Lecture 18 Flashcards
Phoneme
A unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language
-E.g. kill vs kiss (3 phenomes each)
Respiration
The diaphragm psuhes air out of lungs, through the trachea, up to the larynx
Phonation
The process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out of the lungs
-E.g. small vocal folds = high-pitched voices
-The spectrum of sound passing through the vocal folds has a harmonic spectrum
Articulation
The act or manner of producing a speech sound using th vocal tract
-Humans can change the shape of their vocal tract by manipulating their jaws, lips, tongue body, tongue tip, and velum
Formants
Changing size and shape of vocal tracts will increase/decrease energy at different frequencies. Peaks in the speech spectrum are called this…
have shorter vocal tracts
Formants have higher frequencies for people who…
identify the phoneme
Most of the time, the first 3 formants are sufficient to…
Spectograms
The spectrum of speech sounds changes over time. these help represent that third dimension (time)
Coarticulation
-Speech production is very fast : 10-15 constants and vowels per second
-Experienced talkers position tongue, etc. in anticipation of next constant or vowel, causing this.
-This will cause overlap in articulatory or speech patterns
'’Motor Theory’’ os speech perception
Motor processes used to produce speech sounds are used in reverse to understand the acoustic speech signal
McGurk Effect
McGurk and MacDonald (1976) showed that what someone sees can affect what they hear
Speech production is as complex if not more complex than speech perception…
What is the problem with the ‘‘motor theory’’ of speech perception?
Reduce the number of phonetic categories
What is the solution to the ‘‘motor theory’’ of speech perception?
Learning to Listen
Infants begin filtering out irrelevant acoustics long before they start to say speech sounds`
-E.g. english-speaking infants < 10 months can distinguish between 2 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
Wernicke’s Area
Speech without meaning
-Comprehension impairment
-Right hemisphere
Broca’s Area
Speech impairment
-Meaning but non-fluent
-Left hemisphere
Music is Universal
-Brings people together
-Tonal structure
-Rhythmic structure
Tone Height
A sound quality corresponding to the level of pitch. This is monotonically related to frequency. Low to high.
Tone Chroma
A sound quality shared by tones that have the same octave interval. Related to notes we hear
-Each note on the musical scale (A-G) has a different one
Octave
The interval between two sound frequencies having a ratio of 2:1
-E.g. Middle C (C4) has a fundamental frequency of 261.6 Hz; notes that are 1 octave from middle C are 130.8 Hz (C3) and 523.2 Hz (C5)
-A piano has 7 octaves
Consonance
When 2 or more notes are played simultaneously (referred to as a chord) or sequentially, the combination sounds pleasant, as if the notes ‘‘go together’’
-the fundamental frequency of the two notes have a simple ratio (3:2)
Dissonance
When 2 or more notes are played simultaneously (referred to as a chord) or sequentially, the combination sounds unpleasant or ‘‘off’’
-the fundamental frequencies of the two notes have a complex ratio (42:33)
Scale
A particular subset of the notes in an octave
Key
The 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
