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of human language. We focus on the debate between gesture-first and vocalization-first theories. While some evidence supports the idea that gestures played a primary role in early communication, others argue that vocalizations are equally expressive. We think that methodological differences and biases in the choice of concepts may contribute to the challenge of comparing these modalities directly. For example, to what extent does selecting a certain concept from a semantic category matter to reproduce an effect? This and similar questions are explored in a data-driven way. First, we provide ratings on imagined expressibility of 207 concepts from an online experiment showing that people tend to rate gesture modality as better in expressing meaning compared to vocal modality. Second, we use the Bayesian posterior predictive distribution of these ratings to simulate new experiments where we vary the number of participants, number of concepts, and semantic categories to investigate how robust is the difference between gesture and vocal modality. Our results show that gesture modality is reliably different (i.e., affords higher expressibility) than vocal modality. However, the difference between the two is limited in terms of effect size (medium sizes by common standards) so one may question whether this difference is meaningful for bigger claims about early language evolution. This study further provides valuable information for further research on how to select stimuli and how to set up one's design in a balanced way.

Purpose: Coarticulatory effects in speech vary across development, but the sources of this variation remain unclear. This study investigated whether developmental differences in intrasyllabic coarticulation degree could be explained by differences in children's articulatory patterns compared to adults. Method: To address this question, we first compared the tongue configurations of 3- to 7-year-old German children to those of adults. The observed developmental differences were then examined through simulations with Task Dynamics Application, a Task Dynamics simulation system, to establish which articulatory modifications could best reproduce the empirical results. To generate syllables simulating the lack of tongue gesture differentiation, we tested three simulation scenarios. Results: We found that younger speakers use less differentiated articulatory patterns to achieve alveolar constrictions than adults. The simulations corresponding to undifferentiated control of tongue tip and tongue body resulted in: (a) tongue shapes similar to those observed in natural speech; and (b) higher degrees of intrasyllabic coarticulation in children when compared to adults. Conclusions: Results provide evidence that differences in articulatory patterns contribute to developmental differences in coarticulation degree. This study further shows that empirically informed modeling can advance our understanding of changes in coarticulatory patterns across age.

The iconic cross-modal correspondence between fundamentalfrequency and location in vertical space (“high is up”) has longbeen described in the literature. However, an explanation forthis relationship has not been proposed. We conducted an ex-periment in which participants shot at cans projected on thewall in different vertical positions. We found that mean funda-mental frequency was significantly influenced by vertical headposition. Moving the head upwards changes the position of thelarynx, which pulls on the cricothyroid muscle and changes thefundamental frequency. We thus propose that the iconic rela-tionship between fundamental frequency and vertical space isgrounded in the body.

Purpose: This study evaluated how 1st and 2nd vowel formant frequencies (F1, F2) differ between normal and loud speech in multiple speaking tasks to assess claims that loudness leads to exaggerated vowel articulation. Method: Eleven healthy German-speaking women produced normal and loud speech in 3 tasks that varied in the degree of spontaneity--reading sentences that contained isolated /i: a: u:/, responding to questions that included target words with controlled consonantal contexts but varying vowel qualities, and a recipe recall task. Loudness variation was elicited naturalistically by changing interlocutor distance. First and 2nd formant frequencies and average sound pressure level were obtained from the stressed vowels in the target words, and vowel space area was calculated from /i: a: u:/. Results: Comparisons across many vowels indicated that high, tense vowels showed limited formant variation as a function of loudness. Analysis of /i: a: u:/ across speech tasks revealed vowel space reduction in the recipe retell task compared to the other 2. Loudness changes for F1 were consistent in direction but variable in extent, with few significant results for high tense vowels. Results for F2 were quite varied and frequently not significant. Speakers differed in how loudness and task affected formant values. Finally, correlations between sound pressure level and F1 were generally positive but varied in magnitude across vowels, with the high tense vowels showing very flat slopes. Discussion: These data indicate that naturalistically elicited loud speech in typical speakers does not always lead to changes in vowel formant frequencies and call into question the notion that increasing loudness is necessarily an automatic method of expanding the vowel space.

Purpose: Mumbling as opposed to clear speech is a typical male characteristic in speech and can be the consequence of a small jaw opening. Whereas behavioral reasons have often been offered to explain sex-specific differences with respect to clear speech, the purpose of this study is to investigate a potential anatomical reason for smaller jaw openings in male than in female speakers. Method: Articulatory data from 2 data sets (American English and German) were analyzed with respect to jaw opening in low vowels during speech. Particular focus was placed on sex-specific differences, also incorporating potential interactions with different accent conditions in 1 of the data sets. In addition, a modeling study compared the articulatory consequences of similar jaw-opening settings in a typical male and a typical female articulatory model. Results: Greater jaw openings were found for the female speakers, in particular in the accented condition, where jaw opening was found to be larger. In line with this finding, the modeling study showed that similar jaw-opening settings in male and female speakers led to differences in pharyngeal constriction, resulting in complete radico-pharyngeal closure in the male model. Conclusion: The empirical and modeling findings suggest a possible physiological component in sex-specific differences in speech clarity for low vowels. [Paper presented at the International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP) (10th, Cologne, Germany, May 5-8, 2014).]

Purpose: As the famous linguist and anthropologist C. Hockett noted about 30 years ago, "What one sees of language, as of anything, depends on the angle of view, and different explorers approach from different directions. Unfortunately, sometimes they become so enamored of their particular approach that they incline to scoff at any other, so that instead of everybody being the richer for the variety, everybody loses. ... It is obviously impossible to see all of anything from a single vantage point. So it is never inappropriate to seek new perspectives" (Hockett, 1987, p. 1). This supplement takes such a broad perspective and contains a selection of peer-reviewed papers seeing speech production through the window of complex interactions between physical, linguistic, social, and communicative factors. Papers were presented at the 10th International Seminar on Speech Production in Cologne. We hope to encourage the reader to continue working in this exciting direction.

Purpose: The aim of this article was to introduce an important tool, cross-recurrence analysis, to speech production applications by showing how it can be adapted to evaluate the similarity of multivariate patterns of articulatory motion. The method differs from classical applications of cross-recurrence analysis because no phase space reconstruction is conducted, and a cleaning algorithm removes the artifacts from the recurrence plot. The main features of the proposed approach are robustness to nonstationarity and efficient separation of amplitude variability from temporal variability. Method: The authors tested these claims by applying their method to synthetic stimuli whose variability had been carefully controlled. The proposed method was also demonstrated in a practical application: It was used to investigate the role of biomechanical constraints in articulatory reorganization as a consequence of speeded repetition of CVCV utterances containing a labial and a coronal consonant. Results: Overall, the proposed approach provided more reliable results than other methods, particularly in the presence of high variability. Conclusion: The proposed method is a useful and appropriate tool for quantifying similarity and dissimilarity in patterns of speech articulator movement, especially in such research areas as speech errors and pathologies, where unpredictable divergent behavior is expected.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to further explore the understanding of speaker-specific realizations of the /s/--/?/ contrast in German in relation to individual differences in palate shape. Method: Two articulatory experiments were carried out with German native speakers. In the first experiment, 4 monozygotic and 2 dizygotic twin pairs were recorded by means of electromagnetic articulography. In the second experiment, 12 unrelated speakers were recorded by means of electropalatography. Interspeaker variability in the articulatory distance between the sibilants was measured and was correlated with several parameters of the palate shape. Results: The results were twofold: (a) Similar palatal morphologies as found in monozygotic twins yield similar articulatory realizations of the /s/--/?/ contrast regarding vertical and horizontal distance of the target tongue tip positions, and (b) the realization of the contrast was influenced by palatal steepness, especially the inclination angle of the alveolo-palatal region. Speakers with flat inclination angles mainly retracted their tongue to realize the contrast, whereas speakers with steep inclination angles also elevated their tongue. Conclusion: The articulatory realization of the sibilant contrast is influenced not only by speaker-specific auditory acuity, as previously observed, but also by palatal shape morphology, which affects the somatosensory feedback speakers receive.

Purpose: Linear second-order models have often been used to investigate properties of speech production. However, these models are inaccurate approximations of the speech apparatus. This study aims at assessing how reliably stiffness can be estimated from kinematics with these models. Method: Articulatory movements were collected for 9 speakers of German during the production of reiterant CVCV words at varying speech rates. Velocity peaks, movement amplitudes, and gesture durations were measured. In the context of an undamped model, 2 stiffness estimations were compared that should theoretically yield the same result. In the context of a damped model, gestural stiffness and damping were calculated for each gesture. Results: Numerous cases were found in which stiffness estimations based on the undamped model contradicted each other. Less than 80% of the data were found to be compatible with the properties of the damped model. Stiffness tends to decrease with gestural duration. However, it is associated with a large, unrealistic damping dispersion, making stiffness estimations from kinematic data to a large extent unreliable. Conclusion: Any conclusions about speech control based on stiffness estimations using linear second-order models should therefore be considered with caution.

The present article illustrates that the specific articulatory requirements for voiced alveolar or dental stops can cause tongue tip retraction and tongue mid lowering and thus retroflexion of voiced front coronals. This retroflexion is shown to have occurred diachronically in the three typologically unrelated languages Dhao (Malayo-Polynesian), Thulung (Sino-Tibetan), and Afar (East Cushitic). In addition to the diachronic cases, we provide synchronic data for retroflexion from an articulatory study with four speakers of German, a language usually described as having alveolar stops. With these combined data we supply evidence that voiced retroflex stops (as the only retroflex segments in a language) could have emerged from dental or alveolar voiced stops because the voiced front coronal plosive /d/ is generally articulated in a way that favors retroflexion, that is, with a smaller and more retracted place of articulation and a lower tongue and jaw position than /t/. The present proposal thereby supplements the observation made by Haudricourt (1950), Greenberg (1970), Bhat (1973), and Ohala (1983) that retroflex voiced stops can emerge from voiced coronal implosives for articulatory and aerodynamic reasons. (Contains 11 footnotes and 5 figures.)