bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Acoustic-Reflex Growth and Loudness
Authors: Block Michael G. , Wiley Terry L.
Published: July 2014

Acoustic-reflex growth functions and loudness-balance judgments were obtained for three normal-hearing subjects with normal middle-ear function. The hypothesis that acoustic reflex-activating signals producing proportionately equal acoustic-impedance changes are judged equal in loudness was evaluated. The mean acoustic impedance and associated standard deviations were computed for the baseline (static) and activator (reflex) portions of each reflex event. An acoustic-impedance change exceeding two standard deviations of baseline was defined as the criterion acoustic-reflex response. Acoustic impedance was measured as a function of activator SPL for broadband noise and a 1000-Hz tone from criterion magnitude to the maximum acoustic impedance (or 120-dB SPL). This was defined as the dynamic range of reflex growth. Loudness-balance measurements were made for the 1000-Hz tone and broadband noise at SPL’s representing 30, 50, and 70% of the individual dynamic range. The data supported the hypothesis.
Imitative Modeling as a Language Intervention Strategy: The Effects of Two Mediating Variables
Authors: Courtright John A. , Courtright Illene C.
Published: July 2014

Previous research has indicated that language intervention strategies which stress the learning of abstract grammatical rules are more successful than those which emphasize specific stimulus-response associations. Accordingly, this study experimentally compared two such strategies (imitative modeling versus mimicry) to determine their relative effectiveness in teaching language-disordered children rules which they previously lacked. Moreover, two additional variables, reinforcement and whether the modeled examples originated with the clinician or with a separate, third-person model, were examined to determine their influence on the modeling process. The results suggest that modeling strategies were superior to mimicry, thereby replicating the earlier results of Courtright and Courtright (1976). In addition, it was found that neither reinforcement nor third-person models significantly increased the teaching effectiveness of modeling techniques. These results are discussed in terms of their pragmatic implications for practicing speech clinicians.
An Analysis of Individual Differences in Words Stuttered
Authors: Griggs S. , Still A. W.
Published: July 2014

Six stutterers (two adults and four children between 12 and 14 years old) read 33 or more passages of prose of approximately 200 words, in sessions of 16 or 17 passages. Words were classified by initial phoneme, grammatical class, length, and position in sentence, and proportions of stutters were examined as a function of these variables. The extensive data allowed a detailed analysis of individual differences, with the following results. Five subjects showed the usual higher rate of stuttering on consonants, though there were differences in which consonants were stuttered most, and one subject showed more stuttering on vowels. A markedly higher rate was found on initial words of sentences in two subjects, and these two subjects were also exceptional in stuttering more on content than function words, and in showing a type of stutter characterized by blocks rather than repetitions. Possible explanations for this pattern are discussed. Contrary to Taylor (1966) there were significant correlations between stuttering and grammatical class even when initial phoneme and word in sentence were held constant. There were no significant changes within sessions. Two subjects showed a significant decrease between sessions, one showed an increase; these changes were due to familiarity with the experimental situation, rather than with passages per se.
The Influence of Deviant Maternal Input on the Development of Language During the Preschool Years
Authors: Schiff Naomi B.
Published: July 2014

Language development of five two-year-old hearing children of deaf parents was studied longitudinally. These results were compared with the normal language developmental literature, and analyzed in relation to the form of the mothers' oral input. Three of the deaf mothers were less than 15% intelligible and their MLU was less than 2.0. The children spent less than 20 hours weekly with normal speakers. Frequency and proportion measurements were used to compare these children’s utterances with those of children from normal-hearing households studied by Lois Bloom and Roger Brown. The observed children’s utterances contained similar categories of semantic-syntactic relations and as many syntactic utterance types as children from hearing households. Furthermore, the children were appropriately acquiring grammatical morphemes in relation to their MLU. The overwhelming majority of the children’s utterances adhered to a subject-verb-object order of constituents, and discourse interaction (the ability to add information to another’s utterance) was developing. The results indicate that children, when cognitively ready, need little exposure to the normal model language to learn to speak during the early stages of development.
The First Three Words
Authors: Wingate Marcel E.
Published: July 2014

The regularly reported influence on stuttering of early sentence position, particularly the first three words, evidently is confounded with the influence of grammatical class, another variable consistently found to correlate with stuttering frequency. Representative samples of English prose are found to contain, in early sentence positions, words of grammatical classes known to be associated with high stuttering frequency.

Use of a specially constructed passage, which markedly altered the grammatical class composition of the first three words of sentences, resulted in significant changes in the typical patterns of stuttering frequency associated with word position and grammatical class. The findings lead to an analysis which identifies linguistics stress as the essential feature responsible for the effect on stuttering of both grammatical class and sentence position.
Prediction of Hearing Levels from Acoustic Reflex Thresholds in Persons with High-Frequency Hearing Losses
Authors: Silman Shlomo , Gelfand Stanley A.
Published: July 2014

This study examined the precision of the bivariate method in subjects with high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. The current bivariate data effectively separated normal hearing subjects from those with pure tone averages of ≥32 dB HL, in a manner consistent with the results of Popelka and Trumpf (1976) and Margolis and Fox (1977b). However, for persons with high-frequency losses the prediction of hearing levels from acoustic reflex thresholds (ARTs) appears to be complicated. Moderate hearing losses involving 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz (“speech frequencies”) as well as higher frequencies were identified on the basis of elevated average ARTs for 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz. Normal ears (pure tone averages of ≤30 dB HL) were isolated from others on the basis of position on the bivariate graph. Those with (1) normal hearing in the “speech frequencies” and a high-frequency loss and (2) a mild loss in the “speech frequencies” and a high-frequency loss, could be separated from those with normal hearing by location on the bivariate graph, and from those with moderate (or worse) losses on the basis of average ART for tones. Consideration of these findings is useful in the evaluation of patients at risk for high-frequency loss, such as patients with noise exposure, and is particularly useful in cases of suspected functional impairment within this population. A modification of the bivariate method is suggested which extends its application to patient populations with a large incidence of high frequency sensorineural hearing loss.
The Effects of Early Auditory Deprivation on Temporal Perceptions: A Comparison of Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Children on Temporal Pattern Matching Tasks
Authors: Anooshian Linda J. , Bryan John M.
Published: July 2014

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that hearing children, but not children deprived of early auditory experiences, would use an auditory frame of reference, or auditory encoding, for temporal perceptions. Two age groups (8 and 11 years of age) of hearing and hearing-impaired children were tested in two sessions; tasks required each child to decide whether two temporal patterns (sequences of lights, sounds or both) were the same or different. Specific trial-types were designed to reveal different patterns of performances (across trial-types) for children who differed in terms of whether an auditory frame of reference was used. The results suggested that all children used similar temporal frames of reference, but that hearing-impaired children demonstrated developmental lags.
Effects of Hemodialysis on Pure-Tone Thresholds and Blood Chemistry Measures
Authors: Visencio Louis H. , Gerber Sanford E.
Published: July 2014

Eight adults suffering from end-stage renal disease and undergoing hemodialysis were subjected to pure tone audiometry before and after each of five consecutive hemodialysis treatments. In addition, pre-treatment and post-treatment blood chemistries were analyzed. Computer statistics for these audiometric and physiologic variables indicated that these subjects, as a group, did not exhibit significant differences in threshold before and after hemodialysis, although individual differences did appear. No trend regarding the direction of change was evident. However, threshold shifts did occur which might reflect transient imbalance in the labyrinthine system produced by hemodialysis.
A Further Evaluation of the Speech of Stutterers During Chorus- and Nonchorus-Reading Conditions
Authors: Ingham Roger J. , Packman Ann
Published: July 2014

The claim that stutterers change their customary way of speaking during chorus-reading conditions was assessed in a single subject experimental design on the speech of three stutterers. A number of pairs of speech samples of identical prose were obtained from chorus- and nonchorus-reading conditions for each stutterer. Observers judged whether the pairs were composed of samples drawn from same (chorus/chorus or nonchorus/nonchorus) or different (chorus/nonchorus) oral reading conditions. The findings aligned with those obtained in an earlier group study. They indicated that there may be changes in the speech pattern of some stutterers during chorus-reading conditions, but this change may not occur in the speech pattern of all stutterers who respond to chorus reading conditions.
Verbal Training to Improve Explanations of Conservation with Aphasic Adults
Authors: Cooper Laurel Dee , Rigrodsky Seymour
Published: July 2014

Recent research has indicated a need to study the relationship between the language of the adult aphasic and his attempts at cognitive processing. Nine aphasic adults who demonstrated a minimal ability to explain conservation (as defined by Piaget), a cognitive task which they understood, were given verbal model training to improve their explanations of weight and liquid conservation. Each subject was given a pretest, an experimental condition during which explanations for weight conservation only were trained, a control condition during which subjects named pictured common objects, and a posttest. Order of presentation of the experimental and control conditions was varied. As a result of training, a greater number of explanations (quantitative improvement) and a greater number of explanatory concepts (qualitative improvement) were expressed for both the trained and nontrained conservation tasks. It is suggested that the improvement in conservation explanations is the result of “response facilitation effects” as described by Bandura. Furthermore, the improvement in conservation explanations is supportive of Schuell’s concept of impaired linguistic retrieval mechanisms in aphasia.
Relationship Between Loudness Discomfort Level and Acoustic Reflex Threshold for Normal and Sensorineural Hearing-Impaired Individuals
Authors: McLeod H. Lee , Greenberg Herbert J.
Published: July 2014

The relationship between loudness discomfort level (LDL) and acoustic reflex threshold (ART) was determined by comparing the ART to the LDL obtained by the psychophysical method of constant stimuli. Randomly presented stimuli of 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz, and a multi-talker speech noise were presented to normal and sensorineural hearing-impaired listeners. The listener’s task was to judge whether the stimulus was at a level that was: (1) too loud or uncomfortably loud; or (2) not too loud or not uncomfortably loud. Prior to the judgment of the subject, the acoustic reflex threshold was determined. Both LDL and ART were found to be significantly higher for the hearing-impaired group. For the pure tone stimuli, LDL for the hearing-impaired group was at or below the ART. Significant differences were shown to exist between LDL and ART for each group. A multiple regression analysis indicated significant correlations between LDL and ART. Ranges of prediction error were selected to investigate the ability of ART to predict LDL. Both pure tone and speech ART successfully predicted LDL within ± 10 dB for a high percentage of the subjects.
Consonant Similarity Judgments by Normal and Hearing-Impaired Listeners
Authors: Walden Brian E. , Montgomery Allen A. , Prosek Robert A. , Schwartz Daniel M.
Published: July 2014

This investigation attempted to identify listener strategies or perceptual modes that might be adopted by hearing-impaired listeners when making similarity judgments among pairs of speech sounds. Further, an attempt was made to describe the relationship between similarity judgments and auditory confusions for such listeners. Subjects provided similarity ratings and recognition responses to consonant pairs. The resulting similarity judgments were organized into a variety of similarity matrices and analyzed via multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering, as well as by traditional descriptive and interpretative statistics. The analyses of the similarity ratings between consonants showed that hearing-impaired listeners apply phonemic labels to the stimuli and base their ratings on these labels rather than on the unlabeled acoustic characteristics of the speech sounds. Analysis of the recognition data indicated that those consonants which are most confused are not necessarily the most conceptually similar to the listener.
Conditioned Stimulus Effects on Stuttering and GSRs
Authors: Reed Charles G. , Lingwall James B.
Published: July 2014

The simultaneous effects of a conditioned stimulus on the frequency of autonomic arousal responses (GSRs) and stuttering for ten subjects were investigated. GSR and stuttering responses were recorded during baserate, treatment, and extinction conditions for three sessions. A face slide was presented continuously for treatment conditions of all sessions. Recorded laughter was presented contingent upon each moment of stuttering during the treatment condition of session two. Stuttering frequency was suppressed during session three demonstrating that the face slide was functioning as a discriminative stimulus. During the treatment portion of session three, GSRs increased for four subjects and decreased for six subjects. Autonomic arousal as a response to the conditioned stimulus did not demonstrate a consistent pattern across subjects.
Simultaneous Assessment of Pharyngeal Wall and Velar Displacement for Selected Speech Sounds
Authors: Iglesias Aquiles , Kuehn David P. , Morris Hughlett L.
Published: July 2014

Velar and pharyngeal wall displacements were studied simultaneously by using conventional lateral-view radiography and frontal-view tomography. Twenty-five normal adult male and female subjects were utilized. Major results pertaining to lateral pharyngeal wall displacements during speech include the following. 1) At more superior levels of the pharynx, greater mesial displacements occurred for nonnasal compared to nasal speech sounds and no significant differences were noted among the nonnasal speech sounds studied. 2) At an inferior level of the pharynx, mesial displacements were greater for low vowels compared to the other speech sounds studied but some lateral (outward) movements were observed during high vowel production for some subjects. 3) Greatest mesial displacements for all subjects and speech sounds studied occurred at the level of and just below the plane of the hard palate. Low correlations between velar and lateral pharyngeal wall displacements were obtained for most subjects. The results do not support the hypothesis that the levator veli palatini muscle is solely involved in both velar and lateral pharyngeal wall movements.
Defense Preference and Stutterers' Speech Disfluencies
Authors: Prins David , Beaudet Rudolph
Published: July 2014

Psychological defense mechanism preference was assessed in 16 adult stutterers. From this group, two subgroups of six subjects each were identified by their opposite extremes in defensive style: (1) expressive defenders; (2) avoidance defenders. Subsequently, these subgroups were found to be significantly different in measures of stuttering frequency and disfluency type. The expressive defenders showed higher frequency stuttering than the avoidance defenders (21.5% vs. 4.66%) while the avoidance subgroup showed preference for the use of accessory-type disfluencies; that is, interjections, phrase repetitions, and whole word repetitions. The possibility that the speech disfluencies of stutterers may vary as a function of defense preference is discussed in relation to: (1) definitions of stuttering phenomena and the disorder; (2) the developmental nature of stuttering as a problem and the role of learning; (3) different syndromes of stuttering; and (4) the contributions of etiologic versus pathogenic factors to the origins of the disorder.
Tactual Speech Perception by Minimally Trained Deaf Subjects
Authors: Oller D. Kimbrough , Payne Shelley Lynn , Gavin William J.
Published: July 2014

Research on tactual perception of speech has shown that many phonetic contrasts can be transmitted to the deaf through artificial hearing devices that stimulate the sense of touch. Past research has emphasized long-term training with tactual reception or the achievement of maximal perceptual performance. The present study demonstrates that, with a brief training period, deaf adolescents can attain a high level of perceptual performance with a tactual speech system in discrimination of certain hard-to-lipread word pairs pronounced by both a male and a female speaker. Thus some speech sounds previously indistinguishable by the deaf people can be immediately available for speech comprehension through the tactual vocoder; and other speech sounds will be recognized with further training. The reason that some contrasts are learned quickly and others require extensive training may be found in a pattern perception postulate proposed by Gavin (1979): word patterns that result in stimulation across a greater area of skin tend to be more discriminable than word patterns which stimulate only small areas of the skin.
The Effects of Presentation of Noise and Dental Appliances on Speech
Authors: Garber Sharon R. , Speidel T. Michael , Siegel Gerald M. , Miller Edward , Glass Lillian
Published: July 2014

The effects of dental appliances on speech were studied when subjects wore the appliances, both in quiet and in the presence of an intense noise. A group of 24 normal-speaking subjects read lists of syllables, words, and sentences and spoke spontaneously in each of six appliance and noise conditions. Several acoustic and perceptual measurements were made in each condition. In general, speech deteriorated when appliances were placed and when noise was presented. The type and amount of speech disruption varied as a function of speech task and aspect of speech. There was no evidence that the effects of appliances on speech differed in quiet and noise conditions. Inter-subject variability was large.
Maturational Effects on the Middle Components of the Averaged Electroencephalic Response
Authors: Mendelson Terrie , Salamy Alan
Published: July 2014

Middle component AERs to brief click stimuli were recorded from 60 subjects in four age groups to assess age effects on waveform, latency, and amplitude. Replicable responses similar in waveform to those recorded in adults were observed in 3 – 4-year-old children, full-term newborns, and premature infants tested as early as the 31st posteonceptional week. Latencies and amplitudes were compared across ages and significant age effects were evident for amplitude but not latency. Amplitudes of components Po, Pa and Pb were found to increase until 3 – 4 years of age and decline in adulthood. Response amplitudes for premature infants differed significantly from those of adults, but newborns' responses did not differ from either group. Only the responses of 3 – 4-year-old children were clearly differentiated from those of all other groups in this respect. Significant age effects on latency were found only for Po, which is postulated to be synonymous with Wave V of the brainstem response. The absence of a trend for decreasing latency as a function of age in the middle components is surprising in that both early (brainstem) and late (cortical) responses demonstrate this effect. This finding raises questions about the generator sources for middle components.
Psychophysical Scaling of Distorted Speech
Authors: Barry S. Joseph , Kidd Gerald
Published: July 2014

Magnitude estimation and magnitude production procedures were used by ten normal-hearing subjects to scale the perceived distortion corresponding to the systematically varied physical distortion of a speech signal. The combined function based on the results of the two procedures exhibited a slope of 0.83, indicating that perceived distortion grows more slowly than physical distortion.
Some Aspects of Fundamental Frequency Control by Esophageal Speakers
Authors: Angermeier Cynthia B. , Weinberg Bernd
Published: July 2014

The broad objective of the present project was to assess the degree to which esophageal speakers are able to control voice fundamental frequency. Three male esophageal speakers and four age-matched normal speakers were used in a vocal pitch matching task to elicit f
0
levels. Average differences in fundamental frequency between the individual targets and productions were comparable for esophageal and normal talkers, The frequency variation associated with pitch matching by esophageal speakers was 1.5 to 8 times greater than that by normal talkers, The results were interpreted to support (1) the hypothesis that esophageal speakers were less proficient in controlling the steady-state attributes of their voicing source and vocal output; and (2) the view that esophageal speakers exhibit reduced intentional control over voice fundamental frequency.
Laryngeal and Manual Reaction Times of Stuttering and Nonstuttering Adults
Authors: Reich Alan , Till James , Goldsmith Howard
Published: July 2014

This investigation compared the reaction times of thirteen stuttering and thirteen nonstuttering adults for forefinger button pressing, nonspeeeh vocal initiation, and speech-mode vocal initiation. The stutterers and nonstutterers were matched individually for age, sex, and handedness. The reaction-time stimulus in all response conditions was the offset of a 1000-Hz pure tone. Two of the experimental conditions required button pressing with the right and left. forefingers. The remaining four responses required vocal-fold vibration. The nonspeech vocal activity consisted of inspiratory phonation and expiratory throat clearing. The speech-mode vocal activity required production of the isolated vowel//and the word/p/. The results demonstrated that stuttering and nonstuttering adults differed significantly only on tasks requiring speech phonation. These results are compared to previous reaction-time investigations and related to factors which may influence sensory-motor pathways prior to and during speech.
The Comprehension of Metaphorical Uses of English by Deaf Children
Authors: Iran-Nejad Asghar , Ortony Andrew , Rittenhouse Robert K.
Published: July 2014

Researchers and educators of the deaf often suggest that deaf children have a particular problem in understanding metaphorical uses of natural language. This paper reports two experiments whose results are incompatible with this view. Profoundly deaf children were presented with several short stories and were instructed to select (from a set of 4 alternatives) the sentence they thought best completed the story. In Experiment 1 deaf children ranging in age from 9 to 17 years clearly demonstrated their ability to understand novel metaphorical uses of English. In Experiment 2, 14-year-old deaf children who were given feedback on four initial practice items selected the correct metaphorical alternative significantly more often than those who saw no practice items. The conclusion is that deaf children probably do not suffer from some special deficiency uniquely associated with metaphor.
Recruitment Patterns of Motor Units in Speech Production
Authors: Smith Anne , Zimmermann Gerald N. , Abbas Paul J.
Published: July 2014

Single motor units were recorded with intramuscular electrodes in sites selected to isolate units of the mentalis muscles of two human subjects. Order of recruitment of three groups of motor units was analyzed during repetition of syllables. Within each group motor units showed variable patterns of recruitment over repeated utterances. These recruitment patterns of labial motor units and the patterns observed by Sussman et al. in a jaw opening muscle are used to illustrate issues critical to interpretation of recruitment patterns of motor units active during speech. From extant data, inferences about the size of the motor units active cannot be made; however, the variability of recruitment patterns has significance for hypotheses about the underlying mechanisms of recruitment. Discussion includes the question of the size of motor units as inferred from action potential amplitude, differences in methodology between experiments in speech and those often used to interpret them, and the extent to which it is possible to isolate motor units from a single muscle in electromyography of facial muscles.
Analytic Study of the Tadoma Method
Authors: Reed Charlotte M. , Durlach Nathaniel I. , Braida Louis D. , Schultz Martin C.
Published: July 2014

Performance on identifying consonant and vowel stimuli through the Tadoma method of speechreading was studied for a deaf-blind, experienced user of Tadoma. For a set of 24 consonants in CV syllables, performance averaged 55%. For a set of 15 vowels and diphthongs in CVC syllables, performance averaged 56%. Confusion matrices derived from the identification tests were analysis for performance on a set of articulatory/phonological features. The results of the feature analysis for consonants indicated that the features voicing, lip rounding, frication, and place were well-perceived; for vowels, the features lip rounding, tenseness, and vertical lip separation were well-perceived.
Jitter and Shimmer Differences among Sustained Vowel Phonations
Authors: Horii Yoshiyuki
Published: July 2014

This study investigated jitter and shimmer differences among eight English vowels recorded through a miniature accelerometer placed on the throat. Statistical tests indicated no significant differences in either jitter or shimmer among the eight vowels. An average jitter value of .75% and a shimmer value of .17 dB were obtained across the eight vowels and 20 subjects.
Fundamental Frequency Characteristics of Young Black Adults
Authors: Hudson Amelia I. , Holbrook Anthony
Published: July 2014

The purpose of this study was to determine the speaking fundamental vocal frequency of young Black adults during prompted spontaneous speech and reading and to compare the results with published data for White subjects of comparable age. Subjects were 100 men and 100 women volunteers, ranging in age from 18 to 29 years. Central tendency and dispersion values were calculated from data obtained with a fundamental frequency analyzer (FLORIDA I). The mean modal fundamental vocal frequency for spontaneous speaking was 108.05 Hz for men and 188.85 Hz for women. The mean range was 80.70–166.65 Hz (6.27 tones) for men and 132.55–270.80 Hz (6.18 tones) for women. The men showed smaller excursions from the mean mode to the lower limit of the mean range (27.35 Hz, 2.52 tones) than from the mean mode to the upper limit of the mean range (58.60 Hz, 3.75 tones). The women had a range of 81.95 Hz above and 56.30 Hz below the mean mode but approximately equal tonal intervals above and below (3.12 and 3.06, respectively). A comparison of prompted spontaneous speech to reading for the same subjects indicated that the mean modal fundamental vocal frequency was significantly lower and the mean range was significantly greater for speaking than tier reading. Both men and women had a mean speaking range of one octave. In comparison to published values for young White adult subjects, the Black subjects ill this study had a lower mean fundamental vocal frequency.
Gaze and Proximity as Turn Regulators within Three-Party and Two-Party Child Conversations
Authors: Craig Holly K. , Gallagher Tanya M.
Published: July 2014

Gaze and proximity as nonverbal turn-taking behaviors were investigated within the three-party and two-party conversations of normal children. Subjects were six 4-year-old girls matched for familiarity. Alternations of 20-rain three-party and 15-rain two-party interactions were videotaped and transcribed. The data indicate that within nonsimultaneous language events, gaze and proximity, relate to changes in speaker turn and conversational role, with gaze functioning as a current-speaker-selects-next-speaker turn option and proximity, functioning as both a current-speaker-selects-next-speaker and a listener self-selection turn option. The data are discussed in terms of the sociocentric character of children's conversations.
The Processing of Printed Language by Aphasic Adults
Authors: Locke John L. , Deck John W.
Published: July 2014

Eight aphasic and eight brain-damaged nonaphasie patients silently "read" a short passage while performing an internal search for specified consonant letters of varying phonological and syntactic salience. The nonaphasie patients showed the phonological and syntactic effects customarily achieved by normal readers. For example, they were more likely to find a letter if it were pronounced than if it were silent, and they were more likely to find a letter if it were in a content word than in a function word. The aphasics had reliable phonological effects hut no observable syntactic effects. Those aphasics with relatively large phonological effects performed better on a separate task requiring the oral reading of isolated words. For reading theory, the primary message from this study is that phonological recoding may occur between word recognition and the completion of semantic analysis, and that recoding may not by itself be sufficient to reading for meaning. For aphasia theory, the main implication of this study is that aphasics read by applying the appropriate phonological strategies, but that such strategies are limited in the face of ineffective syntactic and semantic processing, as occurs in aphasia.
Some Voice Fundamental Frequency Characteristics of Oral Reading and Spontaneous Speech by Hard-of-Hearing Young Women
Authors: Horii Yoshiyuki
Published: July 2014

Fundamental frequency (f
o
,) characteristics of 12 hard-of-hearing young women were compared with those of 12 hard-hearing control subjects during oral reading and spontaneous speech. The normal-hearing individuals almost always used greater mean f
o
and variability for oral reading than for spontaneous speech, but the hard-of-hearing subjects did not. On the average, greater f
o
, means and smaller f
o
standard deviations were observed for the hard-hearing group than for the control group, regardless of the speaking conditions. In addition,f
o
distributions of the hard-of hearing subjects were characterized by negative skewness whereas those of the normal-hearing subjects were positively skewed.
Performance of Articulation-Disordered Children on Language and Perception Measures
Authors: Smit Ann B. , Bernthal John E.
Published: July 2014

Five-year-old articulation-disordered children were classified as syllable reducers or as substituters. They were compared to each other and to normal controls on measures of expressive and receptive language and on perception of word-initial and word-final voicing contrasts. There were significant differences among the groups on several imitative expressive language measures, with the syllable reducers making both deletion and substitution errors and the substituters making substitution errors for functors. There were no significant differences on a receptive language measure, nor in perception of final voicing contrasts, but the articulation-disordered groups performed more poorly than the controls in perception of initial voicing contrasts. Children's familiarity with the stimulus words of the perception task was related to their performance on language measures. Word familiarity appeared to interact with the intrinsic difficulty of stimulus pairs in the case of word-final voicing contrasts.
Airflow Characteristics of Stop-Plosive Consonant Productions of Normal-Speaking Children
Authors: Trullinger Richard W. , Emanuel Floyd W.
Published: July 2014

This study of children's speech was designed to investigate peak oral-nasal airflow during the production of stop-plosive consonants in isolated syllable contexts. The subjects were 30 normal-speaking children: five girls and five boys at each of three age levels (8, 9, and 10 years). Each subject produced each of six stop-plosive consonants (/p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and/g/) in each of three syllable contexts (CV, VCV, and VC) with each of two vowels (/i/ and/a/). A pneumotachometer and an oscillographic recorder were used to obtain permanent airflow records of the test syllables. It was found that the peak flows varied according to the age of subjects, consonant voicing, place of consonant production, consonant position within tire test syllable, and the vowel in combination with the test consonant. Results were compared to related findings previously obtained for children and adults.
The Effects of Varying Lower-Lip Displacement on Upper-Lip Movements
Authors: Folkins John W. , Linville Raymond N.
Published: July 2014

Upper-lip and lower-lip movements were transduced in the inferior-superior dimension in five normal-speaking subjects during four tasks. In task 1 visual feedback was used to manipulate the maximum displacement of the lower lip during speech. The upper lip elevated significantly less for the opening gesture when the amount of opening from the lower lip was increased. The upper lip moved to significantly lower positions for bilabial closure when the distance to be moved by the lower lip was increased. In task 2 the same procedures were followed with a bite block between the teeth. The bite block did not significantly change the interactions between lips for the opening gesture. The interactions were larger for bilabial closure with the bite block. In task 3 different vowels instead of visual feedback were used to manipulate lower-lip displacement. The relations between lips were similar to those found in task 1. In task 4 it was shown that these relations between lips are not found in nonspeech lower-lip movements. The interactions between lips are discussed in relation to models of speech motor control, including spatial targets, mass-spring systems, and planned trajectories.
Hemisphericity in Aphasic Language Recovery
Authors: Klingman Kathy C. , Sussman Harvey M.
Published: July 2014

A hemispheric time-sharing paradigm used to assess language lateralization was administered to eight Broca's aphasics and a matched normal control group. All normal speakers revealed the expected right-hand-only disruption (indicative of left hemispheric language lateralization) in finger-tapping rate during concurrent expressive and receptive language tasks. The aphasics, as a group, revealed symmetrical manual interference indicative of bilateral language representation. Three aphasics showed consistent right-hemisphere lateralization. Whereas all normal speakers had equivalent interference across expressive and receptive language tasks, the Broca's aphasies were more adversely affected during concurrent finger tapping and expressive performance. Aphasic lateralization profiles were found to be unrelated either to language proficiency measures (BDAE) or to the site/extent of cortical lesions derived from CAT scans.
Effects of Practice and Instructional Set on the Measurement of Lingual Vibrotactile Thresholds
Authors: Fucci Donald , Small Larry H. , Petrosino Linda
Published: July 2014

The effects on lingual vibrotactile thresholds of three different instructional sets and three different practice conditions were determined for 30 normal adult subjects. Results showed no measurable differences between thresholds obtained with the use of the three different instructional sets, but a high false alarm rate occurred for all conditions. When a subject was given practice at obtaining thresholds with a particular instructional set as a prerequisite to threshold data collection, false Mama responses disappeared. Lower (more sensitive) thresholds also were achieved when the practice condition used required the subject to provide three thresholds within 1µ of each other before commencing with actual testing.
A Noninvasive Acoustic Method Using Frequency Perturbations and Computer-Generated Vocal-Tract Shapes
Authors: Beckman Debra A. , Wold Donald C. , Montague James C.
Published: July 2014

This study investigated improved processing of acoustic data with two adult Down's syndrome subjects. Sustained vowel samples were processed through a fast-Fourier-transform spectrum analyzer, and digital waveform data were used to obtain period-by-period measurements of the fundamental frequencies. Unusual frequency perturbation (jitter), later identified as diplophonia, was found for one of the Drain's subjects. In addition, the first three formant frequencies of the vowels were determined and, utilizing an algorithm described by Ladefoged and his colleagues, computer-generated vocal-tract shapes were plotted. Differences in vocal-tract shapes, especially for the back vowels, were observed between the Down's female and the normal shape. Correlations between vocal-tract shapes of the Down's subjects and those for a normal man or woman were computed. A partial three-way factor analysis was carried out to determine those lead factors or coefficients for each subject that were due to individual differences. These procedures, offering synthesized techniques portraying the interparingeal/oral functioning of the speech structures, may eventually have direct noninvasive diagnostic and therapeutic benefit for voice/resonance-disordered clients.
Effects of Talker and of Listener Bias on Stimulus Dominance in Dichotic Listening
Authors: Speaks Charles , Chesterman Margaret , Belanger Steven
Published: July 2014

Stimulus dominance, wherein a higher score occurs for one member of a pair of syllables presented dichotically, was investigated in two experiments. The first examined effects due to talker. Six stop consonant-vowel syllables were spoken by two talkers. The pattern of stimulus dominance was not significantly different for the two talkers, and stimulus dominance was not related to articulatory feature-sharing categories. The second experiment investigated whether stimulus dominance reflects a true perceptual superiority of one syllable over another or whether attentional strategies or biases by listeners contribute to the outcome. Syllables were spoken by a single talker. For one group of listeners, tendendies to attend selectively to one ear or the other were uncontrolled. For the second group, maximum performance could be achieved only by attending exclusively to the monitored ear. The magnitude and frequency of stimulus dominance was significantly smaller with the single-ear monitoring task, but ear dominance was unaffected.
Effects of Segment and Pause Manipulations on the Identification of Treated Stutterers
Authors: Prosek Robert A. , Runyan Charles M.
Published: July 2014

This study examined the hypothesis that reading rate affects the identification of treated stutterers. Thirty-two pairs of recorded speech samples, in which one member of the pair was a treated stutterer and the other was a nonstutterer, were available from previous research. Listeners had been able to distinguish readily between the members of these pairs. For each pair of samples, the durations of the treated stutterer's segments and pauses were adjusted to match those of the nonstutterer as closely as possible by means of a computer-based waveform editor. A test tape was prepared that included the 32 original pairs of stimuli, the 32 edited pairs, and 64 pairs of foils. Listeners were required to indicate which member of each pair was the treated stutterer. Analysis of the responses indicated that the listeners' ability to distinguish between talkers was significantly reduced for the edited stimulus pairs. The results imply that the rate used by treated stutterers must be critically evaluated if the goal of therapv is the production of perceptually "normal" speech.
Perception of Distorted "R" Sounds in the Synthesized Speech of Chlldren and Adults
Authors: Sharf Donald J. , Ohde Ralph N.
Published: July 2014

Adult and Child manifolds were generated by synthesizing 5 X 5 matrices of/Cej/ type utterances in which F2 and F3 frequencies were systematically varied. Manifold stimuli were presented to 11 graduate-level speech-language pathology students in two conditions: (a) a rating condition in which stimuli were rated on a 4-point scale between good /r/and good /w/; and (b) a labeling condition in which stimuli were labeled as "R," "W," "distorted R." or "N" (for none of the previous choices). It was found that (a) stimuli with low F2 and high F3 frequencies were rated 1.0nmdas;1.4; those with high F2 and low F3 frequencies were rated 3.6–4.0, and those with intermediate values were rated 1.5–3.5; (b) stimuli rated 1.0–1.4 were labeled as "W" and stimuli rated 3.6–4.0 were labeled as "R"; (c) none of the Child manifold stimuli were labeled as distorted "R" and one of the Adult manifold stimuli approached a level of identification that approached the percentage of identification for "R" and "W": and (d) rating and labeling tasks were performed with a high degree of reliability.
Comparison of Speech-Language Pathologists' and Naive Subjects' Identification of Synthesized /r-w/ Continua
Authors: Sharf Donald J. , Benson Peter J.
Published: July 2014

Two 9-step continua varying in F2 and F3 frequencies between exemplary /r/ and /w/ were synthesized to represent child and adult talkers. Stimuli from the full and truncated versions of the continua were presented to naive subjects in Experiment 1 and to speech-language pathologists in Experiment 2. Shifts from full range continua category boundaries occurred in Experiment 1 for both truncated "R" and truncated "W" conditions and in a direction opposite to the truncated end of the continuum. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that the full-range category boundaries for speech-language pathologists differed from those for naive subjects but that the boundary shift for truncated "R" was as great as that for naive subjects and the boundary shift for truncated "W" was greater than that for naive subjects. These findings indicate that speech-language pathologists are more likely than naive individuals to judge ambiguous /r/ sounds as "W" and that the phonetic judgments of speech-language pathologists about /r/ sounds are no more stable than those of naive subjects.
Effects of Stimulus Repetition Rate and Frequency on the Auditory Brainstem Response in Normal, Cochlear-Impaired, and VIII Nerve/Brainstem-Impaired Subjects
Authors: Fowler Cynthia G. , Noffsinger Douglas
Published: July 2014

The effects of signal repetition rate and frequency on the auditory brainstem responses of normal listeners, of persons with cochlear lesions, and of persons with VIII nerve/brainstem lesions were evaluated. The normal group exhibited more waves I and II than did the cochlear and VIII/brainstem groups. The normal and cochlear groups exhibited more waves III and V than did the VIII nerve/brainstem group. The latency of wave I was not different among groups, whereas wave V was significantly later in the VIII nerve/brainstem group than in the other groups. Waves I, III, and V were later for 50/s than for 10/s. Waves I and III displayed shorter latencies for 4000 Hz than for 2000 Hz, whereas wave V displayed similar latencies for the two stimuli. In conclusion, cochlear pathology (⩽65 dB HL) does not prolong the latencies of waves I and V. A dual mechanism is discussed to explain the rate-dependent latency shift of wave V.
Factors Influencing the Masking Level Difference in Cochlear Hearing-Impaired and Normal-Hearing Listeners
Authors: Hall Joseph W. , Tyler Richard S. , Fernandes Mariano A.
Published: July 2014

The masking level difference (MLD) at 500 Hz was examined in wide-band (960 Hz) and narrow-band (50 Hz) noise for normal-hearing subjects and subjects with symmetrical mild-to-moderate cochlear hearing loss. Monaural tasks of intensity discrimination, temporal resolution, and frequency resolution were performed in order to examine relationships between monaural dysfunction and MLD performance. Interaural time discrimination for a 500-Hz pure tone also was examined. The performance of the hearing-impaired subjects was poorer than that of the normal-hearing subjects for MLD, interaural Δt, and most monaural tasks. However, no significant relationships were found between monaural and MLD performance when effects of threshold were taken into account. MLDs were more reduced in wide-band noise than in narrow-band noise for the hearing-impaired subjects (when Contrasted with normal-hearing subjects). MLD performance was correlated with interaural time discrimination, and it is suggested that one reason for poor MLD performance with hearing impairment may be poor temporal coding of stimulus-fine structure.
Vocal and Finger Reaction Times in Stutterers and Nonstutterers
Authors: Starkweather C. Woodruff , Franklin Sharon , Smigo Therese M.
Published: July 2014

The purposes of this study were (a) to assess whether the slower reaction times of stutterers are related to the etiology of the disorder or whether they are a by-product of it, and (h) to see if previously reported correlations between vocal and manual reaction times resulted from large numbers of trials. Fourteen adult stutterers and matched controls said ‘uh’ or pressed a button in response to the offset of tones varying randomly in duration. Ten trials were used. The stutterers were significantly slower in both speech and nonspeech tasks, but the correlations between voice and manual reaction times were not significant. This suggested that stutterers' slower reaction times may be obtained without using large numbers of trials and that the correlation between the two tasks may depend on the number of trials used. The stutterers showed a significantly larger difference between vocal and manual reaction times than the nonstutterers. This suggested that the slower reaction times of stutterers are not entirely a by-product of the disorder.