Native Language Influence on Brass Instrument Performance: An Application of Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs) to Midsagittal Ultrasound Images of the Tongue

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of an ultrasound study of 10 New Zealand English and 10 Tongan-speaking trombone players, to determine whether there is an influence of native language speech production on trombone performance. Trombone players’ midsagittal tongue shapes were recorded while reading wordlists and during sustained note productions, and tongue surface contours traced. After normalizing to account for differences in vocal tract shape and ultrasound transducer orientation, we used generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to estimate average tongue surface shapes used by the players from the two language groups when producing notes at different pitches and intensities, and during the production of the monophthongs in their native languages. The average midsagittal tongue contours predicted by our models show a statistically robust difference at the back of the tongue distinguishing the two groups, where the New Zealand English players display an overall more retracted tongue position; however, tongue shape during playing does not directly map onto vowel tongue shapes as prescribed by the pedagogical literature. While the New Zealand English-speaking participants employed a playing tongue shape approximating schwa and the vowel used in the word ‘lot,’ the Tongan participants used a tongue shape loosely patterning with the back vowels /o/ and /u/. We argue that these findings represent evidence for native language influence on brass instrument performance; however, this influence seems to be secondary to more basic constraints of brass playing related to airflow requirements and acoustical considerations, with the vocal tract configurations observed across both groups satisfying these conditions in different ways. Our findings furthermore provide evidence for the functional independence of various sections of the tongue and indicate that speech production, itself an acquired motor skill, can influence another skilled behavior via motor memory of vocal tract gestures forming the basis of local optimization processes to arrive at a suitable tongue shape for sustained note production.

A Multimodal Dataset and Evaluation for Feature Estimators of Temporal Phases of Anxiety

“…It is a statistical technique that models non-linear relationships between time-varying predictors and outcome variables. It has been used in domains such as acoustic and physiological analyses [14,29,60], as it combines the strengths of flexibility (as in machine-learning techniques) and interpretability (defined as an addition of linear models). GAMMs facilitate deriving a model for a cluster of time series data by applying non-parametric smoothing functions and comparing significant differences between multiple models; therefore, suitable for testing our hypotheses.…”

Foreign language acquisition of perceptually similar segments: evidence from Lower Sorbian

“…Polar coordinates were then extracted. Tongue contours were then compared using a custom script ( Heyne et al , 2019 ) for GAMM analysis of polar coordinates in R ( R Core Team, 2023 ). GAMMs were performed using the mgcv package ( Wood, 2011 ), which also provides summary statistics.…”

“…Data was then visualized with plotly ( Sievert, 2020 ) and a custom script ( Heyne et al , 2019 ) to identify areas of statistical significance.…”

Design and Validation of Software for the Training and Automatic Evaluation of Music Intonation on Non-Fixed Pitch Instruments for Novice Students

“…Some factors can be construction design [12,13], mouthpiece changes [14], and temperature [15]. Other factors are added by instrument performers, such as tongue position and bow [16] as well as air column [17]. All this makes intonation the most complex parameter to develop on non-fixed pitch instruments.…”