Acoustic Measures of Temporal Intervals Across Speaking Rates

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the fidelity and accuracy of a smartphone microphone and recording environment on acoustic measurements of voice. Method A prospective cohort proof-of-concept study. Two sets of prerecorded samples (a) sustained vowels (/a/) and (b) Rainbow Passage sentence were played for recording via the internal iPhone microphone and the Blue Yeti USB microphone in two recording environments: a sound-treated booth and quiet office setting. Recordings were presented using a calibrated mannequin speaker with a fixed signal intensity (69 dBA), at a fixed distance (15 in.). Each set of recordings (iPhone—audio booth, Blue Yeti—audio booth, iPhone—office, and Blue Yeti—office), was time-windowed to ensure the same signal was evaluated for each condition. Acoustic measures of voice including fundamental frequency ( f o ), jitter, shimmer, harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), and cepstral peak prominence (CPP), were generated using a widely used analysis program (Praat Version 6.0.50). The data gathered were compared using a repeated measures analysis of variance. Two separate data sets were used. The set of vowel samples included both pathologic ( n = 10) and normal ( n = 10), male ( n = 5) and female ( n = 15) speakers. The set of sentence stimuli ranged in perceived voice quality from normal to severely disordered with an equal number of male ( n = 12) and female ( n = 12) speakers evaluated. Results The vowel analyses indicated that the jitter, shimmer, HNR, and CPP were significantly different based on microphone choice and shimmer, HNR, and CPP were significantly different based on the recording environment. Analysis of sentences revealed a statistically significant impact of recording environment and microphone type on HNR and CPP. While statistically significant, the differences across the experimental conditions for a subset of the acoustic measures (viz., jitter and CPP) have shown differences that fell within their respective normative ranges. Conclusions Both microphone and recording setting resulted in significant differences across several acoustic measurements. However, a subset of the acoustic measures that were statistically significant across the recording conditions showed small overall differences that are unlikely to have clinical significance in interpretation. For these acoustic measures, the present data suggest that, although a sound-treated setting is ideal for voice sample collection, a smartphone microphone can capture acceptable recordings for acoustic signal analysis.

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Categorical perception of syllables and temporal intervals

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e520562012-671 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

James F. Juola ◽

Rob L. J. van Eijk ◽

Dik J. Hermes ◽

Armin Kohlrausch ◽

Michael S. Vitevitch

Keyword(s):

Categorical Perception ◽

Temporal Intervals

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Differential sensitivity for temporal intervals with auditory stimulation

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e627282012-162 ◽

1960 ◽

Author(s):

A. M. Small ◽

R. A. Campbell

Keyword(s):

Auditory Stimulation ◽

Differential Sensitivity ◽

Temporal Intervals

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Individual differences related to present and future mental orientation predict the sense of time

10.31234/osf.io/ezmhp ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Marc Wittmann ◽

Henrike Fiedler ◽

Wilhelm Gros ◽

Julia Mossbridge ◽

Cintia Retz Lucci

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Time Perspective ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Self Report ◽

Reproduction Task ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Waiting Period ◽

Frequency Scale ◽

Temporal Intervals ◽

Sense Of Time

With this cross-sectional study we investigated how individual differences regarding present- and future-oriented mental processes are related to the experience of time in the seconds and minutes range. A sample of students (N = 100) filled out self-report measures of time perspective (ZTPI), mindfulness (FMI), impulsiveness (BIS), and the daydreaming frequency scale (DDFS). Furthermore they were asked to (a) retrospectively judge the duration of a waiting period of five minutes, and (b) to prospectively perform an visual duration reproduction task with intervals of 3, 6, and 9 seconds. Regression models show that (a) being more present fatalistic (ZTPI) and more impulsive are related to longer duration estimates of the waiting period, and (b) having a stronger propensity to daydream leads to a stronger under-reproduction of temporal intervals. These findings show how personality traits related to present orientation are associated with the state-like perception of duration.

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Systematic Underreproduction of Time Is Independent of Judgment Certainty

Neural Plasticity ◽

10.1155/2016/6890674 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2016 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Martin Riemer ◽

Darren Rhodes ◽

Thomas Wolbers

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Judgment Bias ◽

Time Discrimination ◽

Temporal Intervals ◽

Neuronal Processes ◽

Posterior Parietal ◽

Temporal Stimuli ◽

The Right ◽

Temporal Judgments

We recently proposed that systematic underreproduction of time is caused by a general judgment bias towards earlier responses, instead of reflecting a genuine misperception of temporal intervals. Here we tested whether this bias can be explained by the uncertainty associated with temporal judgments. We applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to inhibit neuronal processes in the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and tested its effects on time discrimination and reproduction tasks. The results show increased certainty for discriminative time judgments after PPC inhibition. They suggest that the right PPC plays an inhibitory role for time perception, possibly by mediating the multisensory integration between temporal stimuli and other quantities. Importantly, this increased judgment certainty had no influence on the degree of temporal underreproduction. We conclude that the systematic underreproduction of time is not caused by uncertainty for temporal judgments.

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Measuring Vocal Fatigue in Sports Coaches

Journal of Clinical Speech and Language Studies ◽

10.3233/acs-2017-23104 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 1-20

Author(s):

Kathy Connaughton ◽

Irena Yanushevskaya

Keyword(s):

Acoustic Analysis ◽

Voice Quality ◽

Professional Sports ◽

Muscle Adaptation ◽

Voice Change ◽

Acoustic Measures ◽

Perceptual Evaluation ◽

Coaching Session ◽

Sports Coaches ◽

Voice Use

Objective: This study explores the immediate impact of prolonged voice use by professional sports coaches. Method: Speech samples including sustained phonation of vowel /a/ and a short read passage were collected from two professional sports coaches. The audio recordings were made within an hour before and after a coaching session, over three sessions. Perceptual evaluation of voice quality was done using the GRBAS scale. The speech samples were subsequently analyzed using Praat. The acoustic measures included fundamental frequency (f0), jitter, shimmer, Harmonics-to-Noise ratio and Cepstral Peak Prominence. Main results: The results of perceptual and acoustic analysis suggest a slight shift towards a tenser phonation post-coaching session, which is a likely consequence of laryngeal muscle adaptation to prolonged voice use. This tendency was similar in sustained vowels and connected speech. Conclusion: Acoustic measures used in this study can be useful to capture the voice change post-coaching session. It is desirable, however, that more sophisticated and robust and at the same time intuitive and easy-to-use tools for voice assessment and monitoring be made available to clinicians and professional voice users.

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Effects of stimulus and task structure on temporal perceptual learning

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-80192-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Rannie Xu ◽

Russell M. Church ◽

Yuka Sasaki ◽

Takeo Watanabe

Keyword(s):

Temporal Discrimination ◽

Discrimination Performance ◽

Task Structure ◽

Comparison Task ◽

Interval Representation ◽

Before And After ◽

Temporal Intervals ◽

Context Specific ◽

Temporal Learning ◽

And Task

AbstractOur ability to discriminate temporal intervals can be improved with practice. This learning is generally thought to reflect an enhancement in the representation of a trained interval, which leads to interval-specific improvements in temporal discrimination. In the present study, we asked whether temporal learning is further constrained by context-specific factors dictated through the trained stimulus and task structure. Two groups of participants were trained using a single-interval auditory discrimination task over 5 days. Training intervals were either one of eight predetermined values (FI group), or random from trial to trial (RI group). Before and after the training period, we measured discrimination performance using an untrained two-interval temporal comparison task. Our results revealed a selective improvement in the FI group, but not the RI group. However, this learning did not generalize between the trained and untrained tasks. These results highlight the sensitivity of TPL to stimulus and task structure, suggesting that mechanisms of temporal learning rely on processes beyond changes in interval representation.

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The Effect of Dual Language Activation on L2-Induced Changes in L1 Speech within a Code-Switched Paradigm

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages6030114 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 114

Author(s):

Ulrich Reubold ◽

Sanne Ditewig ◽

Robert Mayr ◽

Ineke Mennen

Keyword(s):

Dual Language ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Predictor Variable ◽

Predictor Variables ◽

Acoustic Measures ◽

Before And After ◽

Language Activation ◽

Dual Activation ◽

Induced Changes

The present study sought to examine the effect of dual language activation on L1 speech in late English–Austrian German sequential bilinguals, and to identify relevant predictor variables. To this end, we compared the English speech patterns of adult migrants to Austria in a code-switched and monolingual condition alongside those of monolingual native speakers in England in a monolingual condition. In the code-switched materials, German words containing target segments known to trigger cross-linguistic interaction in the two languages (i.e., [v–w], [ʃt(ʁ)-st(ɹ)] and [l-ɫ]) were inserted into an English frame; monolingual materials comprised English words with the same segments. To examine whether the position of the German item affects L1 speech, the segments occurred either before the switch (“He wants a Wienerschnitzel”) or after (“I like Würstel with mustard”). Critical acoustic measures of these segments revealed no differences between the groups in the monolingual condition, but significant L2-induced shifts in the bilinguals’ L1 speech production in the code-switched condition for some sounds. These were found to occur both before and after a code-switch, and exhibited a fair amount of individual variation. Only the amount of L2 use was found to be a significant predictor variable for shift size in code-switched compared with monolingual utterances, and only for [w]. These results have important implications for the role of dual activation in the speech of late sequential bilinguals.

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