Vowel Perception

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J. Doyle ◽  
Jeffrey L. Danhauer ◽  
Bradly J. Edgerton
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
Vowel Identification ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Percent Correct ◽  
Frequency Information ◽  
Vowel Recognition ◽  
Second Formant

We investigated vowel perception by 15 subjects using the single-electrode cochlear implant used at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles. Subjects were postlingually deaf adults having histories of unsuccessful hearing aid use and a minimum of 6 to 12 months experience with the implant. Eleven American English vowels spoken by a male talker were tape recorded, digitized, analyzed, and controlled for the experiments. The stimuli were audiorecordings of both natural and loudness-matched vowels. Subjects rated the dissimilarity of both the naturally spoken and the loudness-matched vowels, and performed identification of the latter. Two normal-hearing subjects served as controls for the dissimilarity tasks. Multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, and percent correct identification analyses were used to help determine the perceptual features used by the subjects in their judgments. Generally, the normal-hearing subjects took advantage of second formant (F2) frequency information. The cochlear-implant users relied primarily upon fundamental (F0) and first formant (F1) frequency information and demonstrated difficulty in vowel identification. No major differences were noted for the natural versus loudness-matched vowels. F2 information, requisite for accurate vowel recognition, did not correspond to any of the perceptual dimensions discerned in the results obtained from implant subjects.

Phoneme Feature Perception in Noise by Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Subjects

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Gordon-Salant
Keyword(s):  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Noise Condition ◽  
Percent Correct ◽  
Vowel Context ◽  
Hearing Status ◽  
Vowel Recognition ◽  
Phoneme Perception ◽  
The Individual

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners perceive phoneme features differently in noise and to determine whether phoneme perception changes as a fuction of signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). Consonant-vowel recognition by normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners was assessed in quiet and in three noise conditions. Analysis of total percent correct recognition scores revealed significant effects of hearing status, S/N, and vowel context. Patterns of phoneme errors were analyzed by INDSCAL, Derived consonant features that accounted for phoneme errors by both subject groups were similar to ones reported by other investigators. However, weightings associated with the individual features varied with changes in noise condition. Although hearing-impaired listeners exhibited poorer overall nonsense syllable recognition scores in noise than normal-hearing listeners, no specific set of features emerged from the multidimensional scaling procedures that could uniquely account for this performance deficit.

Preliminary comparison of second-formant discrimination thresholds in cochlear implant users and young normal-hearing listeners

2013 ◽  
Vol 133 (5) ◽  
pp. 3338-3338
Author(s):  
Catherine L. Rogers ◽  
Gail S. Donaldson ◽  
Amanda J. Cooley ◽  
Benjamin A. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Preliminary Comparison ◽  
Second Formant

Development of Mandarin Chinese Vowel Perception in Young Children With Normal Hearing and Cochlear Implants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Changxin Zhang ◽  
Mingying Li ◽  
Jie Yu ◽  
Chang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Spectral Processing ◽  
Vowel Identification ◽  
Vowel Perception

Purpose Depicting the development pattern of vowel perception for children with normal hearing (NH) and cochlear implants (CIs) would be useful for clinicians and school teachers to monitor children's auditory rehabilitation. The study was to investigate the development of Mandarin Chinese vowel perception for Mandarin Chinese native–speaking children with the ages of 4–6 years. Method Vowel identification of children with NH and CIs were tested. All children with CIs received CIs before the age of 4 years. In a picture identification task with Mandarin Chinese speech stimuli, listeners identified the target consonant–vowel word among two to four contrastive words that differed only in vowels. Each target word represented a concrete object and was spoken by a young female native Mandarin Chinese talker. The target words included 16 monophthongs, 22 diphthongs, and nine triphthongs. Results Children with NH showed significantly better identification of monophthongs and diphthongs than children with CIs at the age of 6 years, whereas the two groups had comparable performance at age of 4 and 5 years. Children with NH significantly outperformed children with CIs for triphthong identification across all three age groups. For children with NH, a rapid development of perception of all three types of vowels occurred between age 4 and 5 years with a rapid development only for monophthong perception between age 5 and 6 years. For children with CIs, a rapid development of both diphthong and triphthong perception occurred between 4 and 5 years old, but not monophthong, with no significant development between 5 and 6 years old for all three types of vowels. Overall, Mandarin-speaking children with NH achieved their ceiling performance in vowel perception before or at the age of 6 years, whereas children with CIs may need more time to reach the typical level of their peers with NH. Conclusions The development of Mandarin vowel perception for Mandarin-native children differed between preschool-age children with NH and CIs, likely due to the deficits of spectral processing for children with CIs. The results would be a supplement to the development of speech recognition in Mandarin-native children with NH and CIs.

scholarly journals Reducing interaural tonotopic mismatch preserves binaural unmasking in cochlear implant simulations of single-sided deafness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elad Sagi ◽  
Mahan Azadpour ◽  
Jonathan Neukam ◽  
Nicole Hope Capach ◽  
Mario A. Svirsky
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implant ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Spatial Separation ◽  
Binaural Hearing ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Input Frequency ◽  
Frequency Range ◽  
Speech Processor ◽  
Frequency Information ◽  
Single Sided Deafness

Binaural unmasking, a key feature of normal binaural hearing, refers to the improved intelligibility of masked speech by adding masking noise that facilities perceived spatial separation of target and masker. A question particularly relevant for cochlear implant users with single-sided deafness (SSD-CI) is whether binaural unmasking can still be achieved if the additional masking is distorted. Adding the CI restores some aspects of binaural hearing to these listeners, although binaural unmasking remains limited. Notably, these listeners may experience a mismatch between the frequency information perceived through the CI and that perceived by their normal hearing ear. Employing acoustic simulations of SSD-CI with normal hearing listeners, the present study confirms a previous simulation study that binaural unmasking is severely limited when interaural frequency mismatch between the input frequency range and simulated place of stimulation exceeds 1-2 mm. The present study also shows that binaural unmasking is largely retained when the input frequency range is adjusted to match simulated place of stimulation, even at the expense of removing low-frequency information. This result bears implication for the mechanisms driving the type of binaural unmasking of the present study, as well as for mapping the frequency range of the CI speech processor in SSD-CI users.

Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4534-4543
Author(s):  
Wei Hu ◽  
Sha Tao ◽  
Mingshuang Li ◽  
Chang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Vowel Identification ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Perceptual Distance ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Chinese Counterpart ◽  
Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

Vowel Recognition Threshold as a Function of Temporal Segmentations

1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 715-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Powell ◽  
Oscar Tosi
Keyword(s):  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Recognition Threshold ◽  
Vowel Sound ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Vowel Recognition ◽  
Temporal Segment

Vowels were segmented into 15 different temporal segments taken from the middle of the vowel and ranging from 4 to 60 msecs, then presented to 6 subjects with normal hearing. The mean temporal-segment recognition threshold of 15 msecs with a range from 9.3 msecs for the /u/ to 27.2 milliseconds for the /a/. Misidenti-fication of vowels was most often confused with the vowel sound adjacent to it on the vowel-hump diagram. There was no significant difference between the cardinal and noncardinal vowels.

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