The effect of reduced vowel working space on speech intelligibility in Mandarin-speaking young adults with cerebral palsy
Resource
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117 (6): 3879-3889
Journal
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Journal Volume
117
Journal Issue
6
Pages
3879-3889
Date Issued
2005
Author(s)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of reduced vowel working space on dysarthric talkers' speech intelligibility using both acoustic and perceptual approaches. In experiment 1, the acoustic-perceptual relationship between vowel working space area and speech intelligibility was examined in Mandarin-speaking young adults with cerebral palsy. Subjects read aloud 18 bisyllabic words containing the vowels /i/, /a/, and /u/ using their normal speaking rate. Each talker's words were identified by three normal listeners. The percentage of correct vowel and word identification were calculated as vowel intelligibility and word intelligibility, respectively. Results revealed that talkers with cerebral palsy exhibited smaller vowel working space areas compared to ten age-matched controls. The vowel working space area was significantly correlated with vowel intelligibility r = 0.632, p < 0.005) and with word intelligibility (r = 0.684, p < 0.005). Experiment 2 examined whether tokens of expanded vowel working spaces were perceived as better vowel exemplars and represented with greater perceptual spaces than tokens of reduced vowel working spaces. The results of the perceptual experiment support this prediction. The distorted vowels of talkers with cerebral palsy compose a smaller acoustic space that results in shrunken intervowel perceptual distances for listeners. ? 2005 Acoustical Society of America.
Other Subjects
Audition; Physiology; Speech analysis; Speech communication; Speech processing; Speech recognition; Bisyllabic words; Cerebral palsy; Dysarthric talkers; Reduced vowel working space; Speech intelligibility; adolescent; adult; article; auditory discrimination; cerebral palsy; clinical article; correlation analysis; depth perception; disease classification; disease severity; dysarthria; human; male; phonetics; priority journal; speech intelligibility; vowel; word recognition; Adolescent; Adult; Cerebral Palsy; Dysarthria; Humans; Language; Male; Phonetics; Reference Values; Speech Intelligibility; Speech Perception
Type
journal article
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