Final Lecture 16: March 21

Question 1

what is Phoneme:

Answer 1

a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language (e.g.: kill vs kiss).

Question 2

get around confusing differences between sound and spelling, we use what

Answer 2

the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Question 3

how is Speech production done

Answer 3

respiration
phonotation
Articulation

Question 4

how does Respiration work

Answer 4

the diaphragm pushes air out of lungs, through the trachea, up to the larynx

Question 5

what is Phonation:

Answer 5

The process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out of the lungs.

• at the larynx, the air must pass through two vocal folds (a.k.a. vocal cords)
• more tension will cause more high-pitched sounds - small vocal folds, high-pitched voices
  (chidren < women < men)
• The spectrum of sound passing through the vocal folds is a harmonic spectrum.

Question 6

what is Articulation:

Answer 6

The act or manner of producing a speech sound using the vocal tract

Question 7

where is The vocal tract

Answer 7

is the area above the larynx (oral + nasal tract).

Question 8

Humans can change the shape of their vocal tract by manipulating what

Answer 8

their jaws, lips, tongue body, tongue tip, and velum (soft palate) – this is what we call “articulation”

Question 9

Resonance characteristics createdhow

Answer 9

by changing size and shape of vocal tracts to affect sound frequency distribution

Question 10

changing size and shape of vocal tracts will increase/ decrease what

Answer 10

energy at different frequencies

Question 11

Peaks in the speech spectrum are calledwhat

Answer 11

formants

Question 12

Formants are labelledhow

Answer 12

by number, from lowest to

highest (F1, F2, F3).

Question 13

Formants have higher frequencies for who

Answer 13

people who have shorter vocal tracts. It is the relationship between the formants that counts

Question 14

Most of the time, the first three formants are sufficient to identify what

Answer 14

the phoneme

Question 15

The spectrum of speech sounds changes over time.

- Spectrograms help represent what

Answer 15

that third dimension

time

Question 16

what are the points to Spectrograms

Answer 16

x: time
y: frequency
color: energy (amplitude

Question 17

Speech production is very fast: 10–15 consonants and vowels per second (can be doubled if you talk fast).
- Experienced talkers position tongue, etc. in anticipation of what

Answer 17

next consonant or vowel, causing coarticulation.

Question 18

Coarticulation will cause what

Answer 18

overlap in articulatory or speech patterns.

Question 19

Perception doesn’t reflect the actual mixture of visual input, but is biased towards what

Answer 19

pre- existing categories, i.e. perception is « all-or- none ».

Question 20

Perception doesn’t reflect the actual mixture of visual input, but is biased towards pre- existing categories, i.e. perception is « all-or- none ». This causes what

Answer 20

This causes pairs of within-category stimuli to be perceived as more similar than they really, and pairs of between-category stimuli to be perceived as more different than they really are.

Question 21

Four-day-old French babies prefer hearingfrench or russian

Answer 21

French over Russian

Question 22

Sound distinctions are specific to wha

Answer 22

various languages. For example, ‘r’

and ‘l’ are not distinguished in Japanese

Question 23

Infants begin filtering out irrelevant acoustics when

Answer 23

long before they start to say speech sounds.

For instance, english-speaking infants <10 months can distinguish between two types of “t” sounds that are different phonemes in Hindi, but loose that ability after 10 months, while Hindi infants still continue to make the distinction

Question 24

what is the Motor theory” of speech perception

Answer 24

Motor processes used to produce speech sounds are used in reverse to understand the acoustic speech signal

Question 25

“Motor theory” of speech perception: Motor processes used to produce speech sounds are used in reverse to understand the acoustic speech signal.
- Supported by the McGurk Effect how

Answer 25

McGurk and MacDonald (1976) showed that what someone sees can affect what they hear.

Question 26

is music universal

Answer 26

yes

Question 27

what is Tone height:

Answer 27

A sound quality corresponding to the level of pitch. Tone height is monotonically related to frequency

Question 28

what is Tone chroma

Answer 28

A sound quality shared by tones that have the same octave interval

Each note on the musical scale (A–G) has a different chroma.
– There is more to musical pitch than just frequency!

Question 29

what is Octave:

Answer 29

The interval between two sound frequencies having a ratio of 2:1.
– Example: Middle C (C4) has a fundamental frequency of 261.6 Hz; notes that are one octave from middle C are 130.8 Hz (C3) and 523.2 Hz (C5).
– C3 (130.8 Hz) sounds more similar to C4 (261.6 Hz) than to E3 (164.8 Hz).

Question 30

When two or more notes are played simultaneously (referred to as a chord) or sequen3ally, the combina3on may exhibit what

Answer 30

consonance or dissonace

Question 31

what is consonance

Answer 31

the combina3on sounds pleasant, as if the notes “go together”

Question 32

what is dissonance—

Answer 32

the combina3on sounds unpleasant or “off.”

Question 33

Consonance happens when what

Answer 33

happens when the fundamental frequency of the two notes (e.g., C and G) have a simple ra3o (ex. 3:2 or 4:3). In this case many harmonics of the two sounds will coincide, and they will all coincide with a note at a lower frequency (e.g. Q)

Question 34

Dissonance happens when what

Answer 34

the fundamental frequency of the two notes (e.g., C and G) have a complex ra3o (ex. 42:33). In this case very few harmonics will coincide.

Question 35

2 months old infants prefer consonance or dissonance

Answer 35

consonance

Question 36

can music help pain

Answer 36

is it is pleasant it can reduce how much we perceive pain

Question 37

what is Scale:

Answer 37

A par3cular subset of the notes in an octave

Question 38

what is Key:

Answer 38

The scale that func3ons as the basis of a musical composi3on for example, a composi3on in the key of C major contains notes mostly from the C major scale

Question 39

The major and minor scales are differen3ated by what

Answer 39

the paaern of intervals (number of semitones) between successive notes—for the major scales, the paaern is 2–2–1–2–2–2–1, and for the minor scales, it’s 2–1–2–2–1– 2–2.

Question 40

In general, major scales sound «_____ » and minor scales sound «____ »

Answer 40

happy

sad

Question 41

The root note of the key (i.e. the tonic) acts as the gravity point of the key. Moving away from and back to the tonic resting point of the key does what

Answer 41

is partly what makes music interes3ng and why it has a pleasing effect on us