Voice and Speech Processing Flashcards
What is voice produced by?
The vocal tract
What is voice dependent on and what are the parameters of voice determined by?
Anatomy of the vocal tract?
What happens to your voice if you are in a particular physical state (e.g. stressed/ sad)?
Your vocal cord will vibrate differently producing different kinds of voice
What did McAleer et al find when they got participants to rate social traits on ‘hello’ spoken by 64 different people?
- They found using Cronbach Alpha that people consistently agree on whether a voice sounds attractive or confident
- We seem to associate voices with social traits on a collective level
What is Cronbach Alpha?
A measure for interrater agreeableness
What are the two principle components social traits can be mapped onto?
- The 1st principle component is highly correlated with trustworthiness
- The 2nd principle component is highly correlated with dominance
What are the range of physical parameters in which voices can be described in?
- pitch (fundamental frequency F0)
- Intensity (amplitude)
- Tempo (speed)
Can emotions in voices be recognised across cultures?
-Some vocal emotions are shared across cultures but others may be influences by culture and language specific factors
What does listening to voices versus non vocal sounds elicit in the temporal cortices?
Bilateral neural activity
What is neural adaptation and how does this work with the voice?
- A gradual decrease over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus
- some bran regions will adapt to repeating speaker identity in the voice
- some brain regions will adapt to repeating syllable in the voice
What part of the brain responds to speaker identity?
Anterior part of the temporal lobe
Are there parts of the brain specific to angry vocal emotional processing?
No - these parts of the brain are specific to human voice
How can we test the effects of a disruption to the voice areas on the performance of voice recognition?
Using TMS
What does TMS to individual voice areas do (right temporal TMS)?
Impairs accuracy in voice/ non-voice discrimination compared to TMS to the control site
Is low level loudness discrimination affected by TMS to the voice areas?
No
When can you understand vocoded speech?
When the brain knows what it is looking for - top down information
What area is involved in speech production?
Brocas area
What area is involved in speech comprehension?
Wernicke’s area
Is speech processing right or left lateralised according to Scott et al?
Left lateralised
If you are more precise in the time of your speech are you more or less precise in frequency and vice versa?
Less precise
Which temporal regions are more specialised in processing time information?
Left temporal regions
Which temporal regions are more specialised in processing spectral information?
Right temporal regions
What is the McGurk effect?
You perceive syllables differently depending on mouth movement
What is an efference copy?
A copy of motor command coming out of the motor system: gets sent to voice area in the temporal lobe
What does an fMRI study show in terms of the motor system and speech comprehension?
There is increased involvement of the motor system in perceiving the McGurk effects
How is speech perception complemented by speech production?
- Efference copy tires to predict what someone will say
- the motor system is involved in predicting what someone will say
How does the brain separate continuous speech signal into separate syllables and words?
- neural oscillations
- our neurons oscillate and this provides rhythm
In a crowded room how can we hear someone specific talking?
We hear when the brain oscillations synchronise with the speed of talking
What is phase locking?
How much the signals synchronise with each other
Why is 4.5 Hz the preferred frequency that motor region and speech perception regions synchronise?
Because most human languages have a syllabic rate of 4.5 Hz on average
What are the two pathways speech is processed in?
- Dorsal ‘how’ pathway
- Ventral ‘what’ pathway
