Effects of Background Noise on Speech and Language in Young Adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Tyson G. Harmon ◽  
Christopher Dromey ◽  
Brenna Nelson ◽  
Kacy Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Speech Acoustics ◽  
Lombard Effect ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Linguistic Interference

Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate how different types of background noise that differ in their level of linguistic content affect speech acoustics, speech fluency, and language production for young adult speakers when performing a monologue discourse task. Method Forty young adults monologued by responding to open-ended questions in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (debate, movie dialogue, contemporary music, classical music, and pink noise). Measures related to speech acoustics (intensity and frequency), speech fluency (speech rate, pausing, and disfluencies), and language production (lexical, morphosyntactic, and macrolinguistic structure) were analyzed and compared across conditions. Participants also reported on which conditions they perceived as more distracting. Results All noise conditions resulted in some change to spoken language compared with the silent baseline. Effects on speech acoustics were consistent with expected changes due to the Lombard effect (e.g., increased intensity and fundamental frequency). Effects on speech fluency showed decreased pausing and increased disfluencies. Several background noise conditions also seemed to interfere with language production. Conclusions Findings suggest that young adults present with both compensatory and interference effects when speaking in noise. Several adjustments may facilitate intelligibility when noise is present and help both speaker and listener maintain attention on the production. Other adjustments provide evidence that background noise eliciting linguistic interference has the potential to degrade spoken language even for healthy young adults, because of increased cognitive demands.

Spoken Language Production in Young Adults: Examining Syntactic Complexity

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1339-1347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn A. Nippold ◽  
Megan W. Frantz-Kaspar ◽  
Laura M. Vigeland
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Subordinate Clauses

Purpose In this study, we examined syntactic complexity in the spoken language samples of young adults. Its purpose was to contribute to the expanding knowledge base in later language development and to begin building a normative database of language samples that potentially could be used to evaluate young adults with known or suspected language impairment. Method Forty adults (mean age = 22 years, 10 months) with typical language development participated in an interview that consisted of 3 speaking tasks: a general conversation about common, everyday topics; a narrative retelling task that involved fables; and a question-and-answer, critical-thinking task about the fables. Each speaker's interview was audio-recorded, transcribed, broken into communication units, coded for main and subordinate clauses, entered into Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller, Iglesias, & Nockerts, 2004), and analyzed for mean length of communication unit and clausal density. Results Both the narrative and critical-thinking tasks elicited significantly greater syntactic complexity than the conversational task. It was also found that syntactic complexity was significantly greater during the narrative task than the critical-thinking task. Conclusion Syntactic complexity was best revealed by a narrative task that involved fables. The study offers benchmarks for language development during early adulthood.

scholarly journals Orthographic effects in Mandarin spoken language production

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingqing Qu ◽  
Markus F. Damian
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Spoken Language

scholarly journals Speech fluency: a result of oral language proficiency?

Linguistica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesna Požgaj Hadži ◽  
Damir Horga ◽  
Tatjana Balazic Bulc
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Articulation Rate ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Oral Language Proficiency

The aim of this paper is to answer the question of the influence of language proficiency on speech fluency in relation to speakers’ other cognitive abilities by comparing the speech of research participants who speak Slovenian as L1 and Croatian as LF. By using the method of acoustic and corpus analysis, the values of speech rate, articulation rate, mean length of runs and the length and frequency of certain pauses are presented.

Spoken language comprehension: insights from eye movements

2007 ◽  
pp. 308-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K. Tanenhaus
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Language Production ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Response Measure ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Spoken Language Processing ◽  
Spoken Language Comprehension

Recently, eye movements have become a widely used response measure for studying spoken language processing in both adults and children, in situations where participants comprehend and generate utterances about a circumscribed “Visual World” while fixation is monitored, typically using a free-view eye-tracker. Psycholinguists now use the Visual World eye-movement method to study both language production and language comprehension, in studies that run the gamut of current topics in language processing. Eye movements are a response measure of choice for addressing many classic questions about spoken language processing in psycholinguistics. This article reviews the burgeoning Visual World literature on language comprehension, highlighting some of the seminal studies and examining how the Visual World approach has contributed new insights to our understanding of spoken word recognition, parsing, reference resolution, and interactive conversation. It considers some of the methodological issues that come to the fore when psycholinguists use eye movements to examine spoken language comprehension.

From Speech Acoustics to Communicative Participation in Dysarthria: Toward a Causal Framework

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Stephanie A. Borrie ◽  
Camille J. Wynn ◽  
Visar Berisha ◽  
Tyson S. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Speech Rate ◽  
Objective Measure ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
World Health ◽  
International Classification Of Functioning ◽  
Speech Acoustics ◽  
Communicative Participation ◽  
Causal Framework ◽  
Moderate Relationship

Purpose: We proposed and tested a causal instantiation of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework, linking acoustics, intelligibility, and communicative participation in the context of dysarthria. Method: Speech samples and communicative participation scores were collected from individuals with dysarthria ( n = 32). Speech was analyzed for two acoustic metrics (i.e., articulatory precision and speech rate), and an objective measure of intelligibility was generated from listener transcripts. Mediation analysis was used to evaluate pathways of effect between acoustics, intelligibility, and communicative participation. Results: We observed a strong relationship between articulatory precision and intelligibility and a moderate relationship between intelligibility and communicative participation. Collectively, data supported a significant relationship between articulatory precision and communicative participation, which was almost entirely mediated through intelligibility. These relationships were not significant when speech rate was specified as the acoustic variable of interest. Conclusion: The statistical corroboration of our causal instantiation of the ICF framework with articulatory acoustics affords important support toward the development of a comprehensive causal framework to understand and, ultimately, address restricted communicative participation in dysarthria.

The Effect of Preference for Three Different Types of Music on Magnitude Estimation-Scaling Behavior in Young Adults

1996 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 339-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Zaums ◽  
Donald Fucci ◽  
Molly Banks ◽  
Linda Petrosino ◽  
Corry Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Magnitude Estimation ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
Scaling Behavior ◽  
Random Series ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Band Music ◽  
Different Types

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effect of preference for three different types of music on magnitude estimation-scaling behavior in young adults. Three groups of college students, 10 who liked rock music, 10 who liked big band music, and 10 who liked classical music were tested. Subjects were instructed to assign numerical values to a random series of nine suprathreshold intensity levels of 10-sec. samples of rock music, big band music, and classical music. Analysis indicated that subjects who liked rock music scaled that stimulus differently from those subjects who liked big band and classical music. Subjects who liked big band music scaled that stimulus differently from those subjects who liked rock music and classical music. All subjects scaled classical music similarly regardless of their musical preferences. Results are discussed in reference to the literature concerned with personality and preference as well as spectrographic analyses of the three different types of music used in this study.

Some Effects of Context On Spoken Language Production

1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pedlow ◽  
Roger Wales
Keyword(s):  
Language Production ◽  
Spoken Language
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document