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Previous evidence suggests that children's mastery of prosodic modulations to signal the informational status of discourse referents emerges quite late in development. In the present study, we investigate the children's use of head gestures as it compares to prosodic cues to signal a referent as being contrastive relative to a set of possible alternatives. A group of French-speaking pre-schoolers were audio-visually recorded while playing in a semi-spontaneous but controlled production task, to elicit target words in the context of broad focus, contrastive focus, or corrective focus utterances. We analysed the acoustic features of the target words (syllable duration and word-level pitch range), as well as the head gesture features accompanying these target words (head gesture type, alignment patterns with speech). We found that children's production of head gestures, but not their use of either syllable duration or word-level pitch range, was affected by focus condition. Children mostly aligned head gestures with relevant speech units, especially when the target word was in phrase-final position. Moreover, the presence of a head gesture was linked to greater syllable duration patterns in all focus conditions. Our results show that (a) 4- and 5-year-old French-speaking children use head gestures rather than prosodic cues to mark the informational status of discourse referents, (b) the use of head gestures may gradually entrain the production of adult-like prosodic features, and that (c) head gestures with no referential relation with speech may serve a linguistic structuring function in communication, at least during language development.

Previous research has shown that prosodic structure can regulate the relationship between co-speech gestures and speech itself. Most co-speech studies have focused on manual gestures, but head movements have also been observed to accompany speech events by Munhall, Jones, Callan, Kuratate, and Vatikiotis-Bateson [(2004). Psychol. Sci. 15(2), 133–137], and these co-verbal gestures may be linked to prosodic prominence, as shown by Esteve-Gibert, Borrás-Comes, Asor, Swerts, and Prieto [(2017). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141(6), 4727–4739], Hadar, Steiner, Grant, and Rose [(1984). Hum. Mov. Sci. 3, 237–245], and House, Beskow, and Granström [(2001). Lang. Speech 26(2), 117–129]. This study examines how the timing and magnitude of head nods may be related to degrees of prosodic prominence connected to different focus conditions. Using electromagnetic articulometry, a time-varying signal of vertical head movement for 12 native French speakers was generated to examine the relationship between head nod gestures and F0 peaks. The results suggest that speakers use two different alignment strategies, which integrate both temporal and magnitudinal aspects of the gesture. Some evidence of inter-speaker preferences in the use of the two strategies was observed, although the inter-speaker variability is not categorical. Importantly, prosodic prominence itself is not the cause of the difference between the two strategies, but instead magnifies their inherent differences. In this way, the use of co-speech head nod gestures under French focus conditions can be considered as a method of prosodic enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This work evaluates whether seeing the speaker's face could improve the speech intelligibility of adults with Down syndrome (DS). This is not straightforward because DS induces a number of anatomical and motor anomalies affecting the orofacial zone. Method: A speech-in-noise perception test was used to evaluate the intelligibility of 16 consonants (Cs) produced in a vowel-consonant-vowel context (Vo = /a/) by 4 speakers with DS and 4 control speakers. Forty-eight naïve participants were asked to identify the stimuli in 3 modalities: auditory (A), visual (V), and auditory-visual (AV). The probability of correct responses was analyzed, as well as AV gain, confusions, and transmitted information as a function of modality and phonetic features. Results: The probability of correct response follows the trend AV > A > V, with smaller values for the DS than the control speakers in A and AV but not in V. This trend depended on the C: the V information particularly improved the transmission of place of articulation and to a lesser extent of manner, whereas voicing remained specifically altered in DS. Conclusions: The results suggest that the V information is intact in the speech of people with DS and improves the perception of some phonetic features in Cs in a similar way as for control speakers. This result has implications for further studies, rehabilitation protocols, and specific training of caregivers.

Purpose: "Auditory verbal hallucinations" (AVHs) are speech perceptions in the absence of external stimulation. According to an influential theoretical account of AVHs in schizophrenia, a deficit in inner-speech monitoring may cause the patients' verbal thoughts to be perceived as external voices. The account is based on a predictive control model, in which individuals implement verbal self-monitoring. The authors examined lip muscle activity during AVHs in patients with schizophrenia to check whether inner speech occurred. Method: Lip muscle activity was recorded during covert AVHs (without articulation) and rest. Surface electromyography (EMG) was used on 11 patients with schizophrenia. Results: Results showed an increase in EMG activity in the orbicularis oris inferior muscle during covert AVHs relative to rest. This increase was not due to general muscular tension because there was no increase of muscular activity in the forearm muscle. Conclusion: This evidence that AVHs might be self-generated inner speech is discussed in the framework of a predictive control model. Further work is needed to better describe how inner speech is controlled and monitored and the nature of inner-speech-monitoring-dysfunction. This will lead to a better understanding of how AVHs occur.

Prosodic contrastive focus is used to attract the listener's attention to a specific part of the utterance. Mostly conceived of as auditory/acoustic, it also has visible correlates which have been shown to be perceived. This study aimed at analyzing auditory-visual perception of prosodic focus by elaborating a paradigm enabling an auditory-visual advantage measurement (avoiding the ceiling effect) and by examining the interaction between audition and vision. A first experiment proved the efficiency of a whispered speech paradigm to measure an auditory-visual advantage for the perception of prosodic features. A second experiment used this paradigm to examine and characterize the auditory-visual perceptual processes. It combined performance assessment (focus detection score) to reaction time measurements and confirmed and extended the results from the first experiment. This study showed that adding vision to audition for perception of prosodic focus can not only improve focus detection but also reduce reaction times. A further analysis suggested that audition and vision are actually integrated for the perception of prosodic focus. Visual-only perception appeared to be facilitated for whispered speech suggesting an enhancement of visual cues in whispering. Moreover, the potential influence of the presence of facial markers on perception is discussed. (Contains 3 tables and 8 figures.)

Coordination between speech acoustics and manual gestures has been conceived as "not biologically mandated" (McClave E. J Psycholinguist Res 27(1): 69-89, 1998). However, recent work suggests a biomechanical entanglement between the upper limbs and the respiratory-vocal system (Pouw W, de Jonge-Hoekstra D, Harrison SJ, Paxton A, Dixon JA. Ann NY Acad Sci 1491(1): 89-105, 2021). Pouw et al. found that for movements with a high physical impulse, speech acoustics co-occur with the physical impulses of upper limb movements. They interpret this result in terms of biomechanical coupling between arm motion and speech via the breathing system. This coupling could support the synchrony observed between speech prosody and arm gestures during communication. The present study investigates whether the effect of physical impulse on speech acoustics can be extended to leg motion, assumed to be controlled independently from oral communication. The study involved 25 native speakers of German who recalled short stories while biking with their arms or their legs. These conditions were compared with a static condition in which participants could not move their arms. Our analyses are similar to that of Pouw et al. (Pouw W, de Jonge-Hoekstra D, Harrison SJ, Paxton A, Dixon JA. Ann NY Acad Sci 1491(1): 89-105, 2021). Results reveal that the presence of intensity peaks in the acoustic signal co-occur with the time of peak acceleration of legs' biking movements. However, this was not observed when biking with the arms, which corresponded to lower acceleration peaks. In contrast to intensity, F0 was not affected in the arm and leg conditions. These results suggest that 1) the biomechanical entanglements between the respiratoryvocal system and the lower limbs may also impact speech; 2) the physical impulse may have to reach a threshold to impact speech acoustics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breathing is variable but also highly individual. Since the 1980s, evidence of a ventilatory personality has been observed in different physiological studies. This original term refers to within‐speaker consistency in breathing characteristics across days or even years. Speech breathing is a specific way to control ventilation while supporting speech planning and phonation constraints. It is highly variable between speakers but also for the same speaker, depending on utterance properties, bodily actions, and the context of an interaction. Can we yet still observe consistency over time in speakers' breathing profiles despite these variations? We addressed this question by analyzing the breathing profiles of 25 native speakers of German performing a narrative task on 2 days under different limb movement conditions. The individuality of breathing profiles over conditions and days was assessed by adopting methods used in physiological studies that investigated a ventilatory personality. Our results suggest that speaker‐specific breathing profiles in a narrative task are maintained over days and that they stay consistent despite light physical activity. These results are discussed with a focus on better understanding what speech breathing individuality is, how it can be assessed, and the types of research perspectives that this concept opens up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inner speech has been shown to vary in form along several dimensions. Along condensation, condensed inner speech forms have been described, that are supposed to be deprived of acoustic, phonological and even syntactic qualities. Expanded forms, on the other extreme, display articulatory and auditory properties. Along dialogality, inner speech can be monologal, when we engage in internal soliloquy, or dialogal, when we recall past conversations or imagine future dialogs involving our own voice as well as that of others addressing us. Along intentionality, it can be intentional (when we deliberately rehearse material in short-term memory) or it can arise unintentionally (during mind wandering). We introduce the ConDialInt model, a neurocognitive predictive control model of inner speech that accounts for its varieties along these three dimensions. ConDialInt spells out the condensation dimension by including inhibitory control at the conceptualization, formulation or articulatory planning stage. It accounts for dialogality, by assuming internal model adaptations and by speculating on neural processes underlying perspective switching. It explains the differences between intentional and spontaneous varieties in terms of monitoring. We present an fMRI study in which we probed varieties of inner speech along dialogality and intentionality, to examine the validity of the neuroanatomical correlates posited in ConDialInt. Condensation was also informally tackled. Our data support the hypothesis that expanded inner speech recruits speech production processes down to articulatory planning, resulting in a predicted signal, the inner voice, with auditory qualities. Along dialogality, covertly using an avatar's voice resulted in the activation of right hemisphere homologs of the regions involved in internal own-voice soliloquy and in reduced cerebellar activation, consistent with internal model adaptation. Switching from first-person to third-person perspective resulted in activations in precuneus and parietal lobules. Along intentionality, compared with intentional inner speech, mind wandering with inner speech episodes was associated with greater bilateral inferior frontal activation and decreased activation in left temporal regions. This is consistent with the reported subjective evanescence and presumably reflects condensation processes. Our results provide neuroanatomical evidence compatible with predictive control and in favor of the assumptions made in the ConDialInt model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]