Voice and Speech Processing

Question 1

What is voice produced by?

Answer 1

The vocal tract

Question 2

What is voice dependent on and what are the parameters of voice determined by?

Answer 2

Anatomy of the vocal tract?

Question 3

What happens to your voice if you are in a particular physical state (e.g. stressed/ sad)?

Answer 3

Your vocal cord will vibrate differently producing different kinds of voice

Question 4

What did McAleer et al find when they got participants to rate social traits on ‘hello’ spoken by 64 different people?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

What is Cronbach Alpha?

Answer 5

A measure for interrater agreeableness

Question 6

What are the two principle components social traits can be mapped onto?

Answer 6

• The 1st principle component is highly correlated with trustworthiness
• The 2nd principle component is highly correlated with dominance

Question 7

What are the range of physical parameters in which voices can be described in?

Answer 7

• pitch (fundamental frequency F0)
• Intensity (amplitude)
• Tempo (speed)

Question 8

Can emotions in voices be recognised across cultures?

Answer 8

-Some vocal emotions are shared across cultures but others may be influences by culture and language specific factors

Question 9

What does listening to voices versus non vocal sounds elicit in the temporal cortices?

Answer 9

Bilateral neural activity

Question 10

What is neural adaptation and how does this work with the voice?

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

What part of the brain responds to speaker identity?

Answer 11

Anterior part of the temporal lobe

Question 12

Are there parts of the brain specific to angry vocal emotional processing?

Answer 12

No - these parts of the brain are specific to human voice

Question 13

How can we test the effects of a disruption to the voice areas on the performance of voice recognition?

Answer 13

Using TMS

Question 14

What does TMS to individual voice areas do (right temporal TMS)?

Answer 14

Impairs accuracy in voice/ non-voice discrimination compared to TMS to the control site

Question 15

Is low level loudness discrimination affected by TMS to the voice areas?

Answer 15

No

Question 16

When can you understand vocoded speech?

Answer 16

When the brain knows what it is looking for - top down information

Question 17

What area is involved in speech production?

Answer 17

Brocas area

Question 18

What area is involved in speech comprehension?

Answer 18

Wernicke’s area

Question 19

Is speech processing right or left lateralised according to Scott et al?

Answer 19

Left lateralised

Question 20

If you are more precise in the time of your speech are you more or less precise in frequency and vice versa?

Answer 20

Less precise

Question 21

Which temporal regions are more specialised in processing time information?

Answer 21

Left temporal regions

Question 22

Which temporal regions are more specialised in processing spectral information?

Answer 22

Right temporal regions

Question 23

What is the McGurk effect?

Answer 23

You perceive syllables differently depending on mouth movement

Question 24

What is an efference copy?

Answer 24

A copy of motor command coming out of the motor system: gets sent to voice area in the temporal lobe

Question 25

What does an fMRI study show in terms of the motor system and speech comprehension?

Answer 25

There is increased involvement of the motor system in perceiving the McGurk effects

Question 26

How is speech perception complemented by speech production?

Answer 26

• Efference copy tires to predict what someone will say

- the motor system is involved in predicting what someone will say

Question 27

How does the brain separate continuous speech signal into separate syllables and words?

Answer 27

• neural oscillations

- our neurons oscillate and this provides rhythm

Question 28

In a crowded room how can we hear someone specific talking?

Answer 28

We hear when the brain oscillations synchronise with the speed of talking

Question 29

What is phase locking?

Answer 29

How much the signals synchronise with each other

Question 30

Why is 4.5 Hz the preferred frequency that motor region and speech perception regions synchronise?

Answer 30

Because most human languages have a syllabic rate of 4.5 Hz on average

Question 31

What are the two pathways speech is processed in?

Answer 31

• Dorsal ‘how’ pathway

- Ventral ‘what’ pathway