Formant Transition Duration and Amplitude Rise Time as Cues to the Stop/Glide Distinction

Walsh, Margaret A.; Diehl, Randy L.

doi:10.1080/14640749108400989

Cited by 37 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…For example, in the discrimination of stops and glides, Walsh and Diehl (1991) found that both rise time and duration of the formant transition act synergistically. Moreover, the cues used in distinguishing stops from glides in speech are similar to those used in making discriminations among nonspeech stimuli.…”

Section: Music and Irrelevant Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disruption of visual short-term memory by changing-state auditory stimuli: The role of segmentation

1993

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Typically, serial recall performance can be disrupted by the presence of an irrelevant stream of background auditory stimulation, but only if the background stream changes over time (the auditory changing-state effect). It was hypothesized that segmentation of the auditory stream is necessary for changing state to be signified. In Experiment 1, continuous random pitch glides failed to disrupt serial recall, but glides interrupted regularly by silence brought about the usual auditory changing-state effect. In Experiment 2, a physically continuous stream of synthesized vowel sounds was found to have disruptive effects. In Experiment 3, the technique of auditory induction showed that preattentive organization rather than critical features of the sound could account for the disruption by glides. With pitch glides, silence plays a preeminent role in the temporal segmentation of the sound stream, but speech contains correlated time-varying changes in frequency and amplitude that make silent intervals superfluous.Irrelevant background speech disrupts serial short-term memory for material presented visually (see D. M. Jones & Morris, 1992, in press, for reviews). A reasonably clear picture of the features of the task and of the speech that elicits this effect is now emerging, as are the general implications for our understanding of attentional factors in memory (see D. M. Jones & Broadbent, 1991). Two views of this disruption are contrasted here. One is that the extent of disruption depends on the degree to which the sound resembles speech. Salame and Baddeley (1989) have proposed that the effects of speech and nonspeech sounds on serial recall could be understood in terms of a filter or detector system that selectively passes into memory sounds that resemble speech. We wish to put forward an alternative model, the changing-state hypothesis, whose pivotal feature is that the sound has to show particular variation over its time course (see D. M. Jones, in press). Our primary concern in the present paper is to refine the notion of change within the auditory changing-state concept; our secondary purpose is to assess the view that sound has to be "speech-like" before it disrupts serial recall. The purpose of the experimental work reported here is to identify cues common to speech and nonspeech stimuli that nevertheless may serve as the basis for disruption. Specifically, interest is attached to the role of segmentation in signifying changing state, and to the ways this may lead to disruption of recall by both speech and Thanks are due Richard Blight for his general help in setting up the equipment. Helen Bowman and Craig Steel ran some of the subjects.

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Section: Music and Irrelevant Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disruption of visual short-term memory by changing-state auditory stimuli: The role of segmentation

1993

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“…The formant transitions into a following vowel also carry information about both place (Martínez-Celdrán and Villalba 1995;Eek and Meister 1995;Fowler 1994;Fruchter and Sussman 1997;Kewley-Port 1983;Kewley-Port et al 1983;Nearey and Shammas 1987;Stevens and Blumstein 1978;Sussman et al 1991;etc. ) and manner (Diehl and Walsh 1989;Walsh and Diehl 1991). To motivate the existence of the positional versions of MAX, it is therefore necessary to show that release bursts and formant transitions are more robustly licensed in prevocalic and pre-pausal position than in pre-consonantal position.…”

Section: Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Frequency biases in phonological variation

Coetzee

Kawahara

2012

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Abstract. In the past two decades, variation has received a lot of attention in mainstream generative phonology, and several different models have been developed to account for variable phonological phenomena. However, all existing generative models of phonological variation account for the overall rate at which some process applies in a corpus, and therefore implicitly assume that all words are affected equally by a variable process. In this paper, we show that this is not the case. Many variable phenomena are more likely to apply to frequent than infrequent words. A model that accounts perfectly for the overall rate of application of some variable process therefore does not necessarily account very well for the actual application of the process to individual words. We illustrate this with two examples, English t/d-deletion and Japanese geminate devoicing. We then augment one existing generative model (noisy Harmonic Grammar) to incorporate the contribution of usage frequency to the application of variable processes. In this model, the influence of frequency is incorporated by scaling the weights of faithfulness constraints up or down for words of different frequencies. This augmented model accounts significantly better for variation than existing generative models.

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“…A short rise time resulted in more Ibl responses. Nittrouer and Studdert-Kennedy (1986) attributed the difference between their results and those of Shinn and Blumstein (1984) as possibly being due to the fact that Shinn and Blumstein used synthetic stimuli; however, Walsh and Diehl (1991) also found little role for rise time, and their stimuli were also synthetic. Although the reason for the difference between the results of Shinn and Blumstein and others remains unknown, it appears that, although rise time alone may not be sufficient to distinguish between Ibl and Iwl, rise time does have some effect, albeit one that is secondary to transition duration.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…At least one other study supports this finding. Walsh and Diehl (1991) found that variation in amplitude envelope at stimulus onset was not sufficient to reliably signal the stoplglide contrast for synthetic Iba/-/wal stimuli.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…l In a series of experiments designed to evaluate the individual and combined effects of amplitude envelope and frequency time for the stoplglide distinction, Walsh and Diehl (1991) found that amplitude rise time did have some perceptual significance, but that its role was quite small relative to that for transition duration. Their results supported Nittrouer and Studdert-Kennedy's (1986) claims; that is, subjects relied primarily on the duration of formants.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Amplitude rise time and the perception of the voiceless affricate/fricative distinction

Kluender

Walsh

1992

Perception & Psychophysics

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Variation of amplitude envelope at stimulus onset has been considered to be of primary importance for distinguishing voiceless affricates from fricatives (e.g., ItII and IIf). In earlier perceptual experiments, however, variation in amplitude rise time was confounded with variation in frication duration. In two experiments, these variables were independently manipulated, and their individual and combined effects for perception of Itf/ and III were examined. Variation in amplitude rise time alone was not sufficient to signal the voiceless affricate/fricative contrast in these experiments, but variation in frication duration alone was sufficient.The first acoustic and perceptual analyses involving the affricate/fricative distinction were carried out at Haskins Laboratories over 30 years ago. Perhaps the most complete and informative of these early studies was the dissertation of L. J. Gerstman (1957). His acoustic measurements showed that the production of the affricates Itfl and Id'!J, as in chop and job, results in shorter amplitude rise times and shorter durations of fricative noise than does the production of the fricatives IfI and 131, as in sJwp and azure. Gerstman also evaluated the effects of rise time and frication duration on perception of affricates and fricatives. His results led him to conclude that "the fricativeaffricate distinction appears to depend upon the rate at which the frictional energy grows. An abrupt onset is heard as an affricate, a smooth onset is heard as a fricative" (p. 118). Although this dissertation was never published, it has served as the predecessor to a number of studies on the production and perception of voiceless affricates and fricatives, and the perceptual salience of other acoustic properties such as preceding closure silence and release burst have also been demonstrated (e

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Formant Transition Duration and Amplitude Rise Time as Cues to the Stop/Glide Distinction

Cited by 37 publications

References 19 publications

Disruption of visual short-term memory by changing-state auditory stimuli: The role of segmentation

Disruption of visual short-term memory by changing-state auditory stimuli: The role of segmentation

Frequency biases in phonological variation

Amplitude rise time and the perception of the voiceless affricate/fricative distinction

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