instructed group performed significantly more like native Finnish controls. Again, second language proficiency aids in consonant length detection. The present results indicate that information about and attention to a novel contrast, along with second language experience, aid processing in novice listeners. Given that learners can eventually maintain native-like contrasts, these factors may be influential in the initial formation of L2 phonological representations and support phonetic level of processing [Werker and Tees (1984)], intermediate to non-linguistic acoustic processing and phonemic processing, at which acoustic duration becomes a phonetically relevant cue.
A following sibilant increases the ambiguity of a sibilant continuum
Authors: Fleischer David , Clayards Meghan , Wagner Michael
Published: May 2013

We examined the effect of three following contexts: /s/, /∫/, and vowel, on the categorization of a /s/-/∫/ continuum. Unlike previous findings of a shift in category boundary due to context [Mann and Repp (1980)], we found that in the context of a following sibilant, listeners found the target sibilant to be more ambiguous (shallower categorization slopes and responses closer to chance) than when followed by a vowel (p < 0.001). There was also a tendency for the /∫/ context (which affects pronunciation) to create more ambiguity than the /s/ context (which does not) (p = 0.057). In a second experiment, half the participants heard the following context as part of the same syntactic phrase as the target (e.g., “Whenever they fra? Shelly gets upset”) and half heard it as part of a different phrase (e.g., “Whenever they fra? Shelly, John gets upset”). Pronunciation usually is more affected when target and context are in the same phrase (Holst and Nolan (1995). Although our stimuli were acoustically identical, listeners tended to perceive target sibilants as more ambiguous when the following /∫/ was part of the same phrase (p = 0.059), suggesting a role for top-down knowledge in interpreting segmental information.
Automating phonetic measurement: The case of voice onset time
Authors: Ryant Neville , Yuan Jiahong , Liberman Mark
Published: May 2013

Of 58 papers published so far this year in Journal of Phonetics, 16 (28%) feature Voice Onset Time (VOT) or related measurements, confirming that VOT remains a central concern in the field. However, phoneticians’ VOT measurements generally continue to rely on human judgment, which requires significant labor, makes even large laboratory experiments onerous, and prevents the field from taking full advantage of the millions of hours of digital speech now becoming available. We present an algorithm for accurate automatic measurement of VOT, combining HMM forced alignment for determining approximate stop boundaries with paired burst and voicing onset detectors. Each detector is a frame-level max margin classifier operating on the scale-space projection of a small number of relevant acoustic features. On a large set of clean lab speech, this system has a mean absolute error (relative to human annotation) of only 2.8 ms, with 98% of errors <10 ms. On a subcorpus independently annotated by two of the authors, the system agreed with the two human annotators as well as they agreed with one another (1.49 vs 1.50 ms). Promising results on other datasets will be reported. The system will be released as open-source software.
On distinguishing articulatory configurations and articulatory tasks: Tamil retroflex consonants
Authors: Smith Caitlin , Proctor Michael , Iskarous Khalil , Goldstein Louis , Narayanan Shrikanth
Published: May 2013

Speech production can be described in multiple coordinate frames: articulatory configurations, gestural tasks, and acoustic patterns. Examination of the achievement of retroflex stops and liquids in Tamil suggests that we must consider separately the gestural task of apical pre-palatal constriction and the articulatory maneuver to achieve the task. The maneuver of the tongue during retroflex consonants varies across vowel contexts. Specifically, in the symmetrical intervocalic contexts between back vowels /a/ and /u/, an apical pre-palatal constriction is achieved by curling back the tongue. In the context of high front vowel /i/, a laminal pre-palatal constriction is achieved by bunching the tongue. However, the location of retroflex consonant constriction within the vocal tract is consistent across all of these vowel contexts, suggesting that the constriction task remains the same. Variation in the articulatory configuration of the retroflex in the two contexts was quantified through Gaussian curvature functions at fourteen points along the tongue, sampled at evenly spaced points throughout the vocal tract, on every other gridline of a polar-rectangular grid in every frame in each utterance. The empirical results support the notion that the articulatory configuration coordinate frame and the gestural task frame provide separate, but related, descriptions of speech production.
Perception and production in non-native speech: Russian palatalization
Authors: Bolanos Leandro
Published: May 2013

It is well known that adults struggle in perceiving and producing certain phonological contrasts not present in their native language. Adults also find difficulty in learning the specific timing of non-native articulatory gestures and contextual differences present in the language. The present study investigates English speakers’ perception and production of Russian contrasts involving palatalized consonants in varying contexts. Of interest are the effects of syllable position and palatalization on speakers’ performance in perception and production. The framework of Articulatory Phonology [e.g., Browman and Goldstein (1986), (1992)] and the Perceptual Assimilation Model [e.g., Best et al. (2001)] are adopted to account for differences in timing between English and Russian with respect to palatalization, and to subsequently make predictions on English speakers’ perception as well as their production of the different timing property present in Russian palatalization. Speakers of American English lacking any previous exposure to Russian participated in a series of perception and production experiments involving Russian palatalized stops, which vary in place of articulation (labials, coronals) and syllable position (onset, coda). Preliminary results indicate diminished performance for some contrasts in syllable coda position as well as correlations between the perception and production of palatalized consonants by English speakers.
Estimated relative vocal tract lengths from vowel spectra based on fundamental frequency adaptive analyses and their relations to relevant physical data of speakers
Authors: Kobayashi Mayuko , Nisimura Ryuichi , Irino Toshio , Kawahara Hideki
Published: May 2013

A Japanese vowel database of males, females and children speakers (385 speakers in total) along with relevant physical data [Deguchi et al. (2011)] was analyzed using a set of F0 adaptive procedures, which were developed for a speech analysis, modification and synthesis framework TANDEM-STRAIGHT [Kawahara et al. (2008)] and its extensions. By restricting spectral region in estimating ratios for vocal tract length normalization (VTLN), cepstrally weighted distance measure yielded estimates with 2% standard error, by assuming relative vocal tract lengths estimated using regression analysis as the ground truth. A set of regression analyses of the estimated relative vocal tract lengths, average F0s, ages, gender, and physical data (speakers' height, weight) were conducted. The results suggest that the proposed analysis procedures applied to the Japanese five vowels may provide sufficient information for estimating speakers' physical data. Possible applications of the proposed estimation procedures will also be discussed.
A comparative cross-linguistic study of vocal tract shaping in sibilant fricatives in English, Serbian and Mandarin using real-time magnetic resonance imaging
Authors: Lu Li Hsuan , Lammert Adam , Ramanarayanan Vikram , Narayanan Shrikanth
Published: May 2013

An articulatory study of sibilant fricatives is described, with the goal of describing variability in lingual articulation across languages. Real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) data were collected from three speakers each of English and Mandarin and two speakers of Serbian and reconstructed at a rate of 22.4 frames per second. Parallel acoustic data were also collected and subsequently denoised. Subjects spoke the segments /s/ and /S/ in symmetrical vowel contexts (e.g., “pa sap” for English and “asa” for Mandarin). Articulation was analyzed using a semi-polar grid overlaid on the image plane and midsagittal distance functions were obtained by measuring cross distances at ~0.5 cm intervals from the glottis to the lips. Analysis shows that place of articulation for /s/ is more anterior compared to /S/ across languages. Apical articulation is observed for /s/ across languages, while /S/ is produced laminally in English and apically in Serbian and Mandarin. Patterns of tongue shaping variability differ, as well, across languages. For instance, higher standard deviation is observed anterior to the place of articulation for /S/ in Mandarin, compared to Serbian and English. [Work supported by NIH.]
The role of duration in regional U.S. vowel shifts
Authors: Fridland Valerie , Kendall Tyler , Farrington Charlie
Published: May 2013

Contemporary American dialect research has produced a rich body of literature on phonetic differences in vowel production. Many studies have focused on contrasting vowel shifts occurring in the speech of Northerners and Southerners. While such research clearly shows formant differences across dialects, the investigation of regionally variable phonetic cues beyond F1 and F2 has been under-addressed. The limited work that exists on sociolinguistic aspects of duration suggests that speakers do show durational differences across regions [Clopper et al. (2005), Jacewicz et al. (2007), Labov and Baranowski (2006), Tauberer and Evanini (2009)]. However, beyond these studies, there has been little research on the regional variability of vowel duration and on how phonemically non-distinctive durational differences found across regions may be related to the degree and type of spectral shift present in individuals' systems. In this paper we consider the extent to which duration corresponds to spectral differences in the major U.S. vowel shifts. In addition to looking at overall regional patterns, we examine whether durational differences co-vary with degree of individuals' participation in spectral shift. We discuss how duration, particularly of lax vowels, is related to the advancement of vowel shift features and whether such a relationship supports a physiological or grammatical explanation for duration.
C-V coarticulation in consonants with multiple lingual constrictions
Authors: Miller Amanda L.
Published: May 2013

C-V coarticulation in monosyllabic words containing initial click consonants and /i:/ vowels is investigated in Mangetti Dune !Xung with 114 fps lingual ultrasound and acoustic data collected using the CHAUSA method [Miller and Finch (2011)]. The 114 fps rate yields an image of the tongue every 9 ms (+/−4.5 ms). Vowels following clicks have three lingual gestures involving the tongue tip/blade (TT), tongue body (TB), and tongue root (TR). TT and TB constrictions carried over from the clicks merge into a single vowel constriction at consonant specific rates. The second formant (F2) distinguishes each word type through the vowel midpoint. In regression analyses, TBCL and TRCL best predict F2 for alveolar click initial words, while TTCL best predicts F2 for dental/palatal click initial words. The more open constriction is acoustically inert. In the palatal click initial word, both constrictions are equally close for some speakers, and the gestures undergo blending [Browman and Goldstein (1990)]. I argue that these patterns are prosodically controlled. Dental and palatal clicks have TB and TR gestures associated with the syllable onset. In alveolar clicks, the right edge of TB and TR gestures are aligned to the right edge of the first mora.
Examining the extent of anticipatory coronal coarticulation: A long-term average spectrum analysis
Authors: Kochetov Alexei , Neufeld Chris
Published: May 2013

Phonetic studies of English liquids /r/ and /l/ have shown these consonants can exert strong coarticulatory effects on both adjacent and non-adjacent vowels. The studies of long-range coarticulation, however, have so far been limited to British English and have not explicitly compared liquids to other coronal consonants. The current study investigated local and long-range effects of coronals /l/, /r/, and /d/ in Canadian English. 14 speakers were recorded reading the sentences “We thought it might be(a) ram/lamb/dam/ham” repeatedly. Long-term average spectra of five vowels preceding the target consonants were calculated and compared to baseline values. The results revealed significant differences between the coronal consonants and the control (/h/) in up to five preceding syllables. Significant differences among the three coronals, however, were limited to the immediately preceding vowel. The other vowels showed some differences between /r/ and /d/, but not between /l/ and the other coronals. The results show that long-range coarticulation can spread for up to five syllables and involve both liquid and non-liquid coronals. The spectral differences between the two liquids in Canadian English, however, may not be as robust as have been reported for British English.
Large-scale virtual acoustics simulation at audio rates using three dimensional finite difference time domain and multiple graphics processing units
Authors: Webb Craig , Gray Alan
Published: May 2013

The computation of large-scale virtual acoustics using the 3D finite difference time domain (FDTD) is prohibitively computationally expensive, especially at high audio sample rates, when using traditional CPUs. In recent years the computer gaming industry has driven the development of extremely powerful graphics processing units (GPUs). Through specialized development and tuning we can exploit the highly parallel GPU architecture to make such FDTD computations feasible.This paper describes the simultaneous use of multiple NVIDIA GPUs to compute schemes containing over a billion grid points. We examine the use of asynchronous halo transfers between cards, to hide the latency involved in transferring data, and overall computation time is considered with respect to variation in the size of the partition layers. As hardware memory poses limitations on the size of the room to be rendered, we also investigate the use of single precision arithmetic.This allows twice the domain space, compared with double precision, but results in phase shifting of the output with possible audible artifact. Using these techniques, large-scale spaces of several thousand cubic meters can be computed at 44.1 kHz in a usable time frame, making their use in room acoustics rendering and auralization applications possible in the near future.