Camilo A. Martin

Effects of ethanol intoxication on speech suprasegmentals

The effects of ingesting ethanol have been shown to be somewhat variable in humans. To date, there appear to be but few universals. Yet, the question often arises: is it possible to determine if a person is intoxicated by observing them in some manner? A closely related question is: can speech be used for this purpose and, if so, can the degree of intoxication be determined? One of the many issues associated with these questions involves the relationships between a persons paralinguistic characteristics and the presence and level of inebriation. To this end, young, healthy speakers of both sexes were carefully selected and sorted into roughly equal groups of light, moderate, and heavy drinkers. They were asked to produce four types of utterances during a learning phase, when sober and at four strictly controlled levels of intoxication (three ascending and one descending). The primary motor speech measures employed were speaking fundamental frequency, speech intensity, speaking rate and nonfluencies. Several statistically significant changes were found for increasing intoxication; the primary ones included rises in F0, in task duration and for nonfluencies. Minor gender differences were found but they lacked statistical significance. So did the small differences among the drinking category subgroups and the subject groupings related to levels of perceived intoxication. Finally, although it may be concluded that certain changes in speech suprasegmentals will occur as a function of increasing intoxication, these patterns cannot be viewed as universal since a few subjects (about 20%) exhibited no (or negative) changes.

Unrecognized left ventricular dysfunction in an apparently healthy alcohol abuse population

To examine effects of chronic alcohol abuse on left ventricular function, 162 otherwise relatively healthy alcohol abusers, having been admitted to a rehabilitation program, underwent cardiac evaluation including chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, and radionuclide angiography after 2 weeks abstinence. Twenty-nine of the 162 alcoholic subjects (18%) with left ventricular dysfunction were identified. Twenty-two had regional wall motion abnormalities, suggesting a localized process, of whom 12 also had depressed ejection fractions. Seven others had a depressed ejection fraction alone with a more global myopathic process. Only 4 of these 29 patients had any history suggesting prior heart disease. Two of the 29 had Q-waves greater than or equal to 0.4 s and 8 had an abnormal cardiothoracic ratio on chest X-ray. Chronic alcohol abusers appear to be at relatively high risk for left ventricular dysfunction; most of which is unrecognized. Routine screening methods failed to identify 85% of our subjects who later were recognized by radionuclide angiography. Since historical and electrocardiographic abnormalities are often absent in this population, detection of left ventricular dysfunction by other methods such as radionuclide angiography must be used.

Perceiving the effects of ethanol intoxication on voice.

Many conditions operate to degrade the quality of the human voice. Alcohol intoxication is one of them. In this project, the objectives were to examine the ability of human listeners to accurately estimate both the presence and severity of intoxication from two types of speech samples. A review of available data suggests that, although listeners can often identify individuals who are intoxicated simply by hearing samples of their voice, they are less efficient at accurately determining the severity of this condition. A number of aural-perceptual studies were carried out to test these relationships. Populations of speakers, selected based on rigorous criteria, provided orally read and extemporaneous utterances when sober and at three highly controlled levels of intoxication. Listener groups of university students and professionals attempted to identify both the existence and specific level of intoxication present. It was found that these individuals were proficient in recognizing the presence of, and increases in, intoxication but were less accurate in gauging the specific levels. Several subordinate relationships were also investigated. In this regard, statistically significant differences were not found between male and female listeners or between professionals and lay listeners; however, they were found for different classes of speech. That is, it was shown that text difficulty correlated with severity of effect.

Production of Intoxication States by Actors—Acoustic and Temporal Characteristics

This paper is the second of a series; the first has been published (J Forensic Sci, 1998;43:1153-62). The goal in the initial pair of experiments was to determine if speakers (actors) could effectively mimic the speech of intoxicated individuals and also volitionally reduce the degradation to their speech that resulted from severe inebriation. To this end, two highly controlled experiments involving 12 actor-speakers were carried out. It was found that, even when sober, nearly all of them were judged drunker (when pretending) than when they actually were severely intoxicated. In the second experiment, they tried to sound sober when highly intoxicated; here most were judged less inebriated than they were. The goal of this second paper is to identify some of the speech characteristics that allowed the subjects to achieve the cited illusions. The focus here is on four paralinguistic factors: fundamental frequency (F0), speaking rate, vocal intensity, and nonfluency level. For the simulation of intoxication study, it was found that F0 was raised along with increased intoxication but raised even more when this state was feigned. A slowing of speaking rate was associated with increasing intoxication, but this shift also was greater when the speaker simulated intoxication. The most striking contrast was found for the nonfluencies; they were doubled for actual intoxication, but quadrupled when intoxication was simulated. On the other hand, the shifts exhibited by the subjects when they attempted to sound sober were not as clear cut. Indeed, no systematic relationships were found here for either F0 or vocal intensity. Both speaking rate and the number of nonfluencies shifted appropriately, but these changes were not statistically significant. In sum, discernable suprasegmental relationships occurred for both studies (but especially the first); further, it is predicted that useful cues also will be found embedded in the segmentals (the sounds of speech).

Production of intoxication states by actors: perception by lay listeners

The effects of ingesting ethanol have been shown to be somewhat variable in humans; there appear to be but few universals. Yet, questions about intoxication often are asked by law enforcement personnel (especially relative to DUI), clinicians and various individuals in social settings. A key question: Is it possible to determine if a person is intoxicated by observing them in some manner? A closely associated one: Can speech be used for that purpose? Two of the many issues related to the second of these questions involve the possibility that (1) speakers, especially actors, can effectively mimic the speech of intoxicated individuals, and (2) they may be able to volitionally reduce any speech degradation which results from intoxication. The approach used to test these two questions tasked auditors to determine if these simulations were possible. To this end, young, healthy actors chosen on the basis of a large number of selection criteria were asked to produce several types of controlled utterances (1) during a learning phase, (2) when sober, (3) at three simulated levels of intoxication (mildly, legally and severely drunk), (4) during actual, and parallel, levels of intoxication, and (5) at the highest intoxication level attained but when attempting to sound completely sober. Two aural-perceptual studies were conducted; both involved counterbalanced ABX procedures where each subject was paired with him/herself. Listeners were normally hearing university students drawn from undergraduate phonetics and linguistics courses. In the first study, they rated the actors as being more intoxicated--when they actually were sober but simulating drunkenness--88% more often than when they actually were intoxicated. In the second study, they were judged as sounding less inebriated when attempting to sound sober (than they actually were) 61% of the time. These relationships would appear to impact a number of situations; one of special importance would be the detection of intoxication in motorists.

Shifts in fundamental frequency and articulation resulting from intoxication

Two groups of subjects were administered controlled doses of alcohol while breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) measurements were made at regular intervals. They were recorded reading a 30‐s passage when they reached preset BrAC windows. Fundamental frequency measurements were calculated and compared for sober (0.00 BrAC) and intoxicated (0.12 BrAC) productions. The number of misarticulations occurring during the readings also were assessed. In the first study, subjects were grouped on the basis of whether they were rated as sounding intoxicated at 0.12 BrAC (ratings were performed by 50 auditors using a 5‐pt. scale). Subjects who sounded intoxicated were placed in one group, while those that did not were placed in a second. The first group showed a consistent, but statistically nonsignificant decrease in F0 as a result of intoxication; group 2’s F0 changes were not consistent. In addition, the first group showed a higher mean increase in misarticulations than did group 2. The second population was grouped...

Perceptual assessment of intoxication level

Data are reviewed and summarized from ten perceptual experiments wherein groups of listeners assessed the levels of intoxication for various types of talkers speaking at specific windows of sobriety and inebriation. The speakers included both sexes. Subjects were selected on the basis of a number of rigorous criteria; they produced several classes of speech when sober and at three highly controlled levels of intoxication. Listener groups included prescreened university students and professionals trained in appropriate areas. The task was to judge intoxication level from speech samples. It was found that speakers were judged as drunker than they actually were at mild levels of intoxication but that auditors sharply underestimated their involvement for severe intoxication. Data from three subprocedures led to the identification of a number of trends. However, no significant differences were found when the judgments by men and women were contrasted, nor were they significant between professionals and lay aud...

Interrelationships between ethanol intoxication and speech

The focus of this paper is on (1) establishing well‐controlled procedures which will permit reasonably precise study of the effects of intoxication on speech and (2) assessing correlations between physiological and behavioral measures of intoxication. In the first instance, selection and exclusionary criteria will be discussed and their impact on the resulting experiments noted. Included will be (1) subject selection (familial history, background, health, gender, drug/medication status, drinking patterns), (2) dosage protocols (control over and monitoring of intoxication, modifications), and (3) procedural constraints (speech tasks, experimental controls). Some of the criteria and procedures employed proved satisfactory, others did not and had to be modified. Second, two aural‐perceptual experiments (eight talkers, 106 auditors) will be reported; a scaling model was used in the first, three variations of a blind sort procedure in the second. Two patterns of subject behavior were found; one correlated well...

Speaking rate and alcohol intoxication

Eighteen subjects were recorded at five different levels of intoxication: i.e., at BrAC levels of 0.00, 0.04–0.05, 0.08–0.09, 0.12–0.13, and 0.09–0.08. Two of the speech tasks completed were: reading a standard passage and repeating diadochokinetic syllables as fast as possible. The effects of intoxication on speaking rate were measured by the time needed to read the rainbow passage and produce 20 utterances of ‘‘pataka,’’ ‘‘shapupi,’’ and ‘‘buttercup.’’ The first of these reflects the subjects’ ability to sustain motor speech and the second their motor speech competence. Although variation was observed among speakers, the overall tendency was for both the diadochokinetic test and the rainbow passage to increase in length (s) from sober (BrAC=0.00) to the intoxicated level (BrAC=0.12). Further, the aural perceptual experiments carried out in parallel suggest that listeners might use rate when judging the level of intoxication. That is, speakers judged as highly intoxicated at 0.12 BrAC (ratings were perfo...