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An Acoustic Analysis of Voiceless Obstruents Produced by Adults and Typically Developing Children

Nissen, Shawn L
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1041225568

Abstract Details

2003, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Speech and Hearing Science.
A considerable amount of speech research conducted over the last five decades has attempted to explain how the human perceptual system so accurately and efficiently perceives speech. Although scientists have made great strides toward understanding the mechanisms of speech production and perception, the complex relationships between the acoustic structures of speech and the resulting psychological percepts have yet to be fully and adequately explained. In particular, there is a limited amount of knowledge on the acoustic nature of speech produced by younger children. Thus, this study examined the acoustic structure of voiceless obstruents produced by adults and typically developing children from 3 to 6 years of age. Forty speakers from four different age groups produced word initial voiceless obstruents /p, t, k, f, θ, s, ∫] in real word CV contexts, as well as a similar series of intervocalic obstruents drawn from non-words (VCV phonetic context). The acoustic structure of the speech tokens was described in terms of multiple acoustic parameters (durations, normalized amplitude, spectral peak location, spectral slope, and spectral moments). The results of this study indicated that multiple acoustic parameters of voiceless stops and fricatives vary systematically as a function of place of articulation, vowel context, speaker age, and gender. In particular, it was found that the spectral peak location, slope, and the first three spectral moments were able to distinguish between differing places of articulation. It was further shown that gender differences for several acoustic characteristics can be found in children at a relatively young age, with the acquired sibilant contrast between /s/ and /∫/ found to be less distinguished in children than adults. It was found that acoustic separation between the two sibilant fricatives widened as the age of the speakers increased, thereby suggesting that the contrast continues to be fine tuned throughout young childhood toward a more adult-like stage. Discriminant analysis revealed evidence that classification models based on adult male data were sensitive to gender related differences even in the youngest age group.
Robert Fox (Advisor)
252 p.
spectral moments analysis; acoustic analysis of voiceless obstruents; developmental changes in voiceless obstruents; speech development; speech production; speech production in children; stop and fricative articulation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Nissen, S. L. (2003). An Acoustic Analysis of Voiceless Obstruents Produced by Adults and Typically Developing Children [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1041225568

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Nissen, Shawn. An Acoustic Analysis of Voiceless Obstruents Produced by Adults and Typically Developing Children. 2003. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1041225568.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Nissen, Shawn. "An Acoustic Analysis of Voiceless Obstruents Produced by Adults and Typically Developing Children." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1041225568

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.