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Purpose: This study investigated the network of brain regions involved in overt production of vowels, monosyllables, and bisyllables to test hypotheses derived from the Directions Into Velocities of Articulators (DIVA) [...]

Purpose: This study examined alterations in ventilation and speech characteristics as well as perceived dyspnea during submaximal aerobic exercise tasks. Method: Twelve healthy participants completed aerobic exercise-only and simultaneous speaking [...]

Purpose: This study investigated the concurrent biomechanical and electromyographic properties of 2 swallow-specific tasks (effortful swallow and Mendelsohn maneuver) and 1 swallow-nonspecific (expiratory muscle strength training [EMST]) swallow therapy task [...]

It has been hypothesized that typical speech movements do not involve large muscular forces and that normal speakers use less than 20% of the maximum orofacial muscle contractile forces that are available (e.g., Amerman, 1993; Barlow & Abbs, 1984; Barlow & Netsell, 1986; DePaul & Brooks, 1993). However, no direct evidence for this hypothesis has been provided. This study investigated the percentage of maximum interlabial contact pressures (force per unit area) typically used during speech production. The primary conclusion of this study is that normal speakers typically use less than 20% of the available interlabial contact pressure, whether or not the jaw contributes to bilabial closure. Production of the phone [p] at conversational rate and intensity generated an average of 10.56% of maximum available interlabial pressure (MILP) when jaw movement was not restricted and 14.62% when jaw movement was eliminated. KEY WORDS: interlabial contact pressure, bilabial closure, speech production

This study investigates the extent to which the use of a face mask conveys linguopalatal contact changes during speech production. Electropalatographic data from five Catalan speakers were collected for different consonants, i.e., the alveolar stop [n], the alveolopalatal stop [n] and the palatal approximant [j], in the sequences [iCi] and [aCe]. Results for [n] indicate more closure retraction in the mask versus nonmask condition occurring presumably when the mask is pressed forcefully against the face in front of the mouth. The use of the mask for [n] and [j] causes an increase in dorsopalatal contact, which reflects most likely a strategy of articulatory and/or perceptual compensation.

The following questions are addressed concerning how a theory of lexical access can be realized in the brain: (1) Can a brainlike device function without inhibitory mechanisms? (2) Where in the brain can one expect to find processes underlying access to word semantics, syntactic word properties, phonological word forms, and their phonetic gestures? (3) If large neuron ensembles are the basis of such processes, how can one expect these populations to be connected? (4) In particular, how could one-way, reciprocal, and numbered connections be realized? and, (5) How can a neuroscientific approach for multiple access to the same word in the course of the production of a sentence?

Speaking is a communication task that requires the transmission of intelligible signals from a speaker to a listener. At the same time, speaking is also a skilled, complex, and rapid [...], This study tests the hypothesis that the relative timing, or coarticulation, of articulatory movements at VC and CV boundaries is influenced by both the listener's requirement for clarity and the speaker's strategy to economize effort. Movement and acoustic data were collected from 7 subjects who spoke in three conditions: normal, clear, and fast. It was predicted that fast speech would show more coarticulation and clear speech would show less coarticulation than normal speech. The speech materials were designed to investigate coarticulation in the movements of the upper lip and tongue. They consisted of repetitions of [i[C.sub.n]u] utterances embedded in carrier phrases, where the number of consonants, n, ranged from 1 to 3. Analyses focused on kinematic measures and the amount of coarticulation (overlap) of the /i-u/ transition movement with the acoustic interval of the /i/. The consonant-string duration was longest in the clear speaking condition and shortest in the fast condition. Compared to the normal condition, peak velocities were higher in the fast and clear speaking conditions, indicating increased effort. The influences of speaking condition on coarticulation and on the formants of the /i/ were small. Thus, even though there was evidence of increased effort in the clear and fast conditions, the hypothesized effects of a trade-off between clarity and economy of effort were minimally evident in formant values for /i/ and measures of coarticulation. KEY WORDS: coarticulation, speaking rate, clarity, speech motor control, articulatory measurement

During speaking, the breathing apparatus generates pressure to drive the larynx and upper airway structures to create the sounds of speech, while at the same time serving to meet gas [...], This study was conducted to explore the influence of speaking on ventilation. Twenty healthy young men were studied during periods of quiet breathing and prolonged speaking using noninvasive methods to measure chest wall surface motions and expired gas composition. Results indicated that all subjects ventilated more during speaking than during quiet breathing, usually by augmenting both tidal volume and breathing frequency. Ventilation did not change across repeated speaking trials. Quiet breathing was altered from its usual behavior following speaking, often for several minutes. Speaking-related increases in ventilation were found to be strongly correlated with lung volume expenditures per syllable. These findings have clinical implications for the respiratory care practitioner and the speech-language pathologist. KEY WORDS: hyperventilation, end-tidal [Pco.sub.2], breathing, respiratory kinematics, magnetometers

(1) Reaction time (RT) studies give only a partial picture of language processing, hence it may be risky to use the output of the computational model to inspire neurophysiological investigations instead of seeking further neurophysiological data to adjust the RT based theory. (2) There is neurophysiological evidence for differences in the cortical representation of different word categories; this could be integrated into a future version of the Levelt model. (3) EEG/MEG coherence analysis allows the monitoring of synchronous electrical activity in large groups of neurons in the cortex; this is especially interesting for activation based network models.