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Présentation du numéro 7.

While language is expressed in multiple modalities, including sign, writing, or whistles, speech is arguably the most common. The human vocal tract is capable of producing the bewildering diversity of the 7000 or so currently spoken languages, but relatively little is known about its genetic bases, especially in what concerns normal variation. Here, we capitalize on five cohorts totaling 632 Dutch twins with structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Two raters placed clearly defined (semi)landmarks on each MRI scan, from which we derived 146 measures capturing the dimensions and shape of various vocal tract structures, but also aspects of the head and face. We used Genetic Covariance Structure Modeling to estimate the additive genetic, common environmental or non-additive genetic, and unique environmental components, while controlling for various confounds and for any systematic differences between the two raters. We found high heritability, h2, for aspects of the skull and face, the mandible, the anteroposterior (horizontal) dimension of the vocal tract, and the position of the hyoid bone. These findings extend the existing literature, and open new perspectives for understanding the complex interplay between genetics, environment, and culture that shape our vocal tracts, and which may help explain cross-linguistic differences in phonetics and phonology.

Les îlots linguistiques se constituent normalement à la faveur d'obstacles géographiques qui les préservent des contacts extérieurs, et par conséquent de l'hybridation linguistique. Tel n'est pas le cas de la ville de Sfax qui est, au contraire, une ville de commerce ouverte sur la mer, en tant que deuxième port de la Tunisie, et sur les terres, puisqu'elle est édifiée dans les plaines de la région, côtière. Tout en étant ouverte, le parler de ses habitants tranche avec celui des Tunisiens. Nous en décrirons certaines spécificités linguistiques et nous focaliserons particulièrement sur les aspects culturels. Els illots lingüístics es constitueixen normalment aprofitant els obstacles geogràfics que els preserven dels contacts exteriors i, per tant, de la hibridació lingüística. No és el cas de la ciutat de Sfax que és, per contra, una ciutat comercial oberta al mar com a segon port de Tunísia i al territori atès que està edificada en les planes de la regió costanera. Tot i ser oberta, la parla dels seus habitants contrasta amb la dels tunisians. En describim algunes de les especificitats lingüístiques i ens centrarem en particular en els aspectes culturals. Los islotes lingüísticos se constituyen normalmente al calor de obstáculos geográficos que los preservan de los contactos exteriores y, por consiguiente, de la hibridación lingüística. No es el caso de la ciudad de Sfax que es, por el contrario, una ciudad comercial abierta al mar como segundo puerto de Túnez y al territorio puesto que está edificada en las llanuras de la región costera. Aun siendo abierta, el habla de sus habitantes contrasta con la de los tunecinos. Describimos algunas de sus especificidades lingüísticas y nos centraremos en particular en los aspectos culturales. This article describes the linguistic specificities of Sfax, a Tunisian coastal city. Open to the Mediterranean, it paradoxically represents a linguistic space of which specificities stand out with the rest of the standard Tunisian dialect, despite the development of means of communication. Beyond linguistic specificities, cultural dimensions emerge.

Common Voice és un projecte que convida a la gent a donar la seva veu en la seva llengua materna amb el propòsit de reunir corpus de veus. Aquests corpus, disponibles en més de noranta idiomes, estan formats per una gran quantitat d’àudios curts, en els quals els usuaris es graven llegint una frase, i es poden utilitzar per millorar els sistemes de reconeixement i síntesi de parla. Precisament en català la majoria d’aquests sistemes actualment necessiten millores en els seus models i la base de dades de Common Voice pot arribar a ser de gran utilitat. Un dels seus avantatges és l'accessibilitat per a tothom, tant per la gent que vol desenvolupar sistemes de reconeixement com per la que vol proporcionar la seva veu. Per aquest motiu, aquest projecte utilitza el corpus català amb la intenció de validar-lo, intentant generar una segmentació fonètica dels àudios i posteriorment analitzant la precisió de les etiquetes, amb l’objectiu de poder contribuir en el desenvolupament de les tecnologies de la parla, a més d’adquirir coneixements sobre el funcionament de gestió de dades i entrenament de models amb xarxes neuronals. Inicialment, es pretenia processar la base de dades completa, formada per 25 GB de dades i més de 1000 hores gravades, però això requereix una gran quantitat de temps i de recursos computacionals, així que s’ha optat per seleccionar un conjunt reduït de dades i treballar a menor escala. El procediment ha sigut realitzar un alineament forçat amb els àudios i les seves transcripcions amb els programes Festival i Montreal Forced Aligner. Per aquest últim s’ha necessitat entrenar un model acústic, utilitzant el mateix corpus de Common Voice però amb diferents arxius. Finalment s’ha analitzat la precisió temporal de les etiquetes resultants, en les que s’ha vist que no eren del tot perfectes. Common Voice es un proyecto que invita a la gente a donar su voz en su lengua materna con el propósito de reunir corpus de voz. Estos corpus, disponibles en más de noventa idiomas, estan formados por una gran cantidad de audios cortos, en los que los usuarios se graban leyendo una frase, y se pueden utilizar para mejorar los sistemes de reconocimiento y síntesi del habla. Precisamente en catalán la mayoría de estos sistemas actualmente necesitan mejoras en sus models y la base de datos de Common Voice puede llegar a ser de gran utilidad. Una de sus ventajas es la accesibilidad para todo el mundo, tanto para la gente que quiere desarrollar sistemas de reconocimiento como para la que quiere proporcionar su voz. Por eso, este proyecto utiliza el corpus catalán con la intención de validarlo, intentando generar una segmentación fonética de los audios y posteriormente analizando la precisión de las etiquetas, con el objetivo de poder contribuir con el desarrollo de las tecnologías del habla, además de adquirir conocimientos sobre el funcionamiento de gestión de datos y entrenamiento de modelos con redes neuronales. Inicialmente, se pretendía procesar la base de datos completa, formada por 25 GB de datos y más de 1000 horas grabadas, pero esto requiere una gran cantidad de tiempo y de recursos computacionales, así que se ha optado por seleccionar un conjunto reducido de datos y trabajar a menor escala. El procedimiento ha sido realizar un alineamiento forzado con los audios y sus transcripciones con los programas Festival y Montreal Forced Aligner. Para este último se ha necesitado entrenar un modelo acústico, usando el mismo corpus de Common Voice pero con diferentes archivos. Finalmente se ha analizado la precisión temporal de las etiquetas resultantes, en las que se ha visto que no eran del todo perfectas. Common Voice is a project that invites people to donate their voice in their mother tongue in order to collect speech corpora. These corpora, available in more than ninety languages, consist of a large quantity of short audio files, in which users record themselves reading a sentence, and can be used to improve speech recognition and synthesis systems. In catalan, most of these systems currently need improvement in their models and the Common Voice dataset may be very helpful. One of its advantages is the accessibility for everyone, both for people who want to develop speech recognition systems and for people who want to provide their voice data. For this reason, this project uses the catalan corpus with the purpose of validating it, generating a phonetic segmentation of the audios and subsequently analyzing the labeling precision, with the aim of being able to contribute in the development of speech technologies, as well as gaining knowledge about data management and model training. The initial idea was processing the whole dataset, consisting of 25 GB of data and more than 1000 hours of recording, but this requires a large amount of time and computing resources, so a later choice was selecting a reduced set of audios and work on a smaller scale. The procedure was performing forced alignment on the audios and their orthographic transcriptions with Festival and Montreal Forced Aligner. For the latter, the training of a new acoustic model was needed, using the same Common Voice corpus but with different files. Finally the accuracy of the labels was analyzed, but the results showed that they were not entirely accurate.

Comunicació a congrès: 4th Phonetics and Phonology in Europe 2021 (PaPE 2021): Phonetics and Phonology: Real-world applications. 21 to 23 June 2021. Barcelona. Virtual.

Neural oscillations constitute an intrinsic property of functional brain organization that facilitates the tracking of linguistic units at multiple time scales through brain-to-stimulus alignment. This ubiquitous neural principle has been shown to facilitate speech segmentation and word learning based on statistical regularities. However, there is no common agreement yet on whether speech segmentation is mediated by a transition of neural synchronization from syllable to word rate, or whether the two time scales are concurrently tracked. Furthermore, it is currently unknown whether syllable transition probability contributes to speech segmentation when lexical stress cues can be directly used to extract word forms. Using inter-trial coherence (ITC) analyses in combinations with Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), we showed that speech segmentation based on both statistical regularities and lexical stress cues was accompanied by concurrent neural synchronization to syllables and words. In particular, ITC at the word rate was generally higher in structured compared to random sequences, and this effect was particularly pronounced in the flat condition. Furthermore, ITC at the syllable rate dynamically increased across the blocks of the flat condition, whereas a similar modulation was not observed in the stressed condition. Notably, in the flat condition ITC at both time scales correlated with each other, and changes in neural synchronization were accompanied by a rapid reconfiguration of the P200 and N400 components with a close relationship between ITC and ERPs. These results highlight distinct computational principles governing neural synchronization to pertinent linguistic units while segmenting speech under different listening conditions.

People of all ages display the ability to detect and learn from patterns in seemingly random stimuli. Referred to as statistical learning (SL), this process is particularly critical when learning a spoken language, helping in the identification of discrete words within a spoken phrase. Here, by considering individual differences in speech auditory–motor synchronization, we demonstrate that recruitment of a specific neural network supports behavioral differences in SL from speech. While independent component analysis (ICA) of fMRI data revealed that a network of auditory and superior pre/motor regions is universally activated in the process of learning, a frontoparietal network is additionally and selectively engaged by only some individuals (high auditory–motor synchronizers). Importantly, activation of this frontoparietal network is related to a boost in learning performance, and interference with this network via articulatory suppression (AS; i.e., producing irrelevant speech during learning) normalizes performance across the entire sample. Our work provides novel insights on SL from speech and reconciles previous contrasting findings. These findings also highlight a more general need to factor in fundamental individual differences for a precise characterization of cognitive phenomena.

Highlights • Sixty 9-year-old children performed an audio-visual statistical learning task. • Children showed successful recognition of words and word-to-picture associations. • Enhanced neural tracking at word and syllable rate for consistent audio-visual streams. • Enhanced long-distance scalp-based phase synchronization suggested multi-sensory integration. • Multi-sensory cues may increase attention to enhance learning in children., When learning a new language, one must segment words from continuous speech and associate them with meanings. These complex processes can be boosted by attentional mechanisms triggered by multi-sensory information. Previous electrophysiological studies suggest that brain oscillations are sensitive to different hierarchical complexity levels of the input, making them a plausible neural substrate for speech parsing. Here, we investigated the functional role of brain oscillations during concurrent speech segmentation and meaning acquisition in sixty 9-year-old children. We collected EEG data during an audio-visual statistical learning task during which children were exposed to a learning condition with consistent word-picture associations and a random condition with inconsistent word-picture associations before being tested on their ability to recall words and word-picture associations. We capitalized on the brain dynamics to align neural activity to the same rate as an external rhythmic stimulus to explore modulations of neural synchronization and phase synchronization between electrodes during multi-sensory word learning. Results showed enhanced power at both word- and syllabic-rate and increased EEG phase synchronization between frontal and occipital regions in the learning compared to the random condition. These findings suggest that multi-sensory cueing and attentional mechanisms play an essential role in children's successful word learning.

Epidemiological studies suggest that bipolar disorder has a prevalence of about 1% in European countries, becoming one of the most disabling illnesses in working age adults, and often long-term and persistent with complex management and treatment. Therefore, the capacity of home monitoring for patients with this disorder is crucial for their quality of life. The current paper introduces the use of speech-based information as an easy-to-record, ubiquitous and non-intrusive health sensor suitable for home monitoring, and its application in the framework on the NYMPHA-MD project. Some preliminary results also show the potential of acoustic and prosodic features to detect and classify bipolar disorder, by predicting the values of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) from speech. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is part of the NYMPHA-MD project, which has been funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 610462. The first author has been funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the Fondo Social Europeo (FSE) under grant RYC-2015-17239 (AEI/FSE, UE).

[cat] A The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin fonamenta la idea que la nostra espècie va originar-se per selecció natural, la ment inclosa. Consegüentment, enfronta el repte de Max Müller segons el qual la capacitat de llenguatge en particular no pot explicar-se per l'acció de la selecció natural. El repte el supera Darwin amb una conjectura sobre l'evolució del llenguatge que és menys coneguda però més suggeridora i poderosa, completa i integrada que d'altres ara vigents; a més, en centrar-se en la parla articulada, és més plausible biològicament. La potència de la seva proposta neix d'un coneixement profund del llenguatge. També aquí Darwin estudia la filogènia amb la vista posada en l'ontogènia. No se li escapa tampoc la glossogènia, és a dir, el canvi lingüístic. Filogènia, ontogènia i glossogènia constitueixen, per aquest ordre, les tres parts d'aquest article., [eng] In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin underpins the idea that our species was evolved by natural selection, which includes the human mind. Consequently, he has to face Max Müller's challenge that our capacity for language cannot be explained through natural selection. Such a challenge is overcome by Darwin by means of a conjecture which is more suggestive and powerful, complete and integrative than others now current; besides, by being centered in speech, it is more plausible biologically. The power of Darwin's proposal arises from a deep knowledge of language. Here, as elsewhere in the Darwinian enterprise, phylogeny is studied with an eye on ontogeny. Glossogeny, it is to say, linguistic change is also contemplated. Phylogeny, ontogeny and glossogeny, in this order, are discussed in the three parts of the present essay.

Despite its prolific growth, neurolinguistic research on phonemic sequencing has largely neglected the study of individuals with highly developed skills in this domain. To bridge this gap, we report multidimensional signatures of two experts in backward speech, that is, the capacity to produce utterances by reversing the order of phonemes while retaining their identity. Our approach included behavioral assessments of backward and forward speech alongside neuroimaging measures of voxel-based morphometry, diffusion tensor imaging, and resting-state functional connectivity. Relative to controls, both backward speakers exhibited behavioral advantages for reversing words and sentences of varying complexity, irrespective of working memory skills. These patterns were accompanied by increased grey matter volume, higher mean diffusivity, and enhanced functional connectivity along dorsal and ventral stream regions mediating phonological and other linguistic operations, with complementary support of areas subserving associative-visual and domain-general processes. Still, the specific loci of these neural patterns differed between both subjects, suggesting individual variability in the correlates of expert backward speech. Taken together, our results offer new vistas on the domain of phonemic sequencing, while illuminating neuroplastic patterns underlying extraordinary language abilities. Fil: Torres Prioris, María José. Universidad de Málaga; España Fil: López Barroso, Diana. Universidad de Málaga; España Fil: Càmara, Estela. Universidad de Málaga; España Fil: Fittipaldi, María Sol. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina Fil: Sedeño, Lucas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina Fil: Ibañez, Agustin Mariano. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Autónoma del Caribe; Colombia. University of California; Estados Unidos. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; Chile Fil: Berthier, Marcelo L.. Universidad de Málaga; España Fil: García, Adolfo Martín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. University of California; Estados Unidos. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; Chile

Contains fulltext : 220228.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Objective; We studied an unusual case of global aphasia (GA) occurring after brain tumor removal and remitting one-month after surgery. After recovering, the patient reported on her experience during the episode, which suggested a partial preservation of language abilities (such as semantic processing) and the presence of inner speech (IS) despite a failure in overt speech production. Thus, we explored the role of IS and preserved language functions in the acute phase and investigated the neuroanatomical underpinnings of this severe breakdown in language processing. Method: A neuropsychological and language assessment tapping into language production, comprehension, attention and working memory was carried out both before and three months after surgery. In the acute stage a simplified protocol was tailored to assess the limited language abilities and further explore patient’s performance on different semantic tasks. The neuroanatomical dimension of these abrupt changes was provided by perioperative structural neuroimaging. Results: Language and neuropsychological performance were normal/close to normal both before and three months after surgery. In the acute stage, the patient presented severe difficulties with comprehension, production and repetition, whereas she was able to correctly perform tasks that requested conceptual analysis and non-verbal operations. After recovering, the patient reported that she had been able to internally formulate her thoughts despite her overt phonological errors during the episode. Structural neuroimaging revealed that an extra-axial blood collection affected the middle frontal areas during the acute stage and that the white matter circuitry was left-lateralized before surgery. Conclusions: We deemed that the global aphasia episode was produced by a combination of the post-operative extra-axial blood collection directly impacting left middle frontal areas and a left-lateralization of the arcuate and/or uncinated fasciculi before surgery. Additionally, we advocate for a comprehensive evaluation of linguistic function that includes the assessment of IS and non-expressive language functions in similar cases. 11 p.

The extended frontal aslant tract (exFAT) is a tractography-based extension of the frontal aslant tract (FAT) which has been shown to be related with language and working memory performance in healthy human adults, but whether those functional implications map to structurally separate regions along its trajectory is still an open question. We present a tractography-informed Voxel-Based Morphometry procedure capable of detecting local tract-specific structural differences in white matter regions and apply it in two maximum variation sampling studies by comparing local differences in diffusion-derived microstructural parameters and fiber density along the exFAT territory between top performers and bottom performers in language and working memory tasks. In the right hemisphere we were able to detect, without prior constraints, a vertical frontal aslant component approximating the original FAT trajectory whose fiber density was significantly correlated with language (but not working memory) performance and an anterior cluster component corresponding to a distinct anterior frontal aslant component whose fiber density was significantly correlated with working memory (but not language) performance. The reported sub-division of the exFAT territory describes a set of frontal connections that are compatible with previously reported results on the Broca’s territory and frontal cortex hierarchical organization along an anterior-posterior gradient, suggesting that the exFAT could be part of a common neuroanatomical scaffold where language and working memory functions are integrated in the healthy human brain.

La síndrome de deleció de 22q11 (S22q11) està considerada una malaltia minoritària, ja que afecta a menys de 5 de cada 10.000 habitants. Les persones amb la S22q11 poden presentar alteracions congènites cardiovasculars, anomalies del paladar, hipocalcemia, immunodeficiència i trets facials típics. L’evidència disponible suggereix un fenotip conductual característic, amb trastorns del comportament, psiquiàtrics, neuropsicològics i lingüístics. L’objectiu d’aquesta tesi ha estat definir el perfil lingüístic d’una mostra de persones amb la S22q11 que viuen a Espanya. La present tesi compren un total de tres estudis (dos publicats i un en procés de revisió). La mostra del primer va estar formada per 17 participants d’entre 3 anys i 3 mesos i 13 anys i 9 mesos (9,4 ± 3,5 anys) i la del segon i el tercer estudi per 30 subjectes d’entre 5 i 21 anys i 6 mesos (12,14 ± 4,20) amb la S22q11. L’avaluació dels participants va consistir en realitzar registres de veu i administrar diferents proves: secció sobre els òrgans fonoarticulatoris de la prova “Exploración del Lenguaje Comprensivo y Expresivo”, secció de discriminació auditiva de “L’exploració del llenguatge en el nen”, “Evaluación fonológica del habla infantil” o “Avaluació del desenvolupament fonològic en nens catalanoparlants de 3 a 7 anys”, “Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals – 4” en la seva versió espanyola i el test de fluïdesa fonològica verbal. Per tal d’obtenir les dades es va realitzar una entrevista semiestructurada als pares i se’ls va demanar que responguessin el qüestionari “Children’s Communication Checklist” en la seva versió espanyola. Els resultats, pel que fa a la veu, mostren que alguns participants presenten un to més agut de l’esperat per sexe i edat i altres més greu; la meitat manifesten una intensitat disminuïda; i la majoria presenten alteracions del timbre, entre les que destaquen la hipernasalitat i la ronquera. Respecte a la parla, els infants més petits presenten un retard en l’adquisició de fonemes orals en comparació amb seus iguals amb desenvolupament típic, i la majoria empren l’oclusiva glòtica (?) com a so compensatori. Els subjectes de major edat encara presenten dificultats específiques en la producció de determinats sons. Els participants mostren, en general, un nivell baix en totes les àrees del llenguatge, i dificultats tant en pragmàtica com en relació social. Per tant, els participants presenten un perfil lingüístic propi pel que fa a la veu, la parla i el llenguatge. És imprescindible ampliar aquestes troballes amb estudis més amplis. El síndrome de deleción de 22q11 (S22q11) está considerado una enfermedad rara, ya que afecta a menos de 5 de cada 10.000 habitantes. Las personas con el S22q11 pueden presentar alteraciones congénitas cardiovasculares, anomalías del paladar, hipocalcemia, inmunodeficiencia y rasgos faciales típicos. La evidencia disponible sugiere un fenotipo conductual característico, con trastornos del comportamiento, psiquiátricos, neuropsicológicos y lingüísticos. El objetivo de esta tesis ha sido definir el perfil lingüístico de una muestra de personas con el S22q11 que viven en España. La presente tesis comprende un total de tres estudios (dos publicados y uno en proceso de revisión). La muestra del primero estuvo formada por 17 participantes de entre 3 años y 3 meses y 13 años y 9 meses (9,4 ± 3,5 años) y la del segundo y el tercer estudio por 30 sujetos de entre 5 y 21 años y 6 meses (12,14 ± 4,20) con el S22q11. La evaluación de los participantes consistió en realizar registros de voz y administrar diferentes pruebas: sección sobre los órganos fonoarticulatorios de la prueba “Exploración del Lenguaje Comprensivo y Expresivo”, sección de discriminación auditiva de “L’exploració del llenguatge en el nen”, “Evaluación fonológica del habla infantil” o “Avaluació del desenvolupament fonològic en nens catalanoparlants de 3 a 7 anys”, “Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - 4” en su versión española y el test de fluidez fonológica verbal. Para obtener los datos se realizó una entrevista semiestructurada a los padres y se les pidió que respondieran el cuestionario “Children’s Communication Checklist” en su versión española. Los resultados, en cuanto a la voz, muestran que algunos participantes presentan un tono más agudo de lo esperado por sexo y edad y otros más grave; la mitad manifiestan una intensidad disminuida; y la mayoría presentan alteraciones del timbre, entre las que destacan la hipernasalidad y la ronquera. Respecto al habla, los niños más pequeños presentan un retraso en la adquisición de fonemas orales en comparación con sus iguales con desarrollo típico, y la mayoría emplean la oclusiva glótica (?) como sonido compensatorio. Los sujetos de mayor edad todavía presentan dificultades específicas en la producción de determinados sonidos. Los participantes muestran, en general, un nivel bajo en todas las áreas del lenguaje, y dificultades tanto en pragmática como en relación social. Por lo tanto, los participantes presentan un perfil lingüístico propio en cuanto a la voz, el habla y el lenguaje. Es imprescindible ampliar estos hallazgos con estudios más amplios. 22q11 deletion syndrome (S22q11) is considered a rare disease, due to the fact that it affects less than 5 out of 10,000 inhabitants. People with S22q11 may present cardiovascular congenital defects, palate abnormalities, hypocalcemia, immunodeficiency, and typical facial features. The available evidence suggests a characteristic behavioral phenotype, with behavioral, psychiatric, neuropsychological, and linguistic disorders. The objective of this thesis has been to define the linguistic profile of a sample of people with S22q11 living in Spain. This thesis comprises a total of three studies (two already published and one in the process of revision). The sample of the first one was formed by 17 participants aged between 3 years and 3 months and 13 years and 9 months (9.4 ± 3.5 years) and as for the second and third studies, they were formed by 30 subjects between 5 and 21 years of age and 6 months (12.14 ± 4.20) with S22q11. The evaluation of the participants consisted of recording voice samples and administering different tests: the phonoarticulatory organs section of the test on the “Exploración del Lenguaje Comprensivo y Expresivo”, the auditory discrimination section of “L’exploració del llenguatge en el nen”, “Evaluación fonológica del habla infantil” or “Avaluació del desenvolupament fonològic en nens catalanoparlants de 3 a 7 anys”, “Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - 4” in its Spanish version and the verbal phonological fluency test. To obtain the data, a semi-structured interview was carried out with the parents and they were asked to respond the questionnaire “Children’s Communication Checklist” in its Spanish version. The results, in terms of voice, show that some participants present a higher pitched voice than expected by sex and age and others a lower pitched voice; half show a decreased intensity; and they present alterations of the timbre, among which the hypernasality and the hoarseness stand out. Regarding speech, younger children have a delay in the acquisition of oral phonemes compared to their peers with typical development, and most use the glottal stop (?) as a compensatory sound. Older subjects still have specific difficulties in producing certain sounds. The participants show, in general, a low level in all areas of language, and difficulties both in pragmatics and in social relationships. Therefore, the participants present a specific linguistic profile in terms of voice, speech and language. It is essential to expand these findings with larger studies. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Programa de Doctorat en Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut

The use of private layers is explored for a multi-task learning approach to speech emotion recognition. The methods used include LSTMs, multi-task learning, high level representation, and "in the wild" testing.

In electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, processing of periodic sounds in the ascending auditory pathway generates the frequency-following response (FFR) phase-locked to the fundamental frequency (F0) and its harmonics of a sound. We measured FFRs to the steady-state (vowel) part of syllables /ba/ and /aw/ occurring in binaural rapid streams of speech sounds as frequently repeating standard syllables or as infrequent (p = 0.2) deviant syllables among standard /wa/ syllables. Our aim was to study whether concurrent active phonological processing affects early processing of irrelevant speech sounds reflected by FFRs to these sounds. To this end, during syllable delivery, our healthy adult participants performed tasks involving written letters delivered on a computer screen in a rapid stream. The stream consisted of vowel letters written in red, infrequently occurring consonant letters written in the same color, and infrequently occurring vowel letters written in blue. In the phonological task, the participants were instructed to press a response key to the consonant letters differing phonologically but not in color from the frequently occurring red vowels, whereas in the non-phonological task, they were instructed to respond to the vowel letters written in blue differing only in color from the frequently occurring red vowels. We observed that the phonological task enhanced responses to deviant /ba/ syllables but not responses to deviant /aw/ syllables. This suggests that active phonological task performance may enhance processing of such small changes in irrelevant speech sounds as the 30-ms difference in the initial formant-transition time between the otherwise identical syllables /ba/ and /wa/ used in the present study.

We introduce a deceptively simple behavioral task that robustly identifies two qualitatively different groups within the general population. When presented with an isochronous train of random syllables, some listeners are compelled to align their own concurrent syllable production with the perceived rate, whereas others remain impervious to the external rhythm. Using both neurophysiological and structural imaging approaches, we show group differences with clear consequences for speech processing and language learning. When listening passively to speech, high synchronizers show increased brain-to-stimulus synchronization over frontal areas, and this localized pattern correlates with precise microstructural differences in the white matter pathways connecting frontal to auditory regions. Finally, the data expose a mechanism that underpins performance on an ecologically relevant word-learning task. We suggest that this task will help to better understand and characterize individual performance in speech processing and language learning. A simple behavioral task identifies two qualitatively different groups within the general population, according to their speech-to-speech synchronization abilities. Group pertinence predicts brain function and anatomy, as well as word-learning performance.

Text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis systems have been widely used in general-purpose applications based on the generation of speech. Nonetheless, there are some domains, such as storytelling or voice output aid devices, which may also require singing. To enable a corpus-based TTS system to sing, a supplementary singing database should be recorded. This solution, however, might be too costly for eventual singing needs, or even unfeasible if the original speaker is unavailable or unable to sing properly. This work introduces a unit selection-based text-to-speech-and-singing (US-TTS&S) synthesis framework, which integrates speech-to-singing (STS) conversion to enable the generation of both speech and singing from an input text and a score, respectively, using the same neutral speech corpus. The viability of the proposal is evaluated considering three vocal ranges and two tempos on a proof-of-concept implementation using a 2.6-h Spanish neutral speech corpus. The experiments show that challenging STS transformation factors are required to sing beyond the corpus vocal range and/or with notes longer than 150 ms. While score-driven US configurations allow the reduction of pitch-scale factors, time-scale factors are not reduced due to the short length of the spoken vowels. Moreover, in the MUSHRA test, text-driven and score-driven US configurations obtain similar naturalness rates of around 40 for all the analysed scenarios. Although these naturalness scores are far from those of vocaloid, the singing scores of around 60 which were obtained validate that the framework could reasonably address eventual singing needs.

Speaking fluently requires three main processes to run smoothly: conceptualization, formulation, and articulation. This study investigates to what extent fluency in spontaneous speech in both first (L1) and second (L2) languages can be explained by individual differences in articulatory skills. A group of L2 English learners (n = 51) performed three semispontaneous speaking tasks in their L1 Spanish and in their L2 English. In addition, participants performed articulatory skill tasks that measured the speed at which their articulatory speech plans could be initiated (delayed picture naming) and the rate and accuracy at which their articulatory gestures could be executed (diadochokinetic production). The results showed that fluency in spontaneous L2 speech can be predicted by L1 fluency, replicating earlier studies and showing that L2 fluency measures are, to a large degree, measures of personal speaking style. Articulatory skills were found to contribute modestly to explaining variance in both L1 and L2 fluency.

[eng] In my thesis I investigate the evolution of human sociality and its possible role for providing a scaffold to the evolution of language. My approach is multidisciplinary and includes studies ranging from genomic analyses to behavioral experiments in songbirds. My hypothesis is that oxytocin is a good candidate molecule that could help us decipher the role the evolution of our sociality plays in the evolution of language, as well as the role of social reward/motivation in language acquisition. I study the evolution of human sociality mainly through the lens of the ‘self-domestication’ hypothesis, according to which natural selection in humans favored increased prosociality over aggression (Hare 2017), giving rise to a behavioral and an anatomical phenotype that is reminiscent of the one we witness in domesticated species. In Theofanopoulou et al. 2017 (Chapter 1) we examine if this old hypothesis, stemming from thoughts formulated in Darwin 1888, makes sense at a genetic level. We identify a statistically significant intersection of genes under positive selection in modern humans and in one or more domesticated species. Oxytocin/vasopressin receptors are among the genes that have been studied the most in the context of domestication and social cognition. We studied variant changes in these genes between modern humans and our extinct (Neanderthals and Denisovans) and extant relatives (macaques, bonobos, chimpanzees) (Theofanopoulou et al. 2018, Appendix Chapter 1) and report 29 variants which were clustered based on their presence in the species studied and discuss their functional relevance. In Theofanopoulou 2016 (Chapter 2) I put together studies from the literature that point to a role of oxytocin in modulating the multimodality that characterizes our linguistic ability. I follow a bottom up approach, starting off from possible genetic interactions that could support this role, and ending with evidence from EEG (electroencephalography) and behavioral studies. In Theofanopoulou, Boeckx, and Jarvis 2017 (Chapter 3), we propose specific neural mechanisms through which oxytocin could modulate brain regions that are specialized for vocal/speech learning directly, or indirectly through its interaction with dopaminergic neurons. In Theofanopoulou et al. (Appendix Chapter 2) we experimentally address the traditional idea that social reward enhances learning in the realm of vocal learning. In human studies it is not possible to dissociate social reward from vocal learning and study its exact impact on it, so we attempted such a dissociation developing a vocal learning behavioral paradigm with and without social reward in zebra finches. We found that social reward gates their vocal (pitch) learning. In Theofanopoulou et al. (Appendix Chapter 3), we manipulated the oxytocin-system in zebra finches and found that an administration of an oxytocin-antagonist leads to a significant drop in the number of introductory notes in their love song. In Theofanopoulou et al. (Appendix Chapter 4) we study the synteny (genomic territory) of the oxytocin and vasopressin/vasotocin ligands and receptors in 33 vertebrate genomes and 4 invertebrate outgroups and we propose an evolutionary history and a new universal vertebrate nomenclature for all these genes. In conclusion, Ι believe that this thesis offers a fertile ground for future experiments seeking to unravel the effect of social reward in vocal learning developmentally, something that can shed light to the effect that the evolution of our sociality might have had in the evolution of a fully- fledged language in our species. My thesis also lends evidence to a specific hypothesis under which our sociality can be studied, the ‘self-domestication’ hypothesis. Further, the oxytocin and vasotocin systems are shown to be good candidates for uncovering changes that might have had an effect on the evolution of prosociality, but also changes that affect vocal learning behaviors. Lastly, my thesis proposes a universal nomenclature for the vertebrate oxytocin and vasotocin ligands and receptors that is meant to allow easier translation of findings across vertebrates and to foster more informative design of functional experiments across species. References Darwin, C. (1888). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. Murray. Hare, B. (2017). Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality. Annual Review of Psychology, 68(1), 155–186. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010416-044201 Theofanopoulou, C., Andirko, A., & Boeckx, C. (2018). Oxytocin and Vasopressin Receptor variants as a window onto the evolution of human prosociality. BioRxiv, 460584. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/460584. (Appendix Chapter1) Theofanopoulou, C. (2016). Implications of oxytocin in human linguistic cognition: From genome to phenome. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10(271). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2016.00271 (Chapter 2) Theofanopoulou, C., Boeckx, C., & Jarvis, E. D. (2017). A hypothesis on a role of oxytocin in the social mechanisms of speech and vocal learning. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1861), 20170988. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0988 (Chapter 3) Theofanopoulou, C., Gastaldon, S., O’Rourke, T., Samuels, B. D., Tiago Martins, P., Delogu, F., … Boeckx, C. (2017). Self-domestication in homo sapiens: Insights from comparative genomics. PLoS ONE 12(10): e0185306. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185306 (Chapter 1) Theofanopoulou, C., Lipkind, D., Tchernichovski, O., Boeckx, C., & Jarvis, E.D. (Appendix Chapter 2). Selective vocal learning in a social reward context. Theofanopoulou, C., Boeckx, C., & Jarvis, E. D. (Appendix Chapter 3). Pilot study: testing the effect of intranasal administration of an oxytocin-receptor antagonist in adult zebra finch directed singing. Theofanopoulou, C., Gedman, G., Cahill, J. A., Boeckx, C., & Jarvis, E.D. (Appendix Chapter 4). A proposed universal nomenclature for the oxytocin and vasotocin ligand and receptor families and their evolutionary history.

Contains fulltext : 190594.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The human brain can quickly adapt to changes in the environment. One example is phonetic recalibration: a speech sound is interpreted differently depending on the visual speech and this interpretation persists in the absence of visual information. Here, we examined the mechanisms of phonetic recalibration. Participants categorized the auditory syllables /aba/ and /ada/, which were sometimes preceded by the so-called McGurk stimuli (in which an /aba/ sound, due to visual /aga/ input, is often perceived as 'ada'). We found that only one trial of exposure to the McGurk illusion was sufficient to induce a recalibration effect, i.e. an auditory /aba/ stimulus was subsequently more often perceived as 'ada'. Furthermore, phonetic recalibration took place only when auditory and visual inputs were integrated to 'ada' (McGurk illusion). Moreover, this recalibration depended on the sensory similarity between the preceding and current auditory stimulus. Finally, signal detection theoretical analysis showed that McGurk-induced phonetic recalibration resulted in both a criterion shift towards /ada/ and a reduced sensitivity to distinguish between /aba/ and /ada/ sounds. The current study shows that phonetic recalibration is dependent on the perceptual integration of audiovisual information and leads to a perceptual shift in phoneme categorization. 13 p.

A presente pesquisa tem por objetivo investigar, perceptiva e sensivelmente, as sensações, sentimentos e emoções (DAMÁSIO, 2011; LABAN, 1978; LEAL, 2012) como meios potentes para a criação em dança considerando o processo histórico, cultural e pessoal do indivíduo. Para tanto, a pesquisa, de cunho participante, (BORGES; BRANDÃO, 2007) conta com investigações laboratoriais realizadas em grupo com a participação de cinco artistas denominadas conversantes, buscando diálogos corporais fundados na sensibilidade que, por sua vez, desencadeiam construções dramatúrgicas envolvidas por memórias, afetos e percepções. Dentre conversas, o trabalho artístico Parla compartilha suas experiências laboratoriais ao público. A escrita-diário (OLIVEIRA, 2015) aparece como registro de experiências conectadas ao íntimo, pessoal, afetivo, que se apresenta, informalmente, intrinsecamente, ligado à uma escrita que possa ser mais próxima da dança. Sendo o laboratório propulsor da pesquisa, tomamos como referência o afeto de Antonin Artaud (CAETANO, 2012; QUILICI, 2002, 2012) com seu poder transformador em meio aos relacionamentos e o acaso (OSTROWER, 2013; SALLES, 2008) como possibilidade criativa capaz de despertar o inédito. A prática meditativa como foco e concentração; a improvisação em dança considerada como técnicas a partir dos conceitos de Mara Guerrero (2008) e Patrícia Leal (2012a), proporcionando liberdade à exploração de movimentos, encontrando características significativas como a fluidez apoiada nos estudos de fluência de Rudolf Laban (1978) por Ciane Fernandes (2001, 2006, 2007), Lenira Rengel (2001) e Patrícia Leal (2012a) associada à liquidez dos fluidos de Zygmunt Bauman (2001). Pesquisar a importância de uma dança que parte de si sem negar ou separar o próprio sentir contribui para a construção de uma arte que expressa o humano, investigando a desestruturação de paradigmas cristalizados de pensar a dança existentes mesmo nos dias de hoje. The present research aims to investigate, perceptually and sensibly, the sensations, feelings and emotions (DAMÁSIO, 2011; LABAN, 1978; LEAL, 2012) as potent means for the creation in dance considering the historical, cultural and personal process of the individual. Therefore, the participatory research, (BORGES; BRANDÃO, 2007) has laboratory investigations carried out in a group with participation of five artists called conversational, searching for body dialogues based on sensitivity that trigger in dramaturgical constructions involved by memories, affections and perceptions. The daily writing (OLIVEIRA, 2015) appears as a record of experiences connected to the intimate, personal, affective, that presents itself informally, intrinsically, linked to a writing that may be closer to the dance. Being the laboratory that propels the research we take as reference the affection of Antonin Artaud (CAETANO, 2012; QUILICI, 2002, 2012) with his transforming power amidst relationships and chance (OSTROWER, 2013; SALLES, 2008) as a creative possibility capable of awakening the unprecedented. The meditative practice as focus and concentration dance improvisation considered as techniques from the concepts of Mara Guerrero (2008) and Patrícia Leal (2012a), providing freedom to the exploration of movements, finding significant characteristics such as fluency supported in the studies of fluency of Rudolf Laban (1978) by Ciane Fernandes (2001, 2006, 2007), Lenira Rengel (2001) and Patrícia Leal (2012a) associated with the Liquidity of Zygmunt Bauman (2001) fluids. Searching for the importance of a dance that part of itself without denying or separating one's own feelings contributes to the construction of an art that expresses the human, investigating the destructuring of crystallized paradigms of thinking the dance existing even today.

Highlights • Amount of attention to rules during artificial language learning was manipulated. • Indirect measures showed incidental rule learning irrespective of attention. • Explicit knowledge after learning was affected by the amount of attention. • The amount of attention at encoding did not affect consolidation after sleep., Incidental learning plays a crucial role in the initial phases of language acquisition. However the knowledge derived from implicit learning, which is based on prediction-based mechanisms, may become explicit. The role that attention plays in the formation of implicit and explicit knowledge of the learned material is unclear. In the present study, we investigated the role that attention plays in the acquisition of non-adjacent rule learning from speech. In addition, we also tested whether the amount of attention during learning changes the representation of the learned material after a 24 h delay containing sleep. For that, we developed an experiment run on two consecutive days consisting on the exposure to an artificial language that contained non-adjacent dependencies (rules) between words whereas different conditions were established to manipulate the amount of attention given to the rules (target and non-target conditions). Furthermore, we used both indirect and direct measures of learning that are more sensitive to implicit and explicit knowledge, respectively. Whereas the indirect measures indicated that learning of the rules occurred regardless of attention, more explicit judgments after learning showed differences in the type of learning reached under the two attention conditions. 24 hours later, indirect measures showed no further improvements during additional language exposure and explicit judgments indicated that only the information more robustly learned in the previous day, was consolidated.

©2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Speech enhancement deep learning systems usually require large amounts of training data to operate in broad conditions or real applications. This makes the adaptability of those systems into new, low resource environments an important topic. In this work, we present the results of adapting a speech enhancement generative adversarial network by fine-tuning the generator with small amounts of data. We investigate the minimum requirements to obtain a stable behavior in terms of several objective metrics in two very different languages: Catalan and Korean. We also study the variability of test performance to unseen noise as a function of the amount of different types of noise available for training. Results show that adapting a pre-trained English model with 10 min of data already achieves a comparable performance to having two orders of magnitude more data. They also demonstrate the relative stability in test performance with respect to the number of training noise types.

Treballs Finals de Grau de Lingüística. Facultat de Filologia. Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2017-2018, Tutora: Lourdes Romera. Directora: Joana Rosselló, [eng] The lack of integration of speech, gestures and gaze into autistic communication is based on functional alterations that affect linguistic development. This observational study consists of a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the communication triad in neurotypical subjects and subjects with high and low functioning autism through three ADOS-2 tasks. The results show a high use of combinatorial variables formed mainly by speech-gaze and speech-gesture in children with low functioning autism. This datum, together with the high production of deictic gestures, suggests that children in the spectrum combine speech with other modalities to compensate for the lack of triad integration that is frequently found in Control samples. Hence, it would be convenient to adopt a multimodal vision of language also for its diagnosis., [spa] La falta de integración de habla, gestualidad y mirada en la comunicación autista se halla a la base de alteraciones funcionales que afectan al desarrollo lingüístico. Este estudio observacional consiste en un análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de la tríada comunicacional en sujetos neurotípicos y sujetos con autismo de alto y bajo funcionamiento a través de tres tareas del ADOS-2. Los resultados muestran una elevada utilización de variables combinatorias formadas sobre todo por habla-mirada y habla-gesto en los niños con autismo de bajo funcionamiento. Este dato, unido a la alta producción de gestos deícticos, sugiere que los niños en el espectro combinan el habla con otras modalidades para compensar la falta de integración tríadica que sí se halla con frecuencia en las muestras de Control. De aquí que sería conveniente adoptar una visión multimodal del lenguaje también para su diagnóstico.

The cerebral cortex modulates early sensory processing via feed-back connections to sensory pathway nuclei. The functions of this top-down modulation for human behavior are poorly understood. Here, we show that top-down modulation of the visual sensory thalamus (the lateral geniculate body, LGN) is involved in visual-speech recognition. In two independent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, LGN response increased when participants processed fast-varying features of articulatory movements required for visual-speech recognition, as compared to temporally more stable features required for face identification with the same stimulus material. The LGN response during the visual-speech task correlated positively with the visual-speech recognition scores across participants. In addition, the task-dependent modulation was present for speech movements and did not occur for control conditions involving non-speech biological movements. In face-to-face communication, visual speech recognition is used to enhance or even enable understanding what is said. Speech recognition is commonly explained in frameworks focusing on cerebral cortex areas. Our findings suggest that task-dependent modulation at subcortical sensory stages has an important role for communication: Together with similar findings in the auditory modality the findings imply that task-dependent modulation of the sensory thalami is a general mechanism to optimize speech recognition. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

[eng] Vocal learning, one of the subcomponents of language, is put at center stage in this dissertation. The overall hypothesis is that vocal learning lays the foundation for both language evolution (phylogeny) and development (ontogeny), and also high-level cognition. The computational ability found in vocal learning is seen as so enhanced in humans as to yield the kind of recursion that supports language. Empirical evidence on vocal learning in nonhuman animals and humans from behavioral, neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, genetic, and evolutionary fields is suggestive that vocal learning interacts with other cognitive domains at multiple levels. The positive correlation between the hippocampal volume and open-ended vocal production in avian vocal learning species suggests the possible involvement of the hippocampus in vocal learning. The empirical studies of foxp2 in nonhuman animals and humans suggest that foxp2 plays a role in multimodal communication and general cognition. Phylogenetically, Sapiens’ vocal learning abilities are unique among primates. Compared with nonhuman primates, our species possesses stronger and more enhanced connections between the superior temporal cortex and premotor cortex as well as the striatum. In Sapiens, meaning aside, vocal learning as such can explain many features found in speech and its ontogeny such as the specialized auditory mechanism for speech, the preferential attention to speech in newborns, the primacy of vocal imitation among multimodal (visual and auditory) imitative skills and the stages seen in learning to speak. All these characteristics seem to be different and abnormal, albeit to different degrees, in autism. A 25-30% of the autistic population is non/minimally verbal but even the high functioning end of the autistic spectrum presents with abnormalities, such as difficulties in processing speed and an impaired imitative capacity that could be satisfactorily explained if language entered again the definition (and diagnosis) of what autism is, with an special emphasis on vocal learning., [cat] El vocal learning, un dels subcomponents del llenguatge, ocupa un espai central en aquesta tesi. La hipòtesi general és que el vocal learning constitueix el fonament de l’evolució (filogènia) i del desenvolupament (ontogènia) lingüístics, i també de la cognició. L'habilitat computacional que es dóna en el vocal learning es veu en els humans tan potenciada com per ser la base del tipus de recursió en què es basa el llenguatge. Proves empíriques sobre el vocal learning en animals no humans i en humans, des de camps que inclouen des del comportament, la neuroanatomia, la neurofisiologia, la genètica i la teoria de l’evolució, suggereixen que el vocal learning interactua amb altres dominis cognitius a molts i diferents nivells. Filogenèticamet, les habilitats de vocal learning en el Sapiens són úniques entre els primats. Comparada amb els primats no humans, la nostra espècie posseeix unes connexions més denses i potents entre el còrtex temporal superior i el còrtex premotor així com l’estriat. En el Sapiens, deixant de banda el significat, el vocal learning tot sol pot explicar molts trets de la parla i la seva ontogènia com ara l’especialització auditiva per a la parla, l’atenció preferent a la parla en els nadons, la primacia de la imitació vocal entre les habilitats imitatives multimodals (de base visual i auditiva), i els estadis que s’observen en l’adquisició de la parla. Totes aquestes característiques sembla que són diferents i anòmales, tot i que en diferent graus, en l’autisme. Un 25-30% de la població autista és no verbal o mínimament però fins i tot a la banda de l’espectre autista que es considera d’alt funcionament s’hi donen anomalies, tal com ara un cert dèficit en velocitat de processament i una capacitat deficient d’imitació, que podrien explicar-se més satisfactòriament si un dèficit de llenguatge entrés altra vegada a la definició (i diagnòstic) del que és l’autisme, amb un èmfasi especial en el vocal learning.

This work introduces new results on the modeling of early-vocal development using artificial intelligent cognitive architectures and a simulated vocal tract. The problem is addressed using intrinsically-motivated learning algorithms for autonomous sensorimotor exploration, a kind of algorithm belonging to the active learning architectures family. The artificial agent is able to autonomously select goals to explore its own sensorimotor system in regions where its competence to execute intended goals is improved. We propose to include a somatosensory system to provide a proprioceptive feedback signal to reinforce learning through the autonomous discovery of motor constraints. Constraints are represented by a somatosensory model which is unknown beforehand to the learner. Both the sensorimotor and somatosensory system are modeled using Gaussian mixture models. We argue that using an architecture which includes a somatosensory model would reduce redundancy in the sensorimotor model and drive the learning process more efficiently than algorithms taking into account only auditory feedback. The role of this proposed system is to predict whether an undesired collision within the vocal tract under a certain motor configuration is likely to occur. Thus, compromised motor configurations are rejected, guaranteeing that the agent is less prone to violate its own constraints.

Articulatory speech synthesis has long been based on one-dimensional (1D) approaches. They assume plane wave propagation within the vocal tract and disregard higher order modes that typically appear above 5 kHz. However, such modes may be relevant in obtaining a more natural voice, especially for phonation types with significant high frequency energy (HFE) content. This work studies the contribution of the glottal source at high frequencies in the 3D numerical synthesis of vowels. The spoken vocal range is explored using an LF (Liljencrants&ndash, Fant) model enhanced with aspiration noise and controlled by the R d glottal shape parameter. The vowels [ &alpha, ] , [i], and [u] are generated with a finite element method (FEM) using realistic 3D vocal tract geometries obtained from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as simplified straight vocal tracts of a circular cross-sectional area. The symmetry of the latter prevents the onset of higher order modes. Thus, the comparison between realistic and simplified geometries enables us to analyse the influence of such modes. The simulations indicate that higher order modes may be perceptually relevant, particularly for tense phonations (lower R d values) and/or high fundamental frequency values, F 0 s. Conversely, vowels with a lax phonation and/or low F0s may result in inaudible HFE levels, especially if aspiration noise is not considered in the glottal source model.

Treballs Finals de Grau d'Enginyeria Informàtica, Facultat de Matemàtiques, Universitat de Barcelona, Any: 2016, Director: Sergio Escalera Guerrero, [en] In this project, we present an up-to-date review of existing computer-vision based visual and multimodal approaches for apparent personality trait recognition and analysis. We describe main works and discuss their main features as well as future lines of research in the field. Current datasets and challenges organized to push the research in the field are also discussed. We also show which visual (face, body, and background regions) and audio features (speech properties) current CNN-based methods learn in order to discriminate among the Big Five personality traits in short video clips. In addition, we present a new web-based application users can interact with, in order to receive automatic feedback about their apparent personality and relating it to five different job profiles. This application was presented as a demonstrator at NIPS 2016.

The present paper deals with the description and characterization of the melodic patterns of absolute interrogative utterances in Northern German in spontaneous speech from an intonation and semantic pragmatic point of view. This research has been carried out based on 246 absolute questions from spontaneous speech settings by multiple speakers of different gender, age and education by applying the Melodic Analysis of Speech (MAS) method developed by Cantero (2002). As a result, we found five intonation patterns for absolute questions in German: Falling Final Inflection, Rising Final Inflection, Rising -falling Final Inflection, High nucleus Final Inflection and Rising body and Final Inflection. The first three have been previously defined by researchers using the ToBI method, whilst the fourth and fifth patterns had not, to date, been described in this context. In addition to defining the melodic features of each one in spontaneous speech, we have also contributed to providing the different pragmatic meanings discovered in the various contexts in which each pattern appears.

[cat] Els infants de 2-3 anys, encara no alfabetitzats, solen produir una parla que es considera que presenta característiques diferenciadores respecte del model adult que senten. S’han analitzat els factors que intervenen entre percepció i producció de la parla en interacció infant-mestra en una mostra de 617 paraules, per conèixer si els processos de simplificació fonològica establerts per a aquesta edat, són la causa de les “errades”, o més aviat són degudes a l’acomodació de l’infant al reproduir el model que percep. El resultat de l’anàlisi en correlació infants-mestres ha demostrat un alt grau de coincidència en les produccions dels dos i per tant es va concloure que les errades no van ser a causa d’un desenvolupament fonològic deficient, atès que eren infants amb capacitats cognitives i comunicatives adequades, sinó a processos de simplificació fonològica que responien a les característiques pròpies de la parla espontània., [eng] Not yet literate children in the 2 to 3 age range tend to produce a speech that is considered presents differentiating characteristics in reference to the adult model they listen to. Factors intervening in between children-teacher speech perception and production have been analyzed from a sample of 617 words, with the objective to unveil if phonological simplification processes established for this age range are the cause of the “mistakes” or on the contrary they are caused due to accommodation of the child during the reproduction of the model that they hear. Children-teacher correlation analysis result demonstrates a high degree of matches in the production of both, because of this it was concluded that mistakes were not caused by deficient phonological development, due to the fact that children had adequate communicative and cognitive abilities, but rather to phonological simplification processes related to spontaneous speech characteristics.

This study aims to demonstrate the potential for understanding first millennium glass beads not as individual representatives of types, but as collections of objects brought together and curated by owners. It uses the author’s experience as a skilled bead maker to investigate processes of bead production and mechanics of bead collection current in Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England in the period of 6th to 9th century AD. In the study the bead collections of seven graves are examined from the perspective of their production techniques, materials, and damage from wear and cremation. The results point to beads being acquired in different numbers and often worn for long periods of time before being buried.

A partir de la revisió d’alguns dels dualismes formulats com a dicotomies al Cours de Linguistique Générale, es valoren en aquest treball les suposades innovacions saussureanes, tot atenent als seus antecedents en la història de la lingüística i a les repercussions en el posterior desenvolupament de la ciència del llenguatge. Based on the revision of some of the dualisms formulated as dichotomies in the Cours de Linguistique Générale, the assumptions Saussurean innovations are valued in this work, taking into account their background in the history of linguistics and the repercussions in the later development of the language science.

Aquesta investigació es basa en l'anàlisi acústica i perceptiva de les vocals i combinacions de vocals del català central en parla espontània. De cada so vocàlic, se'n fa una descripció acústica, es comprova la influència que exerceix en la vocal el punt d'articulació dels sons adjacents anteriors i posteriors, se'n dibuixa el camp de dispersió i es presenta una anàlisi comparativa amb els resultats que s'han obtingut en estudis precedents basats en un model de parla més formal. Per portar a terme la recerca, hem utilitzat el Corpus oral de parla espontània (Font¬Rotchés, 2006) i el de Rius-Escudé (2012), a partir dels quals hem seleccionat 30 hores de material audiovisual de programes de la televisió i n'hem extret 557 fragments. Hem constituït un corpus de 2.221 vocals i combinacions de vocals, representat per 257 informants, d'ambdós sexes, d'edats compreses entre 18 i 80 anys, de professions diverses i procedents de diferents contrades de la varietat dialectal central, en un context de parla espontània real i genuTha. Amb l'objectiu de reduir les diferències acústiques associades a les peculiaritats morfològiques de la cavitat oral dels informants, hem normalitzat les dades dels formants vocàlics —seguint el procediment proposat per Watt i Fabricius (2002)— dels 67 informants que complien els requisits i hem constituït un corpus normalitzat amb 896 vocals. La metodologia que hem utilitzat és experimental, empírica i quantitativa. Hem realitzat unes proves de percepció per validar les hipòtesis plantejades i ens hem servit de l'aplicació d'anàlisi i síntesi de veu PRAAT, la qual ens ha permès extreure els valors dels dos primers formants (F1, F2) de cada so vocàlic, i del programa SPSS Statistics 17.0 i G-STAT.2.0 per comprovar la fiabilitat dels resultats i per a la representació gràfica. La finalitat d'aquesta investigació és que pugui esdevenir una aportació en el coneixement de la caracterització acústica de les vocals de la llengua catalana en parla espontània i que pugui afavorir l'ensenyament-aprenentatge de la pronúncia del català als nous aprenents d'aquesta llengua en els diversos nivells educatius. Els resultats que hem obtingut, i que tenen conseqüències didàctiques, són que les vocals en català central en parla espontània són més obertes, més centrals i que no tenen una pronúncia única; que les vocals anteriors es perceben millor que les posteriors, i que el punt d'articulació del so adjacent anterior i posterior les influeix molt poc. Pel que fa a la combinació de dues vocals, en general, es pronuncien totes dues., This research is based on the acoustic and perceptive analysis of vowels and combinations of vowels spoken spontaneously in Central Catalan. An acoustic description is created for each vowel sound and the influence that the place of articulation of the previous and subsequent adjacent sounds has on the vowel is verified. The field of dispersion is plotted and a comparative analysis is presented of the results obtained from previous research based on a more formal speech model. We have used the Oral corpus of spontaneous speech (Font-Rotches, 2006) and that of Rius-Escude (2012), selecting 30 hours of audiovisual material and extracting 557 fragments. We have built a corpus of 2,221 vowels and vowel combinations, uttered by 257 speakers of both genders in a real and genuine context of spontaneous speech. In order to reduce the acoustic differences, we have normalised the data of the vowel formants -Watt & Fabricius (2002)- of the 67 speakers that meet the requirements, obtaining a normalised corpus with 896 vowels. The methodology used is experimental, empirical and quantitative. We have carried out perception tests to validate the hypotheses established and we have used the PRAAT voice analysis and synthesis application and the SPSS Statistics 17.0 program and G¬STAT.2.0. The objective is to contribute to knowledge regarding the acoustic characterisation of vowels in the Catalan language in spontaneous speech and to facilitate the teaching-learning of Catalan pronunciation for new learners at different levels of education. The results obtained that have educational consequences are that the vowels of Central Catalan in spontaneous speech are more open, more central and that they do not have a single pronunciation, previous vowels are perceived better than subsequent ones and that the point of articulation of the previous and subsequent adjacent sound has little influence on them. We regard to the combination of two vowels, in general, both are pronounced. Teaching-learning proposals for Catalan pronunciation must be based on three fundamental pillars: teach the language based on the model of spontaneous speech, contextualise pronunciation activities and work on pronunciation with a communicative focus.

La relació entre pauses silencioses i signes de puntuació està, en part, molt condicionada pel propi parlant ja que no existeix cap tipus de normativa que defineixi la seva duració. Donada la quantitat d'estudis existents en diverses llengües des d'un punt de vista més lingüístic, aquest treball pretén trobar una relació entre parlants i pauses silencioses mitjançant altre tipus de disciplina: la matemàtica funcional. Donada, a més a més, la mancança d'estudis de tecnologies de la parla en llengua catalana, s'ha trobat oportú realitzar una aproximació en aquesta llengua a les tecnologies de la parla.

El objetivo de este trabajo está enmarcado en un supuesto caso en el que la policía científica ha de aportar pruebas empíricas para la resolución de una investigación. La policía ha de realizar una pesquisa y, para ello, cuenta con unas grabaciones de voz que se deben comparar. Por un lado, tenemos dos muestras de habla del culpable del caso que, a su vez, corresponden a emisiones en que el sujeto muestra cansancio. Sería lo que denominamos habla dubitada. Por otro lado, contamos con cuatro grabaciones de voz para comparar, que serían las muestras de habla indubitada, y que corresponden a emisiones en que los sujetos se encuentran en unas condiciones de habla normales; cada una de las cuatro grabaciones corresponde a un sospechoso. En un caso real, el objetivo sería determinar a cuál de las cuatro voces indubitadas corresponden las muestras dubitadas para, así, poder determinar quién es el culpable; sin embargo, en este trabajo se sabe de antemano que las muestras de voz de habla dubitada corresponden al locutor 1. Así pues, el objetivo del presente experimento es determinar si unos parámetros concretos se mantienen lo suficientemente estables cuando el individuo habla en condiciones normales (muestras de voz de habla indubitada) respecto a cuando habla en condiciones de cansancio (muestras de voz de habla dubitada). De esta manera, podremos diagnosticar si los parámetros elegidos serían útiles para posibles pericias en fonética forense

En aquest treball hem volgut estudiar els processos accentuals tant de parlants de la Catalunya Nord, com catalanoparlants del dialecte oriental. Concretament volem comprovar si en el cas dels parlants bilingües francesos i rossellonesos tindrien el procés de la sordesa accentual molt arrelat. Pel que fa als catalanoparlants del Principat, volem comprovar si tenen uns patrons accentuals cognitius o bé no tenen cap mena de criteri a l’hora de col·locar l’accent en una síl·laba o bé en una altra

Interaction is a necessary condition for second language (L2) learning (Long, 1980, 1996). Research in computer-mediated communication has shown that interaction opportunities make learners pay attention to form in a variety of ways that promote L2 learning. This research has mostly investigated text-based rather than voice-based interaction. The present study applied "form-focusing information gap tasks" (Pica, Kang, & Sauro, 2006) to a voice-based computer-mediated environment and investigated whether individual or interactive task performance conditions affect language development differently. This is a relevant research question for distance language learning programs, which are primarily asynchronous and largely rely on individual performance and text-based communication. The results of the study showed significant pre-to-post learning gains under both performance conditions (individual and interactive). Between-groups comparisons further showed that participants in the interactive condition outperformed participants in the individual condition on two of the three target structures investigated. La interacción es una condición necesaria para el aprendizaje de un segundo idioma (L2) (Long, 1980, 1996). La investigación en comunicación mediada por ordenador ha demostrado que las oportunidades de interacción hacen que los estudiantes presten atención a la forma en una variedad de formas que promueven el aprendizaje de L2. Esta investigación ha investigado principalmente la interacción basada en texto en lugar de la basada en voz. El presente estudio aplicó "tareas enfocadas en la brecha de información" (Pica, Kang y Sauro, 2006) a un entorno de ordenador basado en voz e investigó si las condiciones de rendimiento de tareas individuales o interactivas afectan el desarrollo del lenguaje de manera diferente. Esta es una pregunta de investigación relevante para los programas de aprendizaje de idiomas a distancia, que son principalmente asincrónicos y se basan principalmente en el rendimiento individual y la comunicación basada en texto. Los resultados del estudio mostraron ganancias significativas de aprendizaje pre y post en ambas condiciones de rendimiento (individual e interactivo). Las comparaciones entre los grupos mostraron además que los participantes en la condición interactiva superaron a los participantes en la condición individual en dos de las tres estructuras diana investigadas. La interacció és una condició necessària per a l'aprenentatge d'un segon idioma (L2) (Long, 1980, 1996). La investigació en comunicació mediada per ordinador ha demostrat que les oportunitats d'interacció fan que els estudiants prestin atenció a la forma en una varietat de formes que promouen l'aprenentatge de L2. Aquesta investigació ha investigat principalment la interacció basada en text en lloc de la basada en veu. El present estudi va aplicar "tasques enfocades en la bretxa d'informació" (Pica, Kang i Sauro, 2006) a un entorn d'ordinador basat en veu i va investigar si les condicions de rendiment de tasques individuals o interactives afecten el desenvolupament del llenguatge de manera diferent. Aquesta és una pregunta d'investigació rellevant per als programes d'aprenentatge d'idiomes a distància, que són principalment asincrònics i es basen principalment en el rendiment individual i la comunicació basada en text. Els resultats de l'estudi van mostrar guanys significatius d'aprenentatge pre i post en ambdues condicions de rendiment (individual i interactiu). Les comparacions entre els grups van mostrar a més que els participants en la condició interactiva van superar als participants en la condició individual en dues de les tres estructures diana investigades.