Effects of frequency-shifted auditory feedback on fundamental frequency of long stressed and unstressed syllables.

Twenty-four normally speaking subjects had to utter the test word /tatatas/ with different stress patterns repeatedly. Auditory feedback was provided by head-phones and was shifted downwards in frequency during randomly selected trials while the subjects were speaking the complete test word. If the first syllable was long stressed, fundamental frequency of the vowel significantly increased by 2 Hz (corresponding to 25.5 cents) under frequency-shifted auditory feedback of .5 octave downwards, whereas under a shift of one semitone downwards a trend of an increase could be observed. If the first syllable was unstressed, fundamental frequency remained unaffected. Regarding the second syllable, significant increases or a trend for an increase of fundamental frequency was found in both shifting conditions. Results indicate a negative feedback mechanism that controls the fundamental frequency via auditory feedback in speech production. However, within a syllable a response could be found only if the syllable duration was long enough. Compensation for frequency-shifted auditory feedback still is quite imperfect. It is concluded that control of fundamental frequency is rather important on a suprasegmental level.

[1]  G M Siegel,et al.  Auditory feedback in the regulation of voice. , 1974, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[2]  J. Elman Effects of frequency-shifted feedback on the pitch of vocal productions. , 1981, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[3]  R. Cowie,et al.  A study of speech deterioration in post-lingually deafened adults , 1982, The Journal of Laryngology & Otology.

[4]  C. Larson,et al.  Human laryngeal responses to auditory stimulation. , 1983, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[5]  Sex differences in the audiomotor control of phonation , 1984 .

[6]  D. Childers,et al.  A critical review of electroglottography. , 1985, Critical reviews in biomedical engineering.

[7]  J. Sundberg,et al.  The Science of Singing Voice , 1987 .

[8]  L. Jäncke,et al.  Vowel duration and voice onset time for stressed and nonstressed syllables in stutterers under delayed auditory feedback condition. , 1989, Folia phoniatrica.

[9]  Hideki Kawahara,et al.  Interactions between speech production and perception under auditory feedback perturbations on fundamental frequencies , 1994 .

[10]  C. Larson,et al.  Voice F0 responses to pitch-shifted auditory feedback: a preliminary study. , 1997, Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation.

[11]  C. Larson,et al.  Cross-modality influences in speech motor control: the use of pitch shifting for the study of F0 control. , 1998, Journal of communication disorders.

[12]  Michael I. Jordan,et al.  Sensorimotor adaptation in speech production. , 1998, Science.

[13]  C. Larson,et al.  Voice F0 responses to manipulations in pitch feedback. , 1998, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[14]  Marc Bangert,et al.  Short and medium motor responses to auditory pitch shift: Latency measurements of the professional musician’s audio‐motor loop for intonation , 1999 .

[15]  K. Kalveram,et al.  Fundamental frequency and phonation duration under frequency-shifted auditory feedback in stuttering and nonstuttering adults , 2000 .