Caroline Menezes

Exploratory study of some acoustic and articulatory characteristics of sad speech.

This study examines acoustic and articulatory EMA data of two female speakers (American and Japanese) spontaneously producing emotional speech while engaged in an informal telephone-type conversation. A set of control data in which the speakers imitated or read the original emotional utterance was also recorded; for the American speaker, the intonation pattern was also imitated. The results suggest (1) acoustic and articulatory characteristics of spontaneous sad speech differ from that of read speech or imitated intonation speech, (2) spontaneous sad speech and imitated sad speech seem to have similar acoustic characteristics (high F0, changed F1 as well as voice quality), but articulation is different in terms of lip, jaw and tongue positions, and (3) speech that is rated highly by listeners as sad is associated with high F0 and changed voice quality.

Phonetic and acoustic differences in child and adult laughter

This is a preliminary study comparing the acoustic differences in recordings of child and adult spontaneous laughter. Altogether, 100 laughter calls where analyzed from one male and female adult and one male and female child. Results indicate that bout and call durations of children and adult laughter are similar in duration; however, segmental durations show developmental differences. Children show variation between vowel and consonant durations unlike adults. Moreover, child vowels are longer in duration when compared to the adult vowels. Surprisingly, between the adult and child vowels, no difference was observed in mean pitch and mean intensity values. The most prominent difference between child and adult laughter is observed in vowel quality where childrens F1 values of laughter vowels are relatively higher than adults. The consonantal resonance in children is similar to their vowels. However, in adults, the consonant resonant frequencies are much higher than the vowel resonances. Therefore, while ...

Intrinsic variations in jaw deviations in English vowels

Research shows that jaw deviations follow lexical and phrasal stress patterns reflecting the rhythmic structure of English [Erickson (2002), (2010), Erickson et al. (in press), Menezes (2003), Menezes et al. (2003)]. Syllable strength thus can be determined by the amount of jaw displacement regardless of the target vowel. This study systematically analyzes jaw displacement based on the intrinsic variations in vowel height. EMA recordings were analyzed of one speaker producing a short phrase wherein 11 English vowels were spoken in a controlled phonetic environment. The phrase used was “Type X first” where, X was a closed monosyllabic word containing the target vowel surrounded by stop consonants. Stop consonants allow the jaw to start from the bite plane and return to the bite plane therefore all deviations of the jaw are attributed to the articulation of the vowel. The target word was produced in phrase initial, middle and final positions. Comparisons were made across vowel height, tongue root advancemen...

Evidence of laryngeal blocks in acoustic analysis of stuttered speech.

Stuttered speech is characterized by the presence of speech blocks. Little is known on what causes blocks. These blocks typically occur on onset segments of a syllable regardless of the number of syllables in the stuttered word. Blocks on voiced and voiceless stops often result in part word repetitions (e.g., c c c car), while fricatives and other + continuant sounds will be prolonged. Therefore, the manner of sound production plays a role in identifying the types of blocks that will occur. Preliminary acoustic analysis of the speech of one subject with severe stuttering reveals that blocks occurring on voiced +continuant segments are prolonged; however, there is partial or complete devoicing of the voiced segment associated with the block. Devoicing is evident in the spectrogram by the absence of voicing bar and fundamental frequency. Sonorant segments can be identified by their resonant frequencies. This pattern was found in both spontaneous and read speech. The presence of resonant frequencies in the absence of a fundamental frequency indicates a block at the region of the vocal folds. A follow up to this study analyzing simultaneous EGG and acoustic recordings to look at the glottal cycle during stuttered blocks is required.

The effects of “Smooth Speech” on the phonetic features of stuttered speech: A case study.

This is a preliminary study focused on analyzing the acoustic characteristics of stuttered speech before, during, and after a short treatment using the Smooth Speech protocol. Smooth Speech technique, among other strategies, teaches stutterers to consciously control air‐flow during speech through continuous airflow, gentle onsets for vowels, and soft contacts with consonants and to synchronize speech phrasing structure with the breath stream. In our case study Smooth Speech was shown to have a noticeable impact on the intelligibility and fluency of the speaker’s speech immediately following training. This study is a preliminary investigation to understand the phonetic features, both segmental and supra‐segmental, that were specifically effective in increasing speech intelligibility. Speech samples included a monolog a read passage for both pre‐test and post‐test sessions, and a monolog for the training period. Acoustic analysis included evaluation of phoneme duration, syllable duration, pause durations, a...

About phonetic and perceptual similarities in laughing, smiling, and crying speech.

Acoustic, articulatory (EMA), and perceptual characteristics of recordings of spontaneous happy laughing/smiling, sad crying, and neutral speech were examined. Listeners were asked to (1) rate the emotional intensity of the speech and (2) categorize it as happy, sad, not‐emotional, unknown, or other. Results show distinctive acoustic, articulatory, and perceptual characteristics for listeners’ ratings of “emotional” versus “not‐emotional” speech. Emotional speech has significantly higher F0, higher F2, lower H2, raised/retracted upper lip, and lowered tongue. Between happy laughing/smiling speech and sad crying speech, phonetic and perceptual similarities were observed, with mismatches between the emotion intended by the speaker and that perceived by listeners. The results of this study highlight how underlying emotions interact with temporal emotion in a complex way, affecting the perception of emotion. Laughing and crying to bring about a type of catharsis or balance to the system are also discussed. [T...

Formant lowering in spontaneous crying speech.

Acoustic and articulatory recordings were made at the EMA facilities of NTT Research Laboratories, Atsugi, Japan, for an American English speaker producing (a) spontaneous crying speech and (b) imitation of phrasing of the original crying speech, as control data. Articulatory analysis indicates differences in jaw, lip, and tongue positions for crying speech versus control speech. Acoustic analysis also shows that for crying speech compared with control speech, not only F0 increases but also higher formants tend to be lowered. Results of perception tests using the copy‐synthesis program STRAIGHT (Kawahara) to morph a continuum of stimuli, keeping F0, duration, and intensity constant, suggest listeners to use cues of lowered formants to perceive emotional intensity of an utterance. Recent biophysiological modeling studies suggest that lowered formants may be due to a lowered larynx along with an expanded hypopharyngeal region [e.g., D. Honda, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. (1966); Kitamura et al., Acoust. Sci. Tech. (...

Experimental paradigm influence subject’s perception of attitudes

Japanese utterances spoken with different attitudes (admiration, suspicion, and disappointment) were independently manipulated for pitch‐contour and voice quality using STRAIGHT {Kawahara}. Close copy stylization of the prototypical pitch contour for the three attitudes was imposed on the naturally spoken utterances, producing stimuli with all combinations of voice quality types and pitch‐contour shapes. The utterances were submitted to two separate experiments, wherein subjects were asked to judge the attitude of the morphed utterances. The first, a forced choice experiment, asked subjects to choose if the utterances were admiration, suspicion, or disappointment, and the second, a free choice experiment, where subjects could freely choose the attitude they perceived. The results from the forced choice test indicated that subjects used pitch contour cues to choose speaker attitude. However, the results from the free choice paradigm indicated that subjects used both voice quality and intonation cues, and w...

Fundamental frequency change as a result of repeated corrections

Articulatory and intonational patterns were studied, using a simulated discourse‐like paradigm, in which subjects were asked to make repeated corrections of a three‐digit sequence street address consisting of fives and nines and Pine. Articulatory and acoustic signals were collected using the x‐ray microbeam system for four native American English speakers at the University of Wisconsin. Based on the C/D model, a linear pulse train representing the rhythmic organization of an utterance can be inferred by analyzing jaw movements as syllable magnitude over time. Fundamental frequency contours were examined to study the effects of phrasing as a result of contrastive emphasis (digit corrected is assumed to have contrastive emphasis) and repeated corrections in the three‐digit sequence. These patterns were then studied in relation to the jaw movement patterns. The data show that subjects change speech strategies when they need to make a correction or repeated corrections [Erickson et al. (1992)]. The word in p...