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Speech perception Flashcards

1
Q

Phoneme

A

a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language

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2
Q

Number of speech sounds across all languages

A

over 850 different speech sounds.

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3
Q

3 steps of speech

A

Respiration, phonation, articulation

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4
Q

Respiration

A

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

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5
Q

Phonation

A

The process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out of the lungs, creating a certain frequency or sound (just a tone at this stage)

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6
Q

at the _____, the air must pass through two vocal folds

A

Larynx

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7
Q

What causes pitch differences in speech ?

A

More tension will cause more high-pitched sounds
- small vocal folds = high-pitched voices (chidren < women < men)

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8
Q

Harmonic spectrum

A
  • spectrum of sound passing through the vocal folds (amplitude on y axis, frequencies on x axis)
  • made up of multiple integers of the fundamental frequency
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9
Q

Articulation

A

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

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10
Q

filter of speech

A

Articulation is the filter : amplifies certain frequencies, reduce others

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11
Q

vocal tract

A

area above the larynx (oral + nasal tract)

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12
Q

How can humans change the shape of their vocal tract ?

A

by manipulating their jaws, lips, tongue body, tongue tip, and velum (soft palate) – this is what we call “articulation” and what will produce the different phonemes

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13
Q

Resonance characteristics are created by …

A

changing the size and shape of the vocal tract to affect sound frequency distribution : increase/decrease energy at different frequencies.

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14
Q

formants

A

Peaks in the speech spectrum
- labelled by number, from lowest to highest frequency (F1, F2, F3)
- Formants have higher frequencies for people who have shorter vocal tracts. It is the relationship between the formants, usually first 3 to identify a phoneme, that counts.

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15
Q

Spectrograms

A

flipped spectrum with z axis as intensity
x: time
y: frequency
color: energy (amplitude), red = lot of intensity

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16
Q

How many sounds do we produce per second ?

A

10–15 consonants and vowels per second (can be doubled if you talk fast).

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17
Q

Coarticulation

A

Overlap in articulatory or speech patterns due to articulation in anticipation of the next consonant or vowel

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18
Q

Why can consonants preceding vowels be difficult to identify only from their formants ?

A

Because the vocal tract is preparing to produce a different vowel
- Even though we perceive the same consonant no matter the following vowel, the formants are actually quite different

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19
Q

“Motor theory” of speech perception

A

Motor processes used to produce speech sounds are used in reverse to understand the acoustic speech signal, “reading lips”

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20
Q

McGurk Effect

A

what someone sees can affect what they hear.
Seeing someone saying “ga” and reading “ba” at the same will lead you to hear something in between : “da”
- Using knowledge of articulation to perceive phonemes

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21
Q

Learning to listen

A

Already at four days old, infants, French babies prefer hearing French over Russian.
- However, the ability to distinguish phonemes starts off as almost universal, and decreases with time (e.g. after 10 months old, English infants lose the ability to distinguish Hindi phonemes not present in English)

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22
Q

Wernicke’s area

A

Area of the brain that is responsible with associating sound with meaning

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23
Q

Steps in associating sound with meaning

A
  1. Decode sound in primary auditory cortex and belt, para belt regions
  2. Brain sends this information to Wernicke’s area for meaning decoding
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24
Q

Wernicke or fluent (no problem speaking) aphasia

A
  • Can hear well
  • Lose word-sound-meaning connection
  • Speech sounds non-sensical but fluent
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25
Broca’s area
Production of speech is controlled by primary motor cortex, but another region tells it which movement to articulate : this region is Broca’s area
26
Broca’s aphasia
Can understand everything, but have trouble speaking and finding the right words
27
Both Broca and Wernicke's areas are in the ____ hemisphere
Left
28
Is music found in every culture ?
Yes, it is as prevalent as speech
29
2 purposes of music
1. Regulate infants’ mood : to cheer babies up, calm them 2. Bring people together : whenever there is a gathering, there will often be music and speech (e.g. stadiums, weddings, funerals)
30
Tone height
A sound quality corresponding to the level of pitch. Tone height is monotonically related to frequency (from low to high)
31
Tone chroma
A sound quality shared by tones that have the same octave interval. –Each note on the musical scale (A–G) has a different chroma.
32
True or false : There is more to musical pitch than just frequency
True
33
Octave
The interval between two sound frequencies having a ratio of 2:1. Example: Middle C do (C4) has a fundamental frequency of 261.6 Hz; notes that are one octave from middle C do are 130.8 Hz (C3) and 523.2 Hz (C5).
34
Western music has 13 notes separated by ___ equally-spaced pitch intervals (semitones).
12
35
How many octaves is there within the audible range ?
10 (a piano has 7)
36
consonance
When two or more notes are played simultaneously (referred to as a chord) or sequentially : - the combination sounds pleasant, as if the notes “go together”
37
dissonance
When two or more notes are played simultaneously (referred to as a chord) or sequentially : the combination sounds unpleasant or “off.”
38
Consonance happens when ...
The fundamental frequency of the two notes or tones of the cord(e.g., C and G) have a simple ratio (ex. 3:2 or 4:3, meaning C is two thirds of G). In this case many harmonics of the two sounds will coincide.
39
Dissonance happens when ...
the fundamental frequencies of the two notes (e.g., C and G) have a complex ratio (ex. 42:33). In this case very few harmonics will coincide.
40
At what age do children prefer hearing consonance ?
2 months old head-turn preference) : innate, or learned rapidly
41
Scale
A particular subset of the notes in an octave. The scale used the most often are the minor and major scales : defined by sequence of semitones between each of the notes of the scale. —for the major scales, the pattern is 2–2–1–2–2–2–1, and for the minor scales, it’s 2–1–2–2–1–2–2.
42
Key
scale that functions as the basis of a musical composition for example, a composition in the key of C major contains notes mostly from the C major scale.
43
Emotion and key
- In general, major scales sound « happy » and minor scales sound « sad »
44
Rating of consonance based on scale
1. Notes in the cord : rated as fitting the most 2. Notes taken from the same scale as the cord : fits 3. Notes that are not part of the same scale : sound bad
45
Tonic
- root note of the key that acts as the gravity point of the key (note that sounds the “best”). - Moving away from and back to the tonic resting point of the key is partly what makes music interesting and why it has a pleasing effect on us.
46
Melody
A sequence of notes or chords perceived as a single coherent structure. –Examples: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
47
countours
The pattern of rises and declines in pitch – rather than an exact sequence of sound frequencies; what defines a melody
48
Melodies can change _____ or ____ and still be the same melody even if they have completely different notes.
Octaves or keys
49
Music is mostly processed in the ...
- mostly primary auditory cortex on both sides of the brain, but belt and parabelt regions on the right side of the brain were sensitive to pitch changes (on the left side for phonemes)
50
Region important for perceiving melodic contour
Parabelt region
51
Congenital amusia
Umbrella term for lifelong musical disabilities that cannot be attributed to intellectual disability, lack of exposure, or brain damage after birth.
52
Amusics are impaired at detecting pitch deviations that are smaller than ...
Two semitones (ex. difference between D and C).
53
Other traits of amusia
- Can’t report tones that are out-of-key, i.e. that don’t fit with the melody. - Tone intervals processing = cannot extract melodic contour
54
ERAN (early right anterior negativity)
Negative event-related potential (ERP) that occurs 200 ms after the detection of a melodic tonal violation.
55
P600
positive event-related potential (ERP) that occurs 600 ms after the detection of a melodic tonal violation. It reflects the conscious perception of the tonal violation
56
Amusics ERAN and P600
Nrmal ERANs, but have no P600, which suggests that they lack conscious access to processed pitch deviances : they are « in-tune » but « unaware »
57
Structural abnormalities in amusia
in the right frontotemporal network : disrupted transmission between the [inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus (STG) ] and the left STG
58
Absolute Pitch
a rare ability whereby some people are able to very accurately name or produce notes without comparison to other notes. -> recent studies suggest it is ~ 1/1500.
59
What suggests that absolute pitch is genetic ?
Concordance rate for AP is higher in monozygotic twin pairs vs. Dizygotic twin pairs
60
What suggests that absolute pitch also depends on the environment ?
It seems like early musical training is necessary for absolute pitch (low chance of absolute pitch after 9 years old)

Perception (16 decks)

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