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Description
During speech, the brain is constantly processing and monitoring speech output through the auditory feedback loop to ensure correct and accurate speech. If the speech signal is experimentally altered/perturbed while speaking, the brain compensates for the perturbations by changing speech output in the opposite direction of the perturbations. In this study, we designed an experiment that examined the compensatory responses in response to unexpected vowel perturbations during speech. We applied two types of perturbations. In one condition, the vowel /ɛ/ was perturbed toward the vowel /æ/ by simultaneously shifting both the first formant (F1) and the second formant (F2) at 3 different levels (.5=small, 1=medium, and 1.5=large shifts). In another condition, the vowel /ɛ/ was perturbed by shifting F1 at 3 different levels (small, medium, and large shifts). Our results showed that there was a significant perturbation-type effect, with participants compensating more in response to perturbation that shifted /ɛ/ toward /æ/. In addition, we found that there was a significant level effect, with the compensatory responses to level .5 being significantly smaller than the compensatory responses to levels 1 and 1.5, regardless of the perturbation pathway. We also found that responses to shift level 1 and shift level 1.5 did not differ. Overall, our results highlighted the importance of the auditory feedback loop during speech production and how the brain is more sensitive to auditory errors that change a vowel category (e.g., /ɛ/ to /æ/).
ContributorsFitzgerald, Lacee (Author) / Daliri, Ayoub (Thesis director) / Corianne, Rogalsky (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05