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ERIC Number: EJ1043535
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014-Oct
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1092-4388
EISSN: N/A
Talker Identification across Source Mechanisms: Experiments with Laryngeal and Electrolarynx Speech
Perrachione, Tyler K.; Stepp, Cara E.; Hillman, Robert E.; Wong, Patrick C. M.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, v57 n5 p1651-1665 Oct 2014
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine listeners' ability to learn talker identity from speech produced with an electrolarynx, explore source and filter differentiation in talker identification, and describe acoustic-phonetic changes associated with electrolarynx use. Method: Healthy adult control listeners learned to identify talkers from speech recordings produced using talkers' normal laryngeal vocal source or an electrolarynx. Listeners' abilities to identify talkers from the trained vocal source (Experiment 1) and generalize this knowledge to the untrained source (Experiment 2) were assessed. Acoustic-phonetic measurements of spectral differences between source mechanisms were performed. Additional listeners attempted to match recordings from different source mechanisms to a single talker (Experiment 3). Results: Listeners successfully learned talker identity from electrolarynx speech but less accurately than from laryngeal speech. Listeners were unable to generalize talker identity to the untrained source mechanism. Electrolarynx use resulted in vowels with higher F1 frequencies compared with laryngeal speech. Listeners matched recordings from different sources to a single talker better than chance. Conclusions: Electrolarynx speech, although lacking individual differences in voice quality, nevertheless conveys sufficient indexical information related to the vocal filter and articulation for listeners to identify individual talkers. Psychologically, perception of talker identity arises from a "gestalt" of the vocal source and filter.
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). 10801 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. Tel: 800-638-8255; Fax: 301-571-0457; e-mail: subscribe@asha.org; Web site: http://jslhr.asha.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health (DHHS); National Science Foundation
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 5T32DC000038–17; 5T32HD007424; BCS-0719666; BCS-1125144; R01DC008333; K02AG035382