Development of the Voicing Contrast: Perception of Stop Consonants

Zlatin, Marsha A.; Koenigsknecht, Roy A.

doi:10.1044/jshr.1803.541

Cited by 64 publications

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“…As explained above, probit analysis fits identification functions to a cumulative normal curve, providing a mean (50% point) and standard deviation (Finney, 1971). The mean 50% crossover point for children with SLI was at 24.2 ms, while that for typically developing children was at 25.8 ms, a nonsignificant difference, F(1, 160) = 2.59, p = .109, ω 2 = .04, As a measure of the sharpness of the labeling boundaries, standard deviations from the probit analyses were used to calculate boundary widths (Kuhl & Miller, 1978;Zlatin & Koenigsknecht, 1975). Boundary width was defined as the linear distance between the 25th and 75th percentiles as determined by the mean and standard deviation obtained from probit analysis.…”

Section: Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children With Specific Language Impairments Perceive Speech Most Categorically When Tokens Are Natural and Meaningful

Coady

Evans

Mainela-Arnold

et al. 2007

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose-To examine perceptual deficits as a potential underlying cause of specific language impairments (SLI).Method-Twenty-one children with SLI (8;[7][8][9][10][11]11 [years;months]) and 21 age-matched controls participated in categorical perception tasks using four series of syllables for which perceived syllable-initial voicing varied. Series were either words or abstract nonword syllables and either synthesized or high-quality edited natural utterances. Children identified and discriminated (a) digitally edited tokens of naturally spoken "bowl"-"pole", (b) synthesized renditions of "bowl"-"pole", (c) natural "ba"-"pa", and (d) synthetic "ba"-"pa".Results-Identification crossover locations were the same for both groups of children, but there was modestly less accuracy on unambiguous endpoints for children with SLI. Planned comparisons revealed these effects to be limited to synthesized speech. Children with SLI showed overall reduced discrimination, but these effects were limited to abstract nonword syllables.Conclusion-Overall, children with SLI perceived naturally spoken real words comparably to age-matched peers but showed impaired identification and discrimination of synthetic speech and of abstract syllables. Poor performance on speech perception tasks may result from task demands and stimulus properties, not perceptual deficits. Keywordsspecific language impairment; categorical perception; speech perception (C) The American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association is the publisher of this article and holder of the copyright. Further reproduction of this article in violation of copyright is prohibited without the consent of the publisher. To contact the publisher: http:// www.asha.org/ Contact author: Jeffry A. Coady, Sargent College, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215. coady@bu.edu. Julia L. Evans is now at the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University, and Elina MainelaArnold is now at the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Pennsylvania State University. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author ManuscriptThe present investigation was conducted to examine how speech perception abilities of children with specific language impairments (SLI) change as a function of the nature of the tokens with which they are tested. These children have normal hearing and nonverbal intelligence, with no obvious oral-motor or neurological deficits. Nevertheless, they experience difficulty learning language in spite of having all of the requisite cognitive abilities generally considered to support normal language acquisition (see Leonard, 1998, for a review). Although these children do acquire language, they experience deficits in many linguistic areas, including phonology, morphology, and syntax. Among the possible underlying causes that have been considered are deficits in , auditory processing (e.g., Eisenson, 1972). Explanations of these potential processing difficulties range from slower processing acr...

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Section: Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children With Specific Language Impairments Perceive Speech Most Categorically When Tokens Are Natural and Meaningful

Coady

Evans

Mainela-Arnold

et al. 2007

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…However, there is a link between perceptual identification categories and VOT values used in production, and the VOT difference needed to distinguish 'voiced' versus 'voiceless' shows a reduction with age until adultlike perception is achieved at around 6 years [Lisker and Abramson, 1967;Zlatin and Koenigsknecht, 1975]. This age effect in perception may be due to peripheral or central auditory processing, or it may be due to the speaker's own changes in speech production [Flege and Eefting, 1986].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the early stages of the acquisition of the voicing contrast, infants do not appear to be limited by their perceptual abilities as they are able to perceive categorical differences in VOT before they are able to reproduce them [Wolf, 1973;Zlatin and Koenigsknecht, 1975;Aslin et al, 1983]. However, there is a link between perceptual identification categories and VOT values used in production, and the VOT difference needed to distinguish 'voiced' versus 'voiceless' shows a reduction with age until adultlike perception is achieved at around 6 years [Lisker and Abramson, 1967;Zlatin and Koenigsknecht, 1975].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental Trends in Voice Onset Time: Some Evidence for Sex Differences

Whiteside¹,

Marshall²

2001

Phonetica

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This study reports on an investigation into the voice onset time (VOT) patterns of the plosives /p b t d/ in a group of 30 children aged 7 (n = 10), 9 (n = 10) and 11 (n = 10) years. Equal numbers of girls and boys participated in the study. Each child named a series of letter objects to elicit /p b t d/ in a syllable onset position with a fixed vowel context. VOT data were examined for age, sex and plosive differences with the following hypotheses: Firstly, that there would be sex differences in the VOT patterns of preadolescent children. Secondly, that the sex differences in VOT patterns would be linked to age and development, and that these would eventually become marked by the age of 11 years, by which time adult-like VOT values should have been achieved. Finally, that the extent of sex and age differences would be dependent upon the plosive being investigated. Results indicated patterns of decrease with age in the VOT values of /p b/ for the boys, with some evidence of increases in the VOT values of /t/ for the girls. In addition, ‘voiced’ and ‘voiceless’ cognates showed a more marked bimodal distribution in the girls‘ VOT patterns. This bimodal distribution was investigated by examining the degree of difference between the VOT values of voiced and voiceless cognate pairs /p b/ and /t d/, and examining the effects of age, sex and cognate pair. These results indicated that more marked sex differences in the ‘voiced’/‘voiceless’ contrast emerged between the data of the 9- and 11-year-olds, a pattern, which was more marked for the alveolar plosives. These preliminary results confirmed all three hypotheses. The findings are presented and discussed both within a developmental and sociophonetic framework.

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“…Two previous studies tested whether a correlation existed between the age of English-learning children and the lo cation of their category boundaries. One study showed a significant positive correla tion for children 20-50 months of age [Bai ley and Haggard, 1980], but the other showed a negative correlation for children aged 2-14 years [Simon and Fourcin, 1978], Zlatin and Koenigsknecht [1975] examined the labelling of synthetic VOT continua by English-speaking adults and children aged 2 and 6 years. The location of the adults' and children's boundaries did not differ sig nificantly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic and Developmental Effects on the Production and Perception of Stop Consonants

1986

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This study examined production and perception of the contrast between /t/ –/d/ by subjects differing in native language and age. Acoustic analysis revealed that native speakers of English realized word-initial /t/ with significantly longer VOT values (approximately 85 ms) than native speakers of Spanish (approximately 19 ms). Native English and Spanish adults realized /t/ with VOT values that were non-significantly longer than those of 9-year-olds of the same native language background. Native English adults prevoiced /d/ more often than English children, but Spanish adults and children realized /d/ with lead VOT values in nearly every instance. In a labelling task, the native English speakers showed steeper identification functions, and category boundaries at significantly longer VOT values, than age-matched native Spanish subjects. The boundaries of both the native English and Spanish adults occurred at significantly longer VOT values than those of children who spoke the same language. Three possible explanations are offered for the effect of age on stop voicing judgments: the auditory processing of acoustic parameters associated with stops changes with age; listeners require an increasingly long VOT interval to perceive /t/ as they get older because they produce /t/ with somewhat longer VOT values; listeners ‘attune’ their perception to optimally match the stops they hear.

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Development of the Voicing Contrast: Perception of Stop Consonants

Cited by 64 publications

References 0 publications

Children With Specific Language Impairments Perceive Speech Most Categorically When Tokens Are Natural and Meaningful

Children With Specific Language Impairments Perceive Speech Most Categorically When Tokens Are Natural and Meaningful

Developmental Trends in Voice Onset Time: Some Evidence for Sex Differences

Linguistic and Developmental Effects on the Production and Perception of Stop Consonants

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