56 results on '"Parla"'
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2. The heritability of vocal tract structures estimated from structural MRI in a large cohort of Dutch twins
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Dan Dediu, Emily M. Jennings, Dennis van’t Ent, Scott R. Moisik, Grazia Di Pisa, Janna Schulze, Eco J. C. de Geus, Anouk den Braber, Conor V. Dolan, Dorret I. Boomsma, Neurology, Amsterdam Neuroscience - Neurodegeneration, Biological Psychology, APH - Methodology, and APH - Mental Health
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Fonologia ,Mouth ,Boca ,Nose ,Phonology ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Parla ,Cohort Studies ,Magnetic resonance imaging ,Nas ,Imatges per ressonància magnètica ,Phonetics ,Human beings ,Genetics ,Humans ,Fonètica ,Speech ,ddc:400 ,Home ,Genetics (clinical) ,Language - Abstract
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.
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- 2022
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3. parlers sfaxiens : spécificités linguistiques et culturelles
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Mizouri, Imen
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Dimensió cultural ,Spécificité linguistique ,Dialecto ,Parler ,Habla ,Especificidad lingüística ,Unidad fraseológica ,Unité phraséologique ,Dialect ,Idiomaticité ,Parla ,Linguistic specificity ,Dimension culturelle ,Idiomaticitat ,Dimensión cultural ,Phraseological unit ,Especificitat lingüística ,Speech ,Cultural dimension ,Unitat fraseològica ,Dialecte ,Idiomaticity - Abstract
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.
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- 2021
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4. Validació i classificació d'àudio del projecte 'Common Voice'
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Ramírez Martí, Carla, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Esquerra Llucià, Ignasi
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Forced alignment ,Català ,Automatic speech recognition ,Alineament forçat ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació::Processament del senyal::Processament de la parla i del senyal acústic [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Speech ,Processament de la parla ,Reconeixement automàtic de la parla ,Speech recognition ,Parla - Abstract
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.
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- 2022
5. Temporal overlap between gestures and speech in poststroke aphasia: is there a compensatory effect?
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Han Zhang and Wolfram Hinzen
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Language Disorders ,Speech and Hearing ,Linguistics and Language ,Gestures ,Communication Disorders ,Aphasia ,Humans ,Speech ,Linguistics ,Gest ,Language and Linguistics ,Afàsia ,Parla - Abstract
Purpose: If language production is impaired, will gestures compensate? Evidence in favor of this prediction has often been argued to come from aphasia, but it remains contested. Here, we tested whether thought content not present in speech due to language impairment is manifested in gestures, in 20 people with dysfluent (Broca’s) aphasia, 20 people with fluent (Wernicke’s) aphasia, and 20 matched neurotypical controls. Method: A new annotation scheme was created distinguishing types of gestures and whether they co-occurred with fluent or dysfluent/absent speech and were temporally aligned in content with coproduced speech. Results: Across both aphasia types, noncontent (beat) gestures, which by their nature cannot compensate for lost speech content, constituted the greatest proportion of all types of gestures produced. Content (i.e., descriptive, referential, and metaphorical) gestures were largely coproduced with fluent rather than dysfluent speech and tended to be aligned with the content conveyed in speech. They also did not differ in quantity depending on whether the dysfluencies were eventually resolved or not. Neither aphasia severity nor comprehension ability had an impact on the total amount of content gesture produced in people with aphasia, which was instead positively correlated with speech fluency. Conclusions: Together, these results suggest that gestures are unlikely to have a role in compensating for linguistic deficits and to serve as a representational system conveying thought content independent of language. Surprisingly, aphasia rather is a model of how gesture and language are inherently integrated and aligned: Even when language is impaired, it remains the essential provider of content.
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- 2022
6. On the Need of Standard Assessment Metrics for Automatic Speech Rate Computation Tools
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Farrús, Mireia, Elvira-García, Wendy, and Garrido-Almiñana, Juan María
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Velocitat ,Speech ,Lingüística computacional ,Computational linguistics ,Speed ,Parla - Abstract
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.
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- 2021
7. Statistical Learning and Prosodic Bootstrapping Differentially Affect Neural Synchronization during Speech Segmentation
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Stefan Elmer, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, Toni Cunillera, Seyed Abolfazl Valizadeh, University of Zurich, and Elmer, Stefan
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2805 Cognitive Neuroscience ,Adult ,Male ,Inter-trial coherence ,Prosodic analysis (Linguistics) ,Computer science ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Speech recognition ,UFSP13-4 Dynamics of Healthy Aging ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Prosody ,050105 experimental psychology ,Speech segmentation ,Parla ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Speech Production Measurement ,Adquisició del llenguatge ,Phonetics ,Event-related potential ,Stress (linguistics) ,Humans ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Word learning ,Evoked Potentials ,Language ,10093 Institute of Psychology ,05 social sciences ,Electroencephalography ,Bootstrapping (linguistics) ,Language acquisition ,Anàlisi prosòdica (Lingüística) ,N400 ,Flat speech ,Neurology ,2808 Neurology ,Speech Perception ,Female ,10029 Clinic and Policlinic for Internal Medicine ,Syllable ,150 Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Word (computer architecture) ,Event-related potentials ,RC321-571 - Abstract
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.
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- 2021
8. Differential activation of a frontoparietal network explains population-level differences in statistical learning from speech
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Joan Orpella, M. Florencia Assaneo, Pablo Ripollés, Laura Noejovich, Diana López-Barroso, Ruth de Diego-Balaguer, and David Poeppel
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Diferències individuals ,Brain Mapping ,General Immunology and Microbiology ,General Neuroscience ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Parla ,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology ,Aprenentatge ,Xarxes neuronals (Neurobiologia) ,Individual differences ,Speech Perception ,Learning ,Humans ,Speech ,Neural networks (Neurobiology) ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences - Abstract
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.
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- 2022
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9. Oscillatory activity and EEG phase synchrony of concurrent word segmentation and meaning-mapping in 9-year-old children
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Clément François, Neus Ramos-Escobar, Guillem Olivé, Emma Segura, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Laboratoire Parole et Langage (LPL), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Aix Marseille Université (AMU), Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain (ILCB), and ANR-16-CONV-0002,ILCB,ILCB: Institute of Language Communication and the Brain(2016)
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Neurophysiology and neuropsychology ,Neural substrate ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Electroencephalography Phase Synchronization ,Speech segmentation ,Electroencephalography ,Stimulus (physiology) ,Parla ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Rhythm ,Adquisició del llenguatge ,medicine ,Humans ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,EEG ,Child ,Children ,Original Research ,Language ,Recall ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,QP351-495 ,[SCCO.NEUR]Cognitive science/Neuroscience ,05 social sciences ,Text segmentation ,Frequency-tagging ,Language acquisition ,Verbal Learning ,[SCCO.LING]Cognitive science/Linguistics ,Phase synchronization ,[SCCO.PSYC]Cognitive science/Psychology ,Speech Perception ,Meaning-mapping ,Scalp-based phase synchrony ,Psychology ,Infants ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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.
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- 2021
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10. Acoustic and prosodic information for home monitoring of bipolar disorder
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Joan Escudero, Mireia Farrús, and Joan Codina-Filbà
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Adult ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Prosodic analysis (Linguistics) ,Bipolar disorder ,Health Informatics ,Prosody ,Young Mania Rating Scale ,Parla ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Quality of life (healthcare) ,Rating scale ,mental disorders ,Epidemiology ,medicine ,Humans ,Monitoratge de pacients ,Manic-depressive illness ,Speech ,Working age ,Depression (differential diagnoses) ,Psychiatric Status Rating Scales ,Patient monitoring ,Trastorn bipolar ,Acoustics ,medicine.disease ,Anàlisi prosòdica (Lingüística) ,030227 psychiatry ,3. Good health ,Europe ,Home monitoring app ,Quality of Life ,Voice ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
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).
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- 2021
11. L'evolució humana. L'evidència lingüística
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Rosselló Ximenes, Joana, Tolchinsky, Liliana, and Junyent, M. Carme (Maria Carme), 1955
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Filogènia ,Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882. The descent of man ,Psycholinguistics ,Speech ,Linguistic change ,Canvi lingüístic ,Psicolingüística ,Parla ,Phylogeny - Abstract
[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.
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- 2021
12. Neurocognitive signatures of phonemic sequencing in expert backward speakers
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Diana López-Barroso, María José Torres-Prioris, Lucas Sedeño, Sol Fittipaldi, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo L. Berthier, Adolfo M. García, Estela Camara, [Torres-Prioris,MJ, López-Barroso,D, Berthier,ML] Cognitive Neurology and Aphasia Unit, Centro de Investigaciones Médico‑Sanitarias, Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA), University of Malaga, Malaga, Spain. [Torres-Prioris,MJ, López-Barroso,D] Area of Psychobiology, Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy, University of Malaga, Malaga, Spain. [Càmara,E] Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain. [Fittipaldi,S, Ibáñez,A, García,AM] Universidad de San Andrés, Victoria, Buenos Aires, Argentina. [Fittipaldi,S, Sedeño,L, García,AM] National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina. [Ibáñez,A] Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia. [Ibáñez,A] Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile. [Ibáñez,A, García,AM] Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, United States. [García,AM] Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), Mendoza, Argentina. [García,AM] Departamento de Lingüística Y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile., This work was supported by CONICET, FONCYT-PICT [2017-1818, 2017-1820], CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular [grant number 1170010], FONDAP [grant number 15150012], Programa Interdisciplinario de Investigación Experimental en Comunicación y Cognición (PIIECC), Facultad de Humanidades, USACH, GBHI ALZ UK-20-639295, and and the Multi-Partner Consortium to Expand Dementia Research in Latin America (ReDLat), funded by the National Institutes of Aging of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01AG057234, an Alzheimer’s Association grant (SG-20-725707-ReDLat), the Rainwater Foundation, and the Global Brain Health Institute. MJTP has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport under the FPU program (FPU14/04021) and by a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Malaga. DLB has been supported by the Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral programme (IJCI-2017-34164) and by I+D+i Project, Andalucia and European Union Funds (FEDER) (UMA18-FEDERJA-221).
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Male ,Imagen por resonancia magnética ,lcsh:Medicine ,Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment::Diagnosis::Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures::Diagnostic Imaging::Magnetic Resonance Imaging [Medical Subject Headings] ,computer.software_genre ,Parla ,Organisms::Eukaryota::Animals::Chordata::Vertebrates::Mammals::Primates::Haplorhini::Catarrhini::Hominidae::Humans [Medical Subject Headings] ,0302 clinical medicine ,Voxel ,PHONEMIC SEQUENCING ,Phenomena and Processes::Musculoskeletal and Neural Physiological Phenomena::Nervous System Physiological Phenomena::Nervous System Physiological Processes::Speech [Medical Subject Headings] ,Gray Matter ,Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment::Investigative Techniques::Neuroimaging::Functional Neuroimaging [Medical Subject Headings] ,lcsh:Science ,Neurolinguistics ,purl.org/becyt/ford/5.1 [https] ,Language ,Multidisciplinary ,purl.org/becyt/ford/5 [https] ,BACKWARD SPEECH ,05 social sciences ,Imagen de difusión tensora ,Habla ,Brain ,Middle Aged ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Memoria a corto plazo ,Diffusion Tensor Imaging ,Memory, Short-Term ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,VOXEL-BASED MORPHOMETRY ,Encéfalo ,Psychiatry and Psychology::Psychological Phenomena and Processes::Mental Processes::Learning::Memory::Memory, Short-Term [Medical Subject Headings] ,Identity (object-oriented programming) ,Psychology ,Memory, short-term ,Cognitive psychology ,Adult ,Anatomy::Nervous System::Nerve Net [Medical Subject Headings] ,Check Tags::Male [Medical Subject Headings] ,Grey matter ,Neural circuits ,Article ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Magnetic resonance imaging ,Neuroimaging ,RESTING-STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY ,Functional neuroimaging ,medicine ,Humans ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Gray matter ,Persons::Persons::Age Groups::Adult [Medical Subject Headings] ,Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment::Investigative Techniques::Neuroimaging::Diffusion Tensor Imaging [Medical Subject Headings] ,purl.org/becyt/ford/6 [https] ,Working memory ,Functional Neuroimaging ,lcsh:R ,Neurolingüística ,Persons::Persons::Age Groups::Adult::Middle Aged [Medical Subject Headings] ,purl.org/becyt/ford/6.2 [https] ,Anatomy::Nervous System::Central Nervous System::Brain [Medical Subject Headings] ,Sustancia gris ,lcsh:Q ,Nerve Net ,DIFFUSION TENSOR IMAGING ,Neuroimagen funcional ,computer ,Neurocognitive ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Diffusion MRI - Abstract
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
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- 2020
13. The black box of global aphasia: Neuroanatomical underpinnings of remission from acute global aphasia with preserved inner language function
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Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, Andreu Gabarrós, Angels Camins, Joanna Sierpowska, Patricia León-Cabrera, and Montserrat Juncadella
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medicine.medical_specialty ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Global aphasia ,Audiology ,Brain tumors ,050105 experimental psychology ,Parla ,Language in Interaction ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Neuroimaging ,Language assessment ,medicine ,Tumors cerebrals ,Aphasia ,Semantic memory ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Neuro- en revalidatiepsychologie ,Language production ,Working memory ,Neuropsychology and rehabilitation psychology ,05 social sciences ,Neuropsychology ,medicine.disease ,Comprehension ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Afàsia - Abstract
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.
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- 2020
14. Distinct Components in the Right Extended Frontal Aslant Tract Mediate Language and Working Memory Performance: A Tractography-Informed VBM Study
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Federico Varriano, Saül Pascual-Diaz, and Alberto Prats-Galino
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0301 basic medicine ,Neuroscience (miscellaneous) ,exFAT ,computer.software_genre ,working memory ,Parla ,lcsh:RC321-571 ,lcsh:QM1-695 ,White matter ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,0302 clinical medicine ,Voxel ,Memory ,Component (UML) ,frontal aslant tract ,medicine ,voxel-based morphometry ,Speech ,Set (psychology) ,Cervell ,lcsh:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Original Research ,language ,Working memory ,extended frontal aslant tract ,HCP ,Brain ,lcsh:Human anatomy ,Voxel-based morphometry ,Human brain ,Neuroanatomy ,030104 developmental biology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,FAT ,Anatomy ,Psychology ,computer ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology ,Tractography ,Memòria - Abstract
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.
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- 2020
15. La veu, la parla i el llenguatge de les persones amb la síndrome de deleció de 22q11
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Sebastián Lázaro, Diana, Brun i Gasca, Carme, Fornieles Deu, Albert, and Brun-Gasca, Carme
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Lenguaje ,Voice ,Habla ,Speech ,Veu ,Voz ,Llenguatge ,Ciències de la Salut ,Parla ,159.9 ,Language - Abstract
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
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- 2020
16. Speech emotion recognition using LSTM, multi-task learning and high level feature representation
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Carbonell García, Pablo, Universiteit Twente, and Englebienne, Gwenn
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xarxes neuronals ,speech ,multi-task learning ,parla ,neural networks ,aprenentatge automàtic ,Neural networks (Computer science) ,machine learning ,emotion recognition ,Xarxes neuronals (Informàtica) ,Processament de la parla ,Informàtica::Intel·ligència artificial [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Speech processing systems ,reconeixement d'emocions ,LSTM - Abstract
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.
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- 2019
17. Phonological Task Enhances the Frequency-Following Response to Deviant Task-Irrelevant Speech Sounds
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Kimmo Alho, Katarzyna Żarnowiec, Natàlia Gorina-Careta, Carles Escera, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Kimmo Alho, and Attention and Memory Networks Research Group
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Consonant ,Fonologia ,medicine.medical_specialty ,515 Psychology ,speech ,Mismatch negativity ,audition ,Audiology ,Electroencephalography ,Phonology ,050105 experimental psychology ,Parla ,lcsh:RC321-571 ,novelty ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,0302 clinical medicine ,frequency-following response ,Vowel ,medicine ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,phonological task ,lcsh:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Biological Psychiatry ,Original Research ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,05 social sciences ,Frequency following response ,16. Peace & justice ,attention ,Task (computing) ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Neurology ,auditory evoked potentials ,mismatch negativity ,Syllable ,Electroencefalografia ,Psychology ,Binaural recording ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,electroencephalography ,Neuroscience - Abstract
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.
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- 2019
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18. Spontaneous synchronization to speech reveals neural mechanisms facilitating language learning
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M. Florencia Assaneo, Joan Orpella, David Poeppel, Ruth de Diego-Balaguer, Wy Ming Lin, and Pablo Ripollés
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0301 basic medicine ,Adult ,Male ,Computer science ,Physiology ,Population ,Individuality ,Fisiologia ,Article ,Parla ,Task (project management) ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Rhythm ,Adquisició del llenguatge ,Synchronization (computer science) ,Neural Pathways ,Humans ,Learning ,Speech ,Active listening ,education ,Cervell ,Language ,education.field_of_study ,Brain Mapping ,General Neuroscience ,Magnetoencephalography ,Brain ,Language acquisition ,Middle Aged ,Speech processing ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,030104 developmental biology ,Acoustic Stimulation ,Speech Perception ,Female ,Syllable ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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.
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- 2019
19. Does having good articulatory skills lead to more fluent speech in first and second languages?
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Jong, N.H. de, Mora, J.C., and Jong N.H. de, Mora J.C.
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060201 languages & linguistics ,Linguistics and Language ,Conceptualization ,First language ,05 social sciences ,Speech perception ,Phonology ,06 humanities and the arts ,Variance (accounting) ,Percepció del llenguatge ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Parla ,Education ,Fluency ,0602 languages and literature ,Task analysis ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Articulatory gestures ,Psychology ,Articulation (phonetics) ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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.
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- 2019
20. Implications of oxytocin in speech
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Theofanopoulou, Constantina, Boeckx, Cedric, Jarvis, Erick D., and Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat de Filologia
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Aptitudes verbales ,Aprendizaje ,Oxitocina ,Habla ,Cants dels ocells ,Verbal ability ,Oxytocin ,Ciències Humanes i Socials ,Parla ,Aprenentatge ,Aptitud verbal ,Learning ,Speech ,Birdsongs ,Canto de las aves - Abstract
[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.
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- 2019
21. Rapid recalibration of speech perception after experiencing the McGurk illusion
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Floris P. de Lange, Alexis Pérez-Bellido, and Claudia S. Lüttke
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medicine.medical_specialty ,Speech perception ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Illusion ,Neurociència cognitiva ,Sensory system ,Percepció del llenguatge ,Audiology ,Stimulus (physiology) ,recalibration ,perceptual learning ,050105 experimental psychology ,Parla ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Perceptual learning ,Phonetics ,Perception ,Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience ,Cognitive psychology ,medicine ,audiovisual integration ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psicologia cognitiva ,lcsh:Science ,signal detection theory ,media_common ,Multidisciplinary ,Psycholinguistics ,Action, intention, and motor control ,05 social sciences ,Perception, Action and Control [DI-BCB_DCC_Theme 2] ,Cognitive neuroscience ,180 000 Predictive Brain ,Psicolingüística ,Perceptual integration ,Categorization ,Fonètica ,lcsh:Q ,McGurk illusion ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Research Article - Abstract
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.
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- 2018
22. Attentional effects on rule extraction and consolidation from speech
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Ruth de Diego-Balaguer, Diana López-Barroso, David Cucurell, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, and Universitat de Barcelona
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Adult ,Male ,Linguistics and Language ,Implicit learning ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Rule learning ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Parla ,Article ,Explicit learning ,03 medical and health sciences ,Judgment ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Consolidation (business) ,Adquisició del llenguatge ,Aprenentatge ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Reaction Time ,Humans ,Learning ,Speech ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Attention ,05 social sciences ,Representation (systemics) ,Language acquisition ,Language learning ,Incidental learning ,Constructed language ,Female ,Sequence learning ,Explicit knowledge ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
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.
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- 2016
23. Language and noise transfer in speech enhancement generative adversarial network
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Antonio Bonafonte, Maruchan Park, Joan Serrà, Santiago Pascual, Kang-Hun Ahn, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VEU - Grup de Tractament de la Parla
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FOS: Computer and information sciences ,Sound (cs.SD) ,Generative adversarial networks ,Computer science ,Speech recognition ,Speech enhancement ,02 engineering and technology ,Computer Science - Sound ,Parla ,Machine Learning (cs.LG) ,030507 speech-language pathology & audiology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Audio and Speech Processing (eess.AS) ,Transfer (computing) ,Aprenentatge ,FOS: Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,Speech ,Learning ,business.industry ,Deep learning ,020206 networking & telecommunications ,Function (mathematics) ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Transfer learning ,Noise ,Computer Science - Learning ,Artificial intelligence ,0305 other medical science ,business ,Ensenyament i aprenentatge [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Generator (mathematics) ,Electrical Engineering and Systems Science - Audio and Speech Processing - Abstract
©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.
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- 2018
24. La multimodalidad del lenguaje: un estudio observacional sobre la integración comunicativa en el trastorno del espectro autista
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Fioretti, Silvia, Romera Barrios, Lourdes, and Rosselló Ximenes, Joana
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Bachelor's thesis ,Communication ,Bachelor's theses ,Comunicació ,Speech ,Treballs de fi de grau ,Autism spectrum disorders ,Trastorns de l'espectre autista ,Parla - Abstract
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.
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- 2018
25. Task-dependent modulation of the visual sensory thalamus assists visual-speech recognition
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Helen Blank, Begoña Díaz, and Katharina von Kriegstein
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0301 basic medicine ,Adult ,Male ,Visual sensory ,genetic structures ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Speech recognition ,Lipreading ,Thalamus ,Nucli geniculat lateral ,Sensory system ,Stimulus (physiology) ,Parla ,03 medical and health sciences ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Ressonància magnètica funcional ,medicine ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,Speech ,Humans ,Functional MRI ,Brain Mapping ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Resonancia magnética funcional ,Habla ,Geniculate Bodies ,Recognition, Psychology ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Lateral geniculate nucleus ,Lectura de labios ,030104 developmental biology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Neurology ,Lectura de llavis ,Cerebral cortex ,FOS: Biological sciences ,Geniculate body ,Quantitative Biology - Neurons and Cognition ,Speech Perception ,Visual Perception ,Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC) ,Female ,Psychology ,Functional magnetic resonance imaging ,Núcleo geniculado lateral ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
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
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- 2018
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26. The Role of Vocal Learning in Language. Evolution and Development
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Zhang, Qing, Rosselló Ximenes, Joana, Diéguez-Vide, Faustino, and Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana i Lingüística General
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education ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,Habla ,Speech ,Aprendizaje vocal ,Aprenentatge vocal ,Ciències Humanes i Socials ,Vocal learning ,Parla - Abstract
[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.
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- 2017
27. Autonomous Discovery of Motor Constraints in an Intrinsically-Motivated Vocal Learner
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Juan M. Acevedo-Valle, Clément Moulin-Frier, Cecilio Angulo, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament d'Enginyeria de Sistemes, Automàtica i Informàtica Industrial, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. GREC - Grup de Recerca en Enginyeria del Coneixement
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Active learning ,Computer science ,Robots autònoms ,02 engineering and technology ,Parla ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Artificial Intelligence ,Autonomous robots ,Machine learning ,Aprenentatge automàtic ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,Speech ,Auditory feedback ,business.industry ,early vocal development ,Sensorimotor system ,Cognition ,Mixture model ,intrinsic motivations ,Gaussina mixture models (GMMs) ,020201 artificial intelligence & image processing ,Informàtica::Intel·ligència artificial [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Artificial intelligence ,business ,Informàtica::Robòtica [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Software ,Vocal tract ,sensorimotor exploration - Abstract
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.
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- 2017
28. Deep learning for non-verbal personality analysis
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Pérez Quintana, Marc and Escalera Guerrero, Sergio
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Programari ,Bachelor's thesis ,Bachelor's theses ,Visió per ordinador ,Speech ,Reconeixement de formes (Informàtica) ,Computer vision ,Pattern recognition systems ,Treballs de fi de grau ,Computer software ,Personalitat ,Parla ,Personality - Abstract
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.
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- 2017
29. Melodic patterns of absolute interrogative utterances in northern German in spontaneous speech
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José Torregrosa-Azor and Dolors Font-Rotchés
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060201 languages & linguistics ,Melody ,Linguistics and Language ,Alemany ,06 humanities and the arts ,Entonació (Fonètica) ,Interrogative ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,language.human_language ,Parla ,German ,Absolute (philosophy) ,0602 languages and literature ,Theoretical linguistics ,language ,German language ,Speech ,Psychology ,Intonation (Phonetics) ,Spontaneous speech - Abstract
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.
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- 2017
30. Percepció de la parla i parla infantil
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Ester Subias, Glòria, Cantero Serena, Francisco José, 1964, Hermoso, Adoració, Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Educació, and Perera i Parramon, Joan
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Fonologia ,Ciències de l’Educació ,Percepció ,Habla ,Speech ,Perception ,Percepción ,Fonología ,Phonology ,Parla - Abstract
[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.
- Published
- 2017
31. Les vocals del català central en parla espontània
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Rius, Agnès, Font Rotchés, Dolors, and Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura
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Language standardization ,Vocals ,Habla ,Acoustic phonetics ,Parla ,Vocales ,Català parlat ,Spoken Catalan ,Normalización lingüística ,Normalització lingüística ,Colloquial language ,Ciències de l'Educació ,Speech ,Fonètica acústica ,Lengua coloquial ,Fonética acústica ,Vowels ,Llengua col·loquial - Abstract
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.
- Published
- 2016
32. Identificación del hablante a partir del análisis acústico de una muestra de voz en condiciones de cansancio
- Author
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Colls Palomero, Lídia, Universitat de Girona. Facultat de Lletres, and Blecua Falgueras, Beatriz
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Speech ,Fonètica forense ,Parla ,Forensic phonetics - Abstract
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
- Published
- 2016
33. Anàlisi dels patrons cognitius de l’accent en català
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Pou Sagarra, Elisabet, Universitat de Girona. Facultat de Lletres, and Serra i López, Josep
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Català -- Accents i accentuació ,Speech ,Catalan language -- Accents and accentuation ,Parla - Abstract
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
- Published
- 2016
34. The immature brain: early capacities speech perception on preterm infants
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Laura Bosch Galceran, Universitat de Barcelona, and MINECO projecte PSI 2011-25376
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percepció de la parla ,Maduresa (Psicologia) ,prematuritat ,prematuridad ,Premature infants ,Philosophy ,Brain maturation ,preterm birth ,speech perception ,Parla ,brain maturation ,Infants prematurs ,maduració cerebral ,maduración cerebral ,Maduration (Psychology) ,Speech ,percepción del habla ,Humanities - Abstract
Aquest article planteja les conseqüències de la prematuritat sobre l'adquisició del llenguatge i revisa treballs recents que han analitzat les capacitats inicials de percepció de la parla del prematur. Es discuteix un tema de controvèrsia actual sobre si l’exposició a la llengua abans de l’edat a terme podria accelerar d’alguna manera aquestes capacitats inicials, malgrat la immaduresa cerebral, i repercutir favorablement en les etapes inicials d’adquisició del llenguatge. Els resultats de la recerca no donen un suport clar a aquesta hipòtesi. La interacció entre els factors maduratius i l'experiència amb el llenguatge és complexa en aquesta població de risc., This paper focuses on the consequences of preterm birth on language acquisition and reviews recent work on preterm infants’ early speech perception capacities. A current controversial topic is discussed regarding the possibility that early language exposure before term age could somehow accelerate these early capacities, in spite of brain immaturity, and have a positive effect on early language acquisition. Research results do not clearly support this hypothesis. The interaction between brain maturation and language exposure factors is complex in this at risk population., Este artículo plantea las consecuencias de la prematuridad sobre la adquisición del lenguaje y revisa trabajos recientes que han analizado las capacidades iniciales de percepción del habla en el prematuro.Se discute un tema de controversia actual sobre si la exposición a la lengua antes de la edad a término podría acelerar de alguna manera estas capacidades iniciales, a pesar de la inmadurez cerebral, y repercutir favorablemente en les etapas iniciales de adquisición del lenguaje. Los resultados de la investigación no ofrecen un claro apoyo a esta hipótesis. La interacción entre los factores madurativos y la experiencia con el lenguaje es compleja en esta población de riesgo.
- Published
- 2015
35. Attention mechanisms and the mosaic evolution of speech
- Author
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Pedro Tiago Martins, Cedric eBoeckx, and Universitat de Barcelona
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Evolution ,Mosaic evolution ,lcsh:BF1-990 ,Parla ,consonants and vowels ,evolution ,Speech ,Psychology ,10. No inequality ,General Psychology ,Cognitive science ,Motor theory of speech perception ,Communication ,Evolution of speech ,Modalities ,Mechanism (biology) ,business.industry ,Perspective (graphical) ,Cognition ,Focus (linguistics) ,attention mechanisms ,lcsh:Psychology ,oscillatory cycles ,Perspective Article ,Evolució ,business ,Gesture - Abstract
There is still no categorical answer for why humans, and no other species, have speech, or why speech is the way it is. Several purely anatomical arguments have been put forward, but they have been shown to be false, biologically implausible, or of limited scope. This perspective paper supports the idea that evolutionary theories of speech could benefit from a focus on the cognitive mechanisms that make speech possible, for which antecedents in evolutionary history and brain correlates can be found. This type of approach is part of a very recent, but rapidly growing tradition, which has provided crucial insights on the nature of human speech by focusing on the biological bases of vocal learning. Here, we call attention to what might be an important ingredient for speech. We contend that a general mechanism of attention, which manifests itself not only in visual but also auditory (and possibly other) modalities, might be one of the key pieces of human speech, in addition to the mechanisms underlying vocal learning, and the pairing of facial gestures with vocalic units.
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
36. Evolució de l'entropia en el llenguatge infantil
- Author
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Castela Ibañez, Susana, Baixeries i Juvillà, Jaume, Ferrer Cancho, Ramon, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics
- Subjects
infantil ,nens ,llengua ,block ,language ,Entropia (Teoria de la informació) ,speech ,Informàtica::Sistemes d'informació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,bloc ,parla ,llenguatge ,Chao ,Entropy (Information theory) ,Zhang ,kids ,children ,Shen - Abstract
[CATALÀ] En aquest projecte s'intenta esbrinar si l'entropia de bloc permet descriure el desenvolupament de la parla dels infants. Per a fer-ho, s'ha desenvolupat programari adient per estudiar l'entropia de bloc en tot tipus de textos. [ANGLÈS] This project tries to find out if block entropy allows the description of the development of children's speech. In order to do this, appropriate software to study the block entropy in all kinds of texts has been developed.
- Published
- 2014
37. El balbuceig dels nadons és la clau del llenguatge
- Author
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Bueno i Torrens, David, 1965 and Universitat de Barcelona
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Llenguatge infantil ,Newborn infants ,Infants nadons ,Speech ,Language in children ,Parla - Abstract
Un estudi demostra que els primers sons que vocalitzen els nens més petits tenen un significat més complex del que s'havia pensat fins ara
- Published
- 2013
38. Perception of audio-visual speech synchrony in Spanish-speaking children with and without specific language impairment
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Ferran Pons, David J. Lewkowicz, Mònica Sanz-Torrent, Lucía Buil-Legaz, Llorenç Andreu, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Universitat de Barcelona, and Florida Atlantic University
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Auditory perception ,Male ,habla ,Linguistics and Language ,Visual perception ,Speech perception ,speech ,percepción ,Video Recording ,percepció ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Specific language impairment ,perception ,trastorno específico del lenguaje ,Language and Linguistics ,Speech Disorders ,Article ,children ,Niños -- Lenguaje ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,medicine ,Humans ,Child ,Eye Movement Measurements ,General Psychology ,Motor theory of speech perception ,trastorn específic del llenguatge ,infants ,Auditory phonetics ,parla ,medicine.disease ,Speech processing ,Infants -- Llenguatge ,specific language impairment ,Spain ,Case-Control Studies ,Child, Preschool ,Auditory Perception ,Speech Perception ,Visual Perception ,Children -- Language ,Female ,Neurocomputational speech processing ,Psychology ,niños ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Speech perception involves the integration of auditory and visual articulatory information, and thus requires the perception of temporal synchrony between this information. There is evidence that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty with auditory speech perception but it is not known if this is also true for the integration of auditory and visual speech. Twenty Spanish-speaking children with SLI, twenty typically developing age-matched Spanish-speaking children, and twenty Spanish-speaking children matched for MLU-w participated in an eye-tracking study to investigate the perception of audiovisual speech synchrony. Results revealed that children with typical language development perceived an audiovisual asynchrony of 666 ms regardless of whether the auditory or visual speech attribute led the other one. Children with SLI only detected the 666 ms asynchrony when the auditory component followed the visual component. None of the groups perceived an audiovisual asynchrony of 366 ms. These results suggest that the difficulty of speech processing by children with SLI would also involve difficulties in integrating auditory and visual aspects of speech perception.
- Published
- 2012
39. Especialización perceptiva multisensorial del habla en la infancia
- Author
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Pons Gimeno, Ferran and Lewkowicz, David J.
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Perceptual learning ,Speech ,Aprenentatge sensorial ,Infants ,Children ,Parla - Abstract
Durante el primer año de vida, los bebés muestran una disminución en la capacidad para diferenciar sonidos del habla no presentes en su lengua materna. Este fenómeno se conoce como estrechamiento perceptivo (perceptual narrowing). Sin embargo, la percepción del habla no se basa exclusivamente en la modalidad auditiva, sino que para poder percibir adecuadamente el lenguaje, el bebé integra la información auditiva con la visual (el gesto articulatorio). Un estudio reciente demuestra que el estrechamiento perceptivo también sucede a nivel audiovisual: se observa un declive en la detección de la correspondencia sonido-gesto articulatorio (facial) en lenguas no maternas durante el primer año de vida.
- Published
- 2011
40. Brain dynamics sustaining rapid rule extraction from speech
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Lluís Fuentemilla, Ruth de Diego-Balaguer, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, and Universitat de Barcelona
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Adult ,Male ,Dissociation (neuropsychology) ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Speech recognition ,Vocabulary ,Parla ,Neural activity ,Young Adult ,Nonlinear systems ,Humans ,Speech ,Cervell ,Communication ,Analysis of Variance ,Brain Mapping ,business.industry ,Sistemes no lineals ,Speech input ,Evoked potentials (Electrophysiology) ,Brain ,Cognition ,Electroencephalography ,Verbal Learning ,Language acquisition ,Semantics ,Constructed language ,Phase coherence ,Acoustic Stimulation ,Nonlinear Dynamics ,Potencials evocats (Electrofisiologia) ,Evoked Potentials, Auditory ,Female ,Psychology ,business ,Gamma band - Abstract
Language acquisition is a complex process that requires the synergic involvement of different cognitive functions, which include extracting and storing the words of the language and their embedded rules for progressive acquisition of grammatical information. As has been shown in other fields that study learning processes, synchronization mechanisms between neuronal assemblies might have a key role during language learning. In particular, studying these dynamics may help uncover whether different oscillatory patterns sustain more item-based learning of words and rule-based learning from speech input. Therefore, we tracked the modulation of oscillatory neural activity during the initial exposure to an artificial language, which contained embedded rules. We analyzed both spectral power variations, as a measure of local neuronal ensemble synchronization, as well as phase coherence patterns, as an index of the long-range coordination of these local groups of neurons. Synchronized activity in the gamma band (20–40 Hz), previously reported to be related to the engagement of selective attention, showed a clear dissociation of local power and phase coherence between distant regions. In this frequency range, local synchrony characterized the subjects who were focused on word identification and was accompanied by increased coherence in the theta band (4–8 Hz). Only those subjects who were able to learn the embedded rules showed increased gamma band phase coherence between frontal, temporal, and parietal regions.
- Published
- 2011
41. La electropalatografía (EPG) en el estudio articulatorio del habla: el WinEPG de Articulate Instruments Ltd
- Author
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Fernández Planas, Ana Ma. (Ana María)
- Subjects
Phonetics ,Fonètica ,Speech ,Parla - Abstract
La electropalatografía (EPG) es, hoy en día, una de las herramientas más eficaces en el análisis instrumental articulatorio. Permite registrar los contactos de la lengua con el paladar a partir de la activación de los electrodos situados en la superficie de los paladares artificiales y además también permite hacer su seguimiento en el tiempo, lo cual constituye su logro más destacado respecto a la palatografía estática clásica. Los datos que proporciona, fundamentalmente a partir de sus gráficos característicos (los electropalatogramas), suelen reducirse a algún tipo de índices susceptibles de ser sometidos a pruebas estadísticas.
- Published
- 2008
42. Phonological activation of non-produced words. The dynamics of lexical access in speech production
- Author
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Navarrete Sánchez, Eduardo, Costa Martínez, Albert, 1970, and Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Psicologia Bàsica
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Lexicologia ,Fonologia ,Psycholinguistics ,Lexicología ,Habla ,Lexicology ,Speech ,Fonología ,Phonology ,Psicolingüística ,Ciències de la Salut ,Parla ,159.9 - Abstract
[eng] Speaking can be considered a goal-directed behavior because speakers have to retrieve the appropriate words and phonemes from their mental lexicon. However, observational and experimental evidence suggests that during the lexical and phonological retrieval processes other words than the intended ones are activated to some degree. Under this scenario, it is necessary to postulate selection mechanisms in charge of determining, among the activated representations, which ones will be prioritized and further processed in order to finally utter the speech signal. How does the control mechanism work that allows speakers to focus on the appropriate set of representations and reject the non-appropriate ones? It is generally agreed that the most relevant parameter that guides word and phoneme selection is the level of activation of the corresponding representations, in the sense that the most activated representations at a specific moment will be the ones selected. In addition, theories of speech production agree that the selection mechanisms also take into account the activation level of other non-target representations, in the sense that the selection of one representation is more difficult the more activated other competing representations are. According to these two assumptions, the selection of a word would depend on two parameters: a) the amount of activation that this word receives from the conceptual system and b) the level of activation of other representations at the moment of selection. In order to have a clear understanding of the mechanisms that speakers employ to decide which representations to select, we first need to specify under which circumstances this selection mechanism takes place. In particular, this dissertation tries to describe the pattern of activation during lexical access. Specifically, which words and phonemes are activated during the lexicalization process of the intended concept? This is an important issue because the types of processes in charge of encoding/selecting information at each level of the system may differ depending on what other information is available at a particular moment. For instance, the selection of the word ‘car’ and its corresponding phonemes may depend on whether other words and phonemes are also activated or not. The main purpose of this dissertation is to explore whether concepts outside of the communicative goal of the speaker are nevertheless activated in the process of language production. We assess whether there is lexical and phonological activation of these concepts. We take an experimental approach and measure speakers’ performance in different naming contexts. In particular, participants were instructed to name target stimuli while ignoring the presentation of distractor pictures. The semantic and phonological manipulations between target and distractor names allowed us to analyze whether participants have lexicalized the distractor picture and to what degree. In the next chapter we introduce the functional architecture of the speech production system. In the first section we describe the architecture of the system and then we focus on describing how information is propagated between the different levels of the system. This is the main topic of the dissertation and in the rest of the chapter we introduce three theoretical proposals about the propagation of the information and also some experimental evidence. Chapter three contains the main aim and specific objectives of the thesis. Chapters four, five, six and seven contain the experimental part. Finally, in chapters eight and nine we discuss the theoretical implications that follow from our experiments., [spa] Hablar es, sin duda alguna, una de las capacidades más asombrosas que los seres humanos adquieren. Una de las cuestiones que más interesa a los psicólogos que estudian la producción oral del lenguaje es la descripción de los procesos y mecanismos mediante los cuales el hablante recupera las palabras de su memoria. La presente tesis está relacionada con esta cuestión. La producción del habla implica el acceso a representaciones léxicas y fonológicas muy concretas. Evidencia observacionale y experimental sugiere que durante el acceso léxico y fonológico otras palabras pueden estar activadas y llegar incluso a interferir. Por lo tanto, parece necesario postular un mecanismo que permita al hablante acceder a las palabras adecuadas y rechazar aquellas que, pese a no formar parte de la intención comunicativa, hayan podido ser activadas. Los modelos de producción coinciden en postular que el parámetro que guía la selección léxica y fonológica es el nivel de activación de las representaciones, en el sentido de que la representación más activada en un determinado momento es la que finalmente resulta seleccionada. Los modelos también consideran que esta selección depende del nivel de activación de otras representaciones, en el sentido de que resulta más difícil seleccionar una representación cuanto más activadas están otras representaciones ajenas a la intención comunicativa. Esta tesis describe las circunstancias en las que se produce la selección léxica y la recuperación fonológica durante la producción del habla. Concretamente, ¿qué palabras y fonemas están activados durante el proceso de lexicalización del mensaje comunicativo? En la tesis analizamos si conceptos que no forman parte del mensaje preverbal del hablante llegan a activar sus correspondientes representaciones léxicas y fonológicas. En los experimentos de esta tesis, los participantes nombran un estímulo a la vez que ignoran la presencia de dibujos distractores. La manipulación de la relación semántica y fonológica entre el nombre del estímulo y el distractor permite analizar hasta qué punto se ha lexicalizado el dibujo distractor.
- Published
- 2007
43. L'entonació del català. Patrons melòdics, tonemes i marges de dispersió
- Author
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Font Rotchés, Dolors, Cantero Serena, Francisco José, 1964, and Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Didàctica de la Llengua i la Literatura
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Fonologia ,Catalan language ,Català ,Sociolinguistics ,Phonetics ,Fonètica ,Speech ,Sociolingüística ,Entonació (Fonètica) ,Phonology ,Parla ,Intonation (Phonetics) - Abstract
[cat] En aquesta investigació ens proposem com a objectius fer una descripció de l'entonació del català, tant des d'un punt de vista fonètic (trets melòdics i patrons melòdics) com fonològic (trets fonològics i unitats fonològiques o tonemes), com també l'avaluació del mètode que s'ha utilitzat Anàlisi melòdica de la parla de Cantero (2002).En el primer capítol, es dóna una visió general dels diferents plantejaments teòrics que s'han desenvolupat durant el segle XX fins avui i dels estudis més importants que s'han realitzat, en concret, sobre el català, el resultat dels quals constitueix una base i a la vegada un estímul per abordar una descripció completa de l'entonació d'aquesta llengua.En el segon, es descriu el corpus, constituït per 580 enunciats de parla espontània extrets de 47 hores de material audiovisual i emesos per 160 informants de procedència sociocultural i dialectal diversa. També s'explica l'aplicació de la primera fase o fase acústica del mètode -anàlisi melòdica de la parla-, en què s'obtenen amb mitjans instrumentals els valors acústics de les vocals dels enunciats que seran sotmesos a un procés de relativització per eliminar-ne les variacions micromelòdiques, com també les variacions provocades pel to mitjà del locutor. Les melodies obtingudes es comparen a partir de la forma fonètica de la inflexió final (part de la corba tonal que va de la darrera síl·laba tònica fins al final) i es distribueixen en grups provisionalment. La validació dels límits de la inflexió final que caracteritzarà cada grup es porta a terme en el tercer capítol, on té lloc la fase perceptiva, mitjançant proves perceptives respostes per 153 informants diversos i genuïns. Aquests escolten les melodies de cada enunciat i les classifiquen segons els significats fonològics que perceben /± interrogatiu/o /±I/, /±emfàtic/ o /±E/ i /±suspès / o /±S/.Resultat de tot aquest procés, s'obtenen 8 patrons melòdics, definits pel tret melòdic de la inflexió final (IF) i pel significat fonològic que els han atribuït els parlants a les proves perceptives: Patró 1. IF descendent /-I-E-S/ Patró 2. IF ascendent (de 10% a 80%) /-I-E+S/Patró 3. IF ascendent (≥80%) /+I-E-S/Patró 4. IF amb accent sintagmàtic elevat (de 10% a 50%) /-I+E-S/Patró 5. IF ascendent-desdendent /-I+E-S/Patró 6. IF descendent-ascendent (-120%) /-I+E+S/Patró 7. IF amb accent sintagmàtic elevat (≥50%) /+I+E-S/Patró 8. IF descendent-ascendent (+120%) /+I+E-S/. A part del tret melòdic a la inflexió final, cada patró presenta un tret al primer pic (primera síl·laba tònica de l'enunciat): ascens inferior a 40% o bé desplaçament a una vocal àtona posterior, i un altre al cos: declinació constant. A més d'aquests 11 trets melòdics (2 al primer pic, 1 al cos i 8 a la inflexió final), que anomenem típics, hem arribat a definir 18 trets no típics, els quals poden caracteritzar una melodia com a /+interrogativa/, /+emfàtica/ o /+suspesa/.En resum, hem constatat que els 3 trets fonològics binaris que proposa Cantero /± interrogatiu/, /±emfàtic/ i /±suspès/ són suficients per descriure les melodies del català; que els 8 tonemes, obtinguts de totes les combinacions possibles dels tres trets, tenen realitzacions en català, les quals es concreten en els 29 trets melòdics que hem descrit i els 8 patrons. A la vegada, també hem demostrat la validesa del mètode per descriure aquesta llengua. Així, doncs, qualsevol melodia produïda per un parlant del català pot caracteritzar-se a partir dels 29 trets melòdics descrits, classificar-se en un dels 8 patrons i respondre a un dels 8 tonemes; i, en sentit contrari, a partir dels 8 tonemes es pot donar explicació de tots els trets melòdics que hem obtingut, de la constitució dels 8 patrons i de les diverses melodies d'aquesta llengua.NOTA: Aquesta tesi disposa d'un Apèndix (gràfics i arxius de veu) que properament estarà disponible a la plana web de la revista PHONICA (http://www.ub.es/lfa), [eng] This investigation aims to carry out a description of the Catalan intonation, both from a phonetic point of view (melodic features and melodic patterns) and a phonological point of view (phonological features and phonological units or "tonemes"), as well as evaluate the method used "Melodic Analysis of Speech" by Cantero (2002).In the first section, there is an overview about the different theoretical approaches developed along the 20th century up to the present day. Then, the corpus is described, which is comprised of 580 spontaneous speech utterances, emitted by 160 reporters from different sociocultural and dialectal origins. The application of the method is also explained (acoustic analysis, how data collected is made relative and perceptive verification of the validation to 153 reporters).As a result of all this process, 8 melodic patterns are obtained, defined by the melodic feature at the final inflection (FI) and by the phonological meaning attributed by the speakers at the perceptive tests:Pattern 1. FI downward /-interrogative, -emphatic, -suspended/ or /-I-E-S/. Pattern 2. FI upward (from 10% to 80%) /-I-E+S/.Pattern 3. FI upward (≥80%) /+I-E-S/. Pattern 4. FI with high syntagmatic accent (from 10% to 50%) /-I+E-S/.Pattern 5. FI upward-downward /-I+E-S/. Pattern 6. FI downward-upward (-120%) /-I+E+S/.Pattern 7. FI with high syntagmatic accent (≥50%) /+I+E-S/. Pattern 8. FI downward-upward (+120%) /+I+E-S/. Apart from this melodic feature at the final inflection, each pattern presents a feature at the first peak -first stressed syllable of the utterance-: rise less than 40% or displacement to a further unstressed vowel, an another one at the body: constant declination. Apart from this 11 melodic features (2 at the first peak, 1 at the body and 8 at the final inflection), to which we refer as typical, we have also defined up to 18 not typical features, which can characterize a melody as a /+interrogative/, /+emphatic/ or /+suspended/.In sum, we have established the Catalan intonation units, both phonetic and phonological (3 binary phonological features, 8 tonemes, 8 melodic patterns and 29 melodic features) and, at the same time, we have also proved the validation of the method to describe this language.N.B.: This thesis has an Appendix (graphics and sound files), soon avalaible at PHONICA electronic review website (http://www.ub.es/lfa)
- Published
- 2005
44. Envelope and instantaneous phase considerations in speech modelling
- Author
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M.A. Lagunas, A. Moreno, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VEU - Grup de Tractament de la Parla
- Subjects
Computer science ,speech ,Codebook ,Speech synthesis ,Filtering and prediction theory ,Filter (signal processing) ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Linear predictive coding ,Residual ,computer.software_genre ,Instantaneous phase ,Signal ,Parla ,Excited state ,Encoding ,Electronic engineering ,Envelope (mathematics) ,computer ,Algorithm ,Parametric statistics - Abstract
The authors present a low-bit-rate coding system where the envelope and instantaneous phase of the residual are used. A time-varying filter (short-delay filter) is excited by a signal composed by a parametric version of the residual, multiplied by a sequence from a codebook. Two alternatives are studied for the design of the codebook: sequences formed by random pulses and sequences formed by random phases to simulate the instantaneous phase of the residual
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- 2003
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
45. A comparative study of parameters and distances for noisy speech recognition
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Hernando Pericás, Francisco Javier|||0000-0002-1730-8154, Nadeu Camprubí, Climent|||0000-0002-5863-0983, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VEU - Grup de Tractament de la Parla
- Subjects
speech ,education ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Parla - Published
- 1991
46. Cuantificación vectorial en codificación de voz por excitación multipulso
- Author
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Moreno Bilbao, M. Asunción, Rodríguez Fonollosa, José Adrián, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VEU - Grup de Tractament de la Parla
- Subjects
speech ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Parla - Abstract
In this paper is made a comparison between sorne quantizers applied in a Multipulse Speech coder. Vector quantizer is compared against scalar quantization in the LPC parameter in the short predictor. Adaptive Multistage Vector Quantizer gives the best results. Long predictor coefficient obtained either in open or closed loop is quantized and results are compared. Finally, excitation signa! is quantized scalar and vectorially and results are compared. Any of the different VQ squemes tested gives a better performance in SNR terms than the scalar squeme
- Published
- 1991
47. Two Level Continuous Speech Recognition Using Demisyllable-Based HMM Word Spotting
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Lleida Solano, Eduardo
- Subjects
education ,Speech ,Parla - Published
- 1991
48. Modelos de Markon y cuantificacion vectorial por medio de redes de Kohoen
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Monte Moreno, Enrique, Mariño Acebal, José Bernardo, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VEU - Grup de Tractament de la Parla
- Subjects
speech ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Parla - Abstract
In this paper we present a speech recogmuon system based on Hidden Markov Models, which uses as a quantifier a fonotropic map. This kind of arquitecture has been used for tasks like discriminating the phonemes of the Japanese language /1/. We will use a similar arquitecture in order to construct . a system that might be able to recognize isolated words (digits) independently of the speaker and we will compare the results with those of a classical system (RAM SES) /71 where the codebook is trained using the LBG algorithm /6/.
- Published
- 1991
49. Psicoanálisis y lenguaje. La aportación original de Jacques Lacan
- Author
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Tizio Domínguez, Hebe M., Serra i Raventós, Miquel, and Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat de Psicologia
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Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 ,Lacan, Jacques, 1901-1981 ,Language and languages ,Psicoanálisis ,Speech ,Psicoanàlisi ,Ciències de la Salut ,Parla ,Psychoanalysis ,159.9 ,Llenguatge i llengües - Abstract
La presente Tesis es un modo de concluir un largo proceso en el que la reflexión, la práctica y verificación clínica y la lectura de diversos textos se fueron combinando con una serie de viajes para la consulta de fuentes, incluso con entrevistas y búsqueda en archivos de París. El tema escogido desarrollará –desde una perspectiva histórica- una cuestión que se refiere a los fundamentos mismos del psicoanálisis. La hipótesis más general que se formula es que existe una relación estrecha entre psicoanálisis y lenguaje. El psicoanálisis es una experiencia de lenguaje, es decir, se trata de un sujeto que habla a un analista que tiene como respuesta la interpretación. Esta cuestión está presente en la obra de Freud y es una aportación original de Lacan el hacerla explicita y teorizarla. Por ello se hace necesario ubicar dos sujetos históricos (Freud y Lacan) para demostrar cómo está presente en el primero la cuestión del lenguaje y cuál es la aportación original de Lacan en su “retorno” a Freud. Se intentará demostrar que la cuestión del lenguaje es una constante a lo largo de toda la obra de Freud que, si bien no es teorizada explícitamente, marca sus elaboraciones. El recorrido histórico que se realizará se inicia pues con el descubrimiento freudiano. A partir de la escucha de lo que decían sus pacientes, se despierta en Freud una preocupación por la significación y el lenguaje; este interés es anterior a la creación del psicoanálisis. El objetiva que se persigue en este punto es poder demostrar que esta anterioridad lleva a Freud a definir el aparato psíquico, o más exactamente, que hay una definición que se aproxima a la de una cadena significante (frástica), y en la que Freud precisa cómo se crean los elementos que establecen cadenas asociativas y que el valor afectivo, que no se desgasta en palabras, es una satisfacción pulsional que opera como inercia. Un segundo objetivo, en lo que hace al descubrimiento freudiano, es demostrar que la referencia a la cuestión "Psicoanálisis y lenguaje” pasa por "los usos lingüísticos" y el lenguaje fundamental. Esta cuestión se halla ya explicitada en 1895 y se refiere a éste como “fuente común”, un término que Freud toma de Schreber. Para hablar de la aportación original de Lacan al tema objeto de estudio es necesario primero hacer un recorrido por los post-freudianos, y ver cómo tratan la cuestión del lenguaje, analizando a continuación cuáles de sus referencias son utilizadas por Lacan. Todo ello nos llevará al tercer objetivo, con el que se intentará demostrar que el camino de Jacques Lacan está orientado desde el comienzo por su preocupación por el lenguaje, un interés que es (como en el caso de Freud) anterior a su entrada en el psicoanálisis. Lo que Lacan llama el inicio de su "enseñanza” es el punto donde comienza a teorizar sobre el tema “Psicoanálisis y lenguaje". De hecho, dicha cuestión (formulada como tal) casi no existía antes de Lacan. Ciertamente, en Freud se constatan importantes referencias sobre el lenguaje y hay un valioso aporte a la semiología, pero no hay una teorización específica del tema. El cuarto objetivo es trabajar la diferencia que hay en la enseñanza de Lacan entre las “leyes de la palabra” y las “leyes del lenguaje”. Dada la amplitud de la obra de Jacques Lacan, esta Tesis se centra en el desarrollo de sus ideas hasta 1957, ya que interesa ubicar dos "momentos cruciales”; el primero, 1953, donde Lacan data el comienzo de su enseñanza. Lacan demuestra, en ese momento, que el psicoanálisis no es marginal a la cuestión del lenguaje pues el inconsciente está estructurado como un lenguaje y la palabra es su medio. Se trata de un campo de lenguaje organizado por la palabra sometida a la ley hegeliana del reconocimiento. El segundo momento se ubica en 1957. Después de reescribir el Edipo en términos significantes, Lacan hablará, tomando los aportes de la lingüística estructural, de las “leyes del lenguaje”. Es entonces cuando podrá precisar qué quiere decir “el inconsciente estructurado como un lenguaje": articulado por la metáfora y la metonimia. El apartado de conclusiones permite el pasaje de la investigación histórica al marco explicativo y la apertura de nuevos derroteros de trabajo.
- Published
- 1990
50. AVPC-Subband Coding System for Speech Encoding
- Author
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Masgrau Gómez, Enrique José, Mariño Acebal, José Bernardo, Rodríguez Fonollosa, José Adrián, Salavedra Molí, Josep, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VEU - Grup de Tractament de la Parla
- Subjects
speech ,Enginyeria de la telecomunicació [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Parla - Abstract
The combination of Vector Quantization (VQ) and predictive techniques -named AVPC systems- has been shown as interesting systems for speech waveform coding at medium-high rates (ref. 1 to 3). In this work we present a such system including a previous four subbbands splitting. This allows good quality of speech at low-medium rates (1-1.25 bits/sample). A comparative study show that the AVPC-SBC outperforms the simple AVPC coder.
- Published
- 1987
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