Stronger Accent Following a Stroke: The Case of a Trilingual with Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levy, Erika S.; Goral, Mira; De Diesbach, Catharine Castelluccio; Law, Franzo, II

2011-01-01

This study documents patterns of change in speech production in a multilingual with aphasia following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). EC, a right-handed Hebrew-English-French trilingual man, had a left fronto-temporo-parietal CVA, after which he reported that his (native) Hebrew accent became stronger in his (second language) English. Recordings…

Accent on communication: the impact of regional and foreign accent on comprehension in adults with aphasia.

PubMed

Bruce, Carolyn; To, Cinn-Teng; Newton, Caroline

2012-01-01

This study explored whether an unfamiliar non-native accent, differing in both segmental and prosodic features was more difficult for individuals with aphasia to understand than an unfamiliar native accent, which differed in segmental features only. Comprehension, which was determined by accuracy judgments on true/false sentences, and speed of response were assessed in the following three conditions: a familiar Southern Standard British English (SSBE) accent, an unfamiliar native Grimsby accent, and an unfamiliar non-native Chinese accent. Thirty-four English speaking adults (17 people with and 17 people without aphasia) served as listeners for this study. All listeners made significantly more errors in the unfamiliar non-native accent, although this difficulty was more marked for those with aphasia. While there was no affect of speaker accent on the response times of listeners with aphasia, listeners without aphasia were significantly slower with the unfamiliar non-native accent. The results indicate that non-native accented speech affects comprehension even on simple tasks in ideal listening conditions. The findings suggest that speaker accent, especially accents varying in both segmental and prosodic features, can be a barrier to successful interactions between non-native accented speakers and native listeners, particularly those with aphasia.

Listening with an accent: speech perception in a second language by late bilinguals.

PubMed

Leikin, Mark; Ibrahim, Raphiq; Eviatar, Zohar; Sapir, Shimon

2009-10-01

The goal of the present study was to examine functioning of late bilinguals in their second language. Specifically, we asked how native and non-native Hebrew speaking listeners perceive accented and native-accented Hebrew speech. To achieve this goal we used the gating paradigm to explore the ability of healthy late fluent bilinguals (Russian and Arabic native speakers) to recognize words in L2 (Hebrew) when they were spoken in an accent like their own, a native accent (Hebrew speakers), or another foreign accent (American accent). The data revealed that for Hebrew speakers, there was no effect of accent, whereas for the two bilingual groups (Russian and Arabic native speakers), stimuli with an accent like their own and the native Hebrew accent, required significantly less phonological information than the other foreign accents. The results support the hypothesis that phonological assimilation works in a similar manner in these two different groups.

Changes Over Time in Global Foreign Accent and Liquid Identifiability and Accuracy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riney, Timothy J.; Flege, James E.

1998-01-01

Assessed global foreign accent in sentences and production of two English consonants by Japanese college students during their freshman and senior years (T1, T2). Auditory evaluations by native English-speaking listeners were used to determine to what extent the consonants produced could be identified as intended at T1 and T2; and whether the two…

When speaker identity is unavoidable: Neural processing of speaker identity cues in natural speech.

PubMed

Tuninetti, Alba; Chládková, Kateřina; Peter, Varghese; Schiller, Niels O; Escudero, Paola

2017-11-01

Speech sound acoustic properties vary largely across speakers and accents. When perceiving speech, adult listeners normally disregard non-linguistic variation caused by speaker or accent differences, in order to comprehend the linguistic message, e.g. to correctly identify a speech sound or a word. Here we tested whether the process of normalizing speaker and accent differences, facilitating the recognition of linguistic information, is found at the level of neural processing, and whether it is modulated by the listeners' native language. In a multi-deviant oddball paradigm, native and nonnative speakers of Dutch were exposed to naturally-produced Dutch vowels varying in speaker, sex, accent, and phoneme identity. Unexpectedly, the analysis of mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes elicited by each type of change shows a large degree of early perceptual sensitivity to non-linguistic cues. This finding on perception of naturally-produced stimuli contrasts with previous studies examining the perception of synthetic stimuli wherein adult listeners automatically disregard acoustic cues to speaker identity. The present finding bears relevance to speech normalization theories, suggesting that at an unattended level of processing, listeners are indeed sensitive to changes in fundamental frequency in natural speech tokens. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Strength of German accent under altered auditory feedback

PubMed Central

HOWELL, PETER; DWORZYNSKI, KATHARINA

2007-01-01

Borden’s (1979, 1980) hypothesis that speakers with vulnerable speech systems rely more heavily on feedback monitoring than do speakers with less vulnerable systems was investigated. The second language (L2) of a speaker is vulnerable, in comparison with the native language, so alteration to feedback should have a detrimental effect on it, according to this hypothesis. Here, we specifically examined whether altered auditory feedback has an effect on accent strength when speakers speak L2. There were three stages in the experiment. First, 6 German speakers who were fluent in English (their L2) were recorded under six conditions—normal listening, amplified voice level, voice shifted in frequency, delayed auditory feedback, and slowed and accelerated speech rate conditions. Second, judges were trained to rate accent strength. Training was assessed by whether it was successful in separating German speakers speaking English from native English speakers, also speaking English. In the final stage, the judges ranked recordings of each speaker from the first stage as to increasing strength of German accent. The results show that accents were more pronounced under frequency-shifted and delayed auditory feedback conditions than under normal or amplified feedback conditions. Control tests were done to ensure that listeners were judging accent, rather than fluency changes caused by altered auditory feedback. The findings are discussed in terms of Borden’s hypothesis and other accounts about why altered auditory feedback disrupts speech control. PMID:11414137

A Neural Marker for Social Bias Toward In-group Accents

PubMed Central

Bestelmeyer, Patricia E.G.; Belin, Pascal; Ladd, D. Robert

2015-01-01

Accents provide information about the speaker's geographical, socio-economic, and ethnic background. Research in applied psychology and sociolinguistics suggests that we generally prefer our own accent to other varieties of our native language and attribute more positive traits to it. Despite the widespread influence of accents on social interactions, educational and work settings the neural underpinnings of this social bias toward our own accent and, what may drive this bias, are unexplored. We measured brain activity while participants from two different geographical backgrounds listened passively to 3 English accent types embedded in an adaptation design. Cerebral activity in several regions, including bilateral amygdalae, revealed a significant interaction between the participants' own accent and the accent they listened to: while repetition of own accents elicited an enhanced neural response, repetition of the other group's accent resulted in reduced responses classically associated with adaptation. Our findings suggest that increased social relevance of, or greater emotional sensitivity to in-group accents, may underlie the own-accent bias. Our results provide a neural marker for the bias associated with accents, and show, for the first time, that the neural response to speech is partly shaped by the geographical background of the listener. PMID:25452578

Regularity and dimensional salience in temporal grouping.

PubMed

Prince, Jon B; Rice, Tim

2018-04-30

How do pitch and duration accents combine to influence the perceived grouping of musical sequences? Sequence context influences the relative importance of these accents; for example, the presence of learned structure in pitch exaggerates the effect of pitch accents at the expense of duration accents despite being irrelevant to the task and not attributable to attention (Prince, 2014b). In the current study, two experiments examined whether the presence of temporal structure has the opposite effect. Experiment 1 tested baseline conditions, in which participants (N = 30) heard sequences with various sizes of either pitch or duration accents, which implied either duple or triple groupings (accent every two or three notes, respectively). Sequences either had regular temporal structure (isochronous) or not (irregular, via using random interonset intervals). Regularity enhanced the effect of duration accents but had negligible influence on pitch accents. The accent sizes that gave the most equivalent ratings across dimension and regularity levels were used in Experiment 2 (N = 33), in which sequences contained both pitch and duration accents that suggested either duple, triple, or neutral groupings. Despite controlling for the baseline effect of regularity by selecting equally effective accent sizes, regularity had additional effects on duration accents, but only for duple groupings. Regularity did not influence the effectiveness of pitch accents when combined with duration accents. These findings offer some support for a dimensional salience hypothesis, which proposes that the presence of temporal structure should foster duration accent effectiveness at the expense of pitch accents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Intonation in neurogenic foreign accent syndrome.

PubMed

Kuschmann, Anja; Lowit, Anja; Miller, Nick; Mennen, Ineke

2012-01-01

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a motor speech disorder in which changes to segmental as well as suprasegmental aspects lead to the perception of a foreign accent in speech. This paper focuses on one suprasegmental aspect, namely that of intonation. It provides an in-depth analysis of the intonation system of four speakers with FAS with the aim of establishing the intonational changes that have taken place as well as their underlying origin. Using the autosegmental-metrical framework of intonational analysis, four different levels of intonation, i.e., inventory, distribution, realisation and function, were examined in short sentences. Results revealed that the speakers with FAS had the same structural inventory at their disposal as the control speakers, but that they differed from the latter in relation to the distribution, implementation and functional use of their inventory. The current results suggest that these intonational changes cannot be entirely attributed to an underlying intonation deficit but reflect secondary manifestations of physiological constraints affecting speech support systems and compensatory strategies. These findings have implications for the debate surrounding intonational deficits in FAS, advocating a reconsideration of current assumptions regarding the underlying nature of intonation impairment in FAS. The reader will be able to (1) explain the relevance of intonation in defining foreign accent syndrome; (2) describe the process of intonation analysis within the autosegmental-metrical (AM) framework; and (3) discuss the manifestation of intonation changes in FAS at the different levels of intonation and their potential underlying nature. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The influence of talker and foreign-accent variability on spoken word identification.

PubMed

Bent, Tessa; Holt, Rachael Frush

2013-03-01

In spoken word identification and memory tasks, stimulus variability from numerous sources impairs performance. In the current study, the influence of foreign-accent variability on spoken word identification was evaluated in two experiments. Experiment 1 used a between-subjects design to test word identification in noise in single-talker and two multiple-talker conditions: multiple talkers with the same accent and multiple talkers with different accents. Identification performance was highest in the single-talker condition, but there was no difference between the single-accent and multiple-accent conditions. Experiment 2 further explored word recognition for multiple talkers in single-accent versus multiple-accent conditions using a mixed design. A detriment to word recognition was observed in the multiple-accent condition compared to the single-accent condition, but the effect differed across the language backgrounds tested. These results demonstrate that the processing of foreign-accent variation may influence word recognition in ways similar to other sources of variability (e.g., speaking rate or style) in that the inclusion of multiple foreign accents can result in a small but significant performance decrement beyond the multiple-talker effect.

Vowel normalization for accent: An investigation of perceptual plasticity in young adults

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evans, Bronwen G.; Iverson, Paul

2004-05-01

Previous work has emphasized the role of early experience in the ability to accurately perceive and produce foreign or foreign-accented speech. This study examines how listeners at a much later stage in language development-early adulthood-adapt to a non-native accent within the same language. A longitudinal study investigated whether listeners who had had no previous experience of living in multidialectal environments adapted their speech perception and production when attending university. Participants were tested before beginning university and then again 3 months later. An acoustic analysis of production was carried out and perceptual tests were used to investigate changes in word intelligibility and vowel categorization. Preliminary results suggest that listeners are able to adjust their phonetic representations and that these patterns of adjustment are linked to the changes in production that speakers typically make due to sociolinguistic factors when living in multidialectal environments.

Accent Attribution in Speakers with Foreign Accent Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verhoeven, Jo; De Pauw, Guy; Pettinato, Michele; Hirson, Allen; Van Borsel, John; Marien, Peter

2013-01-01

Purpose: The main aim of this experiment was to investigate the perception of Foreign Accent Syndrome in comparison to speakers with an authentic foreign accent. Method: Three groups of listeners attributed accents to conversational speech samples of 5 FAS speakers which were embedded amongst those of 5 speakers with a real foreign accent and 5…

A Neural Marker for Social Bias Toward In-group Accents.

PubMed

Bestelmeyer, Patricia E G; Belin, Pascal; Ladd, D Robert

2015-10-01

Accents provide information about the speaker's geographical, socio-economic, and ethnic background. Research in applied psychology and sociolinguistics suggests that we generally prefer our own accent to other varieties of our native language and attribute more positive traits to it. Despite the widespread influence of accents on social interactions, educational and work settings the neural underpinnings of this social bias toward our own accent and, what may drive this bias, are unexplored. We measured brain activity while participants from two different geographical backgrounds listened passively to 3 English accent types embedded in an adaptation design. Cerebral activity in several regions, including bilateral amygdalae, revealed a significant interaction between the participants' own accent and the accent they listened to: while repetition of own accents elicited an enhanced neural response, repetition of the other group's accent resulted in reduced responses classically associated with adaptation. Our findings suggest that increased social relevance of, or greater emotional sensitivity to in-group accents, may underlie the own-accent bias. Our results provide a neural marker for the bias associated with accents, and show, for the first time, that the neural response to speech is partly shaped by the geographical background of the listener. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Does a Foreign Accent Sell? The Effect of Foreign Accents in Radio Commercials for Congruent and Non-Congruent Products

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hendriks, Berna; van Meurs, Frank; van der Meij, Els

2015-01-01

Commercials regularly feature foreign accents. This paper aims to investigate whether the use of foreign accents in radio commercials is more effective for congruent than incongruent products, and whether foreign-accented commercials are evaluated differently than non-accented commercials. In an experiment, a group of 228 Dutch participants rated…

The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects.

PubMed

Grohe, Ann-Kathrin; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

In two eye-tracking experiments, the effects of salience in accent training and speech accentedness on spoken-word recognition were investigated. Salience was expected to increase a stimulus' prominence and therefore promote learning. A training-test paradigm was used on native German participants utilizing an artificial German accent. Salience was elicited by two different criteria: production and listening training as a subjective criterion and accented (Experiment 1) and canonical test words (Experiment 2) as an objective criterion. During training in Experiment 1, participants either read single German words out loud and deliberately devoiced initial voiced stop consonants (e.g., Balken-"beam" pronounced as (*) Palken), or they listened to pre-recorded words with the same accent. In a subsequent eye-tracking experiment, looks to auditorily presented target words with the accent were analyzed. Participants from both training conditions fixated accented target words more often than a control group without training. Training was identical in Experiment 2, but during test, canonical German words that overlapped in onset with the accented words from training were presented as target words (e.g., Palme-"palm tree" overlapped in onset with the training word (*) Palken) rather than accented words. This time, no training effect was observed; recognition of canonical word forms was not affected by having learned the accent. Therefore, accent learning was only visible when the accented test tokens in Experiment 1, which were not included in the test of Experiment 2, possessed sufficient salience based on the objective criterion "accent." These effects were not modified by the subjective criterion of salience from the training modality.

Psychogenic Foreign Accent Syndrome: A New Case

PubMed Central

Keulen, Stefanie; Verhoeven, Jo; De Page, Louis; Jonkers, Roel; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Mariën, Peter

2016-01-01

This paper presents the case of a 33-year-old, right-handed, French-speaking Belgian lady who was involved in a car accident as a pedestrian. Six months after the incident she developed a German/Flemish-like accent. The patient's medical history, the onset of the FAS and the possible psychological causes of the accent change are analyzed. Relevant neuropsychological, neurolinguistic, and psychodiagnostic test results are presented and discussed. The psychodiagnostic interview and testing will receive special attention, because these have been underreported in previous FAS case reports. Furthermore, an accent rating experiment was carried out in order to assess the foreign quality of the patient's speech. Pre- and post-morbid spontaneous speech samples were analyzed phonetically to identify the pronunciation characteristics associated with this type of FAS. Several findings were considered essential in the diagnosis of psychogenic FAS: the psychological assessments as well as the clinical interview confirmed the presence of psychological problems, while neurological damage was excluded by means of repeated neuroimaging and neurological examinations. The type and nature of the speech symptoms and the accent fluctuations associated with the patient's psychological state cannot be explained by a neurological disorder. Moreover, the indifference of the patient toward her condition may also suggest a psychogenic etiology, as the opposite is usually observed in neurogenic FAS patients. PMID:27148003

The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects

PubMed Central

Grohe, Ann-Kathrin; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

In two eye-tracking experiments, the effects of salience in accent training and speech accentedness on spoken-word recognition were investigated. Salience was expected to increase a stimulus' prominence and therefore promote learning. A training-test paradigm was used on native German participants utilizing an artificial German accent. Salience was elicited by two different criteria: production and listening training as a subjective criterion and accented (Experiment 1) and canonical test words (Experiment 2) as an objective criterion. During training in Experiment 1, participants either read single German words out loud and deliberately devoiced initial voiced stop consonants (e.g., Balken—“beam” pronounced as *Palken), or they listened to pre-recorded words with the same accent. In a subsequent eye-tracking experiment, looks to auditorily presented target words with the accent were analyzed. Participants from both training conditions fixated accented target words more often than a control group without training. Training was identical in Experiment 2, but during test, canonical German words that overlapped in onset with the accented words from training were presented as target words (e.g., Palme—“palm tree” overlapped in onset with the training word *Palken) rather than accented words. This time, no training effect was observed; recognition of canonical word forms was not affected by having learned the accent. Therefore, accent learning was only visible when the accented test tokens in Experiment 1, which were not included in the test of Experiment 2, possessed sufficient salience based on the objective criterion “accent.” These effects were not modified by the subjective criterion of salience from the training modality. PMID:27375540

Speech-on-speech masking with variable access to the linguistic content of the masker speech for native and nonnative english speakers.

PubMed

Calandruccio, Lauren; Bradlow, Ann R; Dhar, Sumitrajit

2014-04-01

Masking release for an English sentence-recognition task in the presence of foreign-accented English speech compared with native-accented English speech was reported in Calandruccio et al (2010a). The masking release appeared to increase as the masker intelligibility decreased. However, it could not be ruled out that spectral differences between the speech maskers were influencing the significant differences observed. The purpose of the current experiment was to minimize spectral differences between speech maskers to determine how various amounts of linguistic information within competing speech Affiliationect masking release. A mixed-model design with within-subject (four two-talker speech maskers) and between-subject (listener group) factors was conducted. Speech maskers included native-accented English speech and high-intelligibility, moderate-intelligibility, and low-intelligibility Mandarin-accented English. Normalizing the long-term average speech spectra of the maskers to each other minimized spectral differences between the masker conditions. Three listener groups were tested, including monolingual English speakers with normal hearing, nonnative English speakers with normal hearing, and monolingual English speakers with hearing loss. The nonnative English speakers were from various native language backgrounds, not including Mandarin (or any other Chinese dialect). Listeners with hearing loss had symmetric mild sloping to moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Listeners were asked to repeat back sentences that were presented in the presence of four different two-talker speech maskers. Responses were scored based on the key words within the sentences (100 key words per masker condition). A mixed-model regression analysis was used to analyze the difference in performance scores between the masker conditions and listener groups. Monolingual English speakers with normal hearing benefited when the competing speech signal was foreign accented compared with native accented, allowing for improved speech recognition. Various levels of intelligibility across the foreign-accented speech maskers did not influence results. Neither the nonnative English-speaking listeners with normal hearing nor the monolingual English speakers with hearing loss benefited from masking release when the masker was changed from native-accented to foreign-accented English. Slight modifications between the target and the masker speech allowed monolingual English speakers with normal hearing to improve their recognition of native-accented English, even when the competing speech was highly intelligible. Further research is needed to determine which modifications within the competing speech signal caused the Mandarin-accented English to be less effective with respect to masking. Determining the influences within the competing speech that make it less effective as a masker or determining why monolingual normal-hearing listeners can take advantage of these differences could help improve speech recognition for those with hearing loss in the future. American Academy of Audiology.

Perception of Foreign Accent Syndrome Speech and Its Relation to Segmental Characteristics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dankovicova, Jana; Hunt, Claire

2011-01-01

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an acquired neurogenic disorder characterized by altered speech that sounds foreign-accented. This study presents a British subject perceived to speak with an Italian (or Greek) accent after a brainstem (pontine) stroke. Native English listeners rated the strength of foreign accent and impairment they perceived in…

Malaysian University Students' Attitudes towards Six Varieties of Accented Speech in English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahmed, Zainab Thamer; Abdullah, Ain Nadzimah; Heng, Chan Swee

2014-01-01

Previous language attitude studies indicated that in many countries all over the world, English language learners perceived native accents, either American or British, more positively than the non-native accents such as the Japanese, Korean, and Austrian accents. However, in Malaysia it is still unclear which accent Malaysian learners of English…

Evaluation of Speakers with Foreign-Accented Speech in Japan: The Effect of Accent Produced by English Native Speakers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsurutani, Chiharu

2012-01-01

Foreign-accented speakers are generally regarded as less educated, less reliable and less interesting than native speakers and tend to be associated with cultural stereotypes of their country of origin. This discrimination against foreign accents has, however, been discussed mainly using accented English in English-speaking countries. This study…

Two French-Speaking Cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome: An Acoustic-Phonetic Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roy, Johanna-Pascale; Macoir, Joel; Martel-Sauvageau, Vincent; Boudreault, Carol-Ann

2012-01-01

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an acquired neurologic disorder in which an individual suddenly and unintentionally speaks with an accent which is perceived as being different from his/her usual accent. This study presents an acoustic-phonetic description of two Quebec French-speaking cases. The first speaker presents a perceived accent shift to…

The Evaluation of Second Language Fluency and Foreign Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Chen-Huei

2011-01-01

What is second language fluency? What is a foreign accent? Is it possible for an adult second language learner to speak fluently with a heavy accent or vice versa? What factors contribute to the perception of fluency and a foreign accent? What acoustic attributes correlate with the perception of fluency and a foreign accent? To answer these…

Recognising English Accents in the Community: Omani Students' Accent Preferences and Perceptions of Nativeness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buckingham, Louisa

2015-01-01

Previous research has revealed that although EFL students may claim to prefer British/US accents they often have difficulty identifying them, especially when such accents may differ from "standard" accents presented in ELT materials. In the Gulf, English is widely used as a lingua franca or as a second language by the large expatriate…

A Multi-Perspective Investigation of Attitudes towards English Accents in Hong Kong: Implications for Pronunciation Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Jim Y. H.

2016-01-01

The study reported in this article examined Hong Kong students' attitudes towards English accents from three interrelated perspectives: (1) their awareness of accents, (2) their perception of accents in relation to the dimensions of status and solidarity, and (3) their choice of accents in various local language-using contexts. By means of the…

Sequenced subjective accents for brain-computer interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vlek, R. J.; Schaefer, R. S.; Gielen, C. C. A. M.; Farquhar, J. D. R.; Desain, P.

2011-06-01

Subjective accenting is a cognitive process in which identical auditory pulses at an isochronous rate turn into the percept of an accenting pattern. This process can be voluntarily controlled, making it a candidate for communication from human user to machine in a brain-computer interface (BCI) system. In this study we investigated whether subjective accenting is a feasible paradigm for BCI and how its time-structured nature can be exploited for optimal decoding from non-invasive EEG data. Ten subjects perceived and imagined different metric patterns (two-, three- and four-beat) superimposed on a steady metronome. With an offline classification paradigm, we classified imagined accented from non-accented beats on a single trial (0.5 s) level with an average accuracy of 60.4% over all subjects. We show that decoding of imagined accents is also possible with a classifier trained on perception data. Cyclic patterns of accents and non-accents were successfully decoded with a sequence classification algorithm. Classification performances were compared by means of bit rate. Performance in the best scenario translates into an average bit rate of 4.4 bits min-1 over subjects, which makes subjective accenting a promising paradigm for an online auditory BCI.

Comparison of ACCENT 2000 Shuttle Plume Data with SIMPLE Model Predictions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Swaminathan, P. K.; Taylor, J. C.; Ross, M. N.; Zittel, P. F.; Lloyd, S. A.

2001-12-01

The JHU/APL Stratospheric IMpact of PLume Effluents (SIMPLE)model was employed to analyze the trace species in situ composition data collected during the ACCENT 2000 intercepts of the space shuttle Space Transportation Launch System (STS) rocket plume as a function of time and radial location within the cold plume. The SIMPLE model is initialized using predictions for species depositions calculated using an afterburning model based on standard TDK/SPP nozzle and SPF plume flowfield codes with an expanded chemical kinetic scheme. The time dependent ambient stratospheric chemistry is fully coupled to the plume species evolution whose transport is based on empirically derived diffusion. Model/data comparisons are encouraging through capturing observed local ozone recovery times as well as overall morphology of chlorine chemistry.

Accents in the workplace: their effects during a job interview.

PubMed

Deprez-Sims, Anne-Sophie; Morris, Scott B

2010-12-01

As the workplace becomes increasingly global, organizations are more likely to employ persons from other countries whose accents clearly identify them as different from the local workforce. Understanding the impact of accents in the workplace is important because accents can be salient in the same way as ethnicity, age, gender, and skin color and may be a source of employment discrimination. The present study looked at the influence of accents on the evaluation of job applicants during an interview for a human resource manager position. Participants from the US were asked to evaluate an applicant with one of three accents (Midwestern US, French, Colombian) by listening to an audiofile. The results showed that the applicant with the Midwestern US accent was evaluated more positively than the applicant with the French accent; however, the applicant with the Colombian accent did not receive an evaluation that differed significantly from those given to the applicants with either the French or the Midwestern US accent. Analyses of process variables indicated that the bias against the French-accented applicant was mediated by perceived lower similarity. These results are consistent with the similarity-attraction hypothesis, which states that demographic variables will impact judgments to the extent to which they make the decision-maker view the applicant as similar or dissimilar. The ability of accent to trigger bias highlights the importance of considering the full array of characteristics that can lead to discrimination in employment settings. Research on employment discrimination has traditionally focused on visual cues such as gender and ethnicity, but in an interview situation, the way the applicant speaks is also important.

Effects of age and hearing loss on recognition of unaccented and accented multisyllabic words.

PubMed

Gordon-Salant, Sandra; Yeni-Komshian, Grace H; Fitzgibbons, Peter J; Cohen, Julie I

2015-02-01

The effects of age and hearing loss on recognition of unaccented and accented words of varying syllable length were investigated. It was hypothesized that with increments in length of syllables, there would be atypical alterations in syllable stress in accented compared to native English, and that these altered stress patterns would be sensitive to auditory temporal processing deficits with aging. Sets of one-, two-, three-, and four-syllable words with the same initial syllable were recorded by one native English and two Spanish-accented talkers. Lists of these words were presented in isolation and in sentence contexts to younger and older normal-hearing listeners and to older hearing-impaired listeners. Hearing loss effects were apparent for unaccented and accented monosyllabic words, whereas age effects were observed for recognition of accented multisyllabic words, consistent with the notion that altered syllable stress patterns with accent are sensitive for revealing effects of age. Older listeners also exhibited lower recognition scores for moderately accented words in sentence contexts than in isolation, suggesting that the added demands on working memory for words in sentence contexts impact recognition of accented speech. The general pattern of results suggests that hearing loss, age, and cognitive factors limit the ability to recognize Spanish-accented speech.

Effects of age and hearing loss on recognition of unaccented and accented multisyllabic words

PubMed Central

Gordon-Salant, Sandra; Yeni-Komshian, Grace H.; Fitzgibbons, Peter J.; Cohen, Julie I.

2015-01-01

The effects of age and hearing loss on recognition of unaccented and accented words of varying syllable length were investigated. It was hypothesized that with increments in length of syllables, there would be atypical alterations in syllable stress in accented compared to native English, and that these altered stress patterns would be sensitive to auditory temporal processing deficits with aging. Sets of one-, two-, three-, and four-syllable words with the same initial syllable were recorded by one native English and two Spanish-accented talkers. Lists of these words were presented in isolation and in sentence contexts to younger and older normal-hearing listeners and to older hearing-impaired listeners. Hearing loss effects were apparent for unaccented and accented monosyllabic words, whereas age effects were observed for recognition of accented multisyllabic words, consistent with the notion that altered syllable stress patterns with accent are sensitive for revealing effects of age. Older listeners also exhibited lower recognition scores for moderately accented words in sentence contexts than in isolation, suggesting that the added demands on working memory for words in sentence contexts impact recognition of accented speech. The general pattern of results suggests that hearing loss, age, and cognitive factors limit the ability to recognize Spanish-accented speech. PMID:25698021

Adaptation to novel foreign-accented speech and retention of benefit following training: Influence of aging and hearing loss

PubMed Central

Bieber, Rebecca E.; Gordon-Salant, Sandra

2017-01-01

Adaptation to speech with a foreign accent is possible through prior exposure to talkers with that same accent. For young listeners with normal hearing, short term, accent-independent adaptation to a novel foreign accent is also facilitated through exposure training with multiple foreign accents. In the present study, accent-independent adaptation is examined in younger and older listeners with normal hearing and older listeners with hearing loss. Retention of training benefit is additionally explored. Stimuli for testing and training were HINT sentences recorded by talkers with nine distinctly different accents. Following two training sessions, all listener groups showed a similar increase in speech perception for a novel foreign accent. While no group retained this benefit at one week post-training, results of a secondary reaction time task revealed a decrease in reaction time following training, suggesting reduced listening effort. Examination of listeners' cognitive skills reveals a positive relationship between working memory and speech recognition ability. The present findings indicate that, while this no-feedback training paradigm for foreign-accented English is successful in promoting short term adaptation for listeners, this paradigm is not sufficient in facilitation of perceptual learning with lasting benefits for younger or older listeners. PMID:28464671

Speech-on-speech masking with variable access to the linguistic content of the masker speech for native and non-native speakers of English

PubMed Central

Calandruccio, Lauren; Bradlow, Ann R.; Dhar, Sumitrajit

2013-01-01

Background Masking release for an English sentence-recognition task in the presence of foreign-accented English speech compared to native-accented English speech was reported in Calandruccio, Dhar and Bradlow (2010). The masking release appeared to increase as the masker intelligibility decreased. However, it could not be ruled out that spectral differences between the speech maskers were influencing the significant differences observed. Purpose The purpose of the current experiment was to minimize spectral differences between speech maskers to determine how various amounts of linguistic information within competing speech affect masking release. Research Design A mixed model design with within- (four two-talker speech maskers) and between-subject (listener group) factors was conducted. Speech maskers included native-accented English speech, and high-intelligibility, moderate-intelligibility and low-intelligibility Mandarin-accented English. Normalizing the long-term average speech spectra of the maskers to each other minimized spectral differences between the masker conditions. Study Sample Three listener groups were tested including monolingual English speakers with normal hearing, non-native speakers of English with normal hearing, and monolingual speakers of English with hearing loss. The non-native speakers of English were from various native-language backgrounds, not including Mandarin (or any other Chinese dialect). Listeners with hearing loss had symmetrical, mild sloping to moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Data Collection and Analysis Listeners were asked to repeat back sentences that were presented in the presence of four different two-talker speech maskers. Responses were scored based on the keywords within the sentences (100 keywords/masker condition). A mixed-model regression analysis was used to analyze the difference in performance scores between the masker conditions and the listener groups. Results Monolingual speakers of English with normal hearing benefited when the competing speech signal was foreign-accented compared to native-accented allowing for improved speech recognition. Various levels of intelligibility across the foreign-accented speech maskers did not influence results. Neither the non-native English listeners with normal hearing, nor the monolingual English speakers with hearing loss benefited from masking release when the masker was changed from native-accented to foreign-accented English. Conclusions Slight modifications between the target and the masker speech allowed monolingual speakers of English with normal hearing to improve their recognition of native-accented English even when the competing speech was highly intelligible. Further research is needed to determine which modifications within the competing speech signal caused the Mandarin-accented English to be less effective with respect to masking. Determining the influences within the competing speech that make it less effective as a masker, or determining why monolingual normal-hearing listeners can take advantage of these differences could help improve speech recognition for those with hearing loss in the future. PMID:25126683

The Effect of Intensity and Age on the Perception of Accent in Isochronous Sequences of a Snare Drum Timbre

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walls, Kimberly Kyle Curley

1992-01-01

Musical expression is largely dependent upon accentuation, yet there have been few attempts to study the perception of dynamic accent in music or to relate the results of psychoacoustical research in intensity to realistic musical situations. The purpose of the experiment was to estimate the relationships among (a) the intensity increment in dB(A) required to meet an 80% correct criterion in the perception of one accented tone embedded within a seven -tone isochronous series of identical 87 dB(A) snare drum timbre stimuli of 333 ms onsets (accent level, or AL), (b) the different limen (DL) for intensity increase to meet a 75% correct criterion in a 2AFC task for pairs for the stimuli, and (c) the age of the subjects, all of whom have normal audiograms. The 51 subjects (N = 51) were female nonmusicians ranging in age from 9 to 33 years (M = 17.98, SD = 5.21). The response tasks involved saying whether the second tone of each pair was louder or softer and circling the accented note in notated quarter notes. The stimuli production, the headphone calibration process, and their rationales were detailed. The global regression model was significant (F(2, 48) = 5.505, p =.007, R^2 =.187), and the relationship between AL and DL was not significant (F(1, 48) = 5.505, p =.197, R^2 change =.029), the relationship between AL and age was significant (F(1, 48) = 5.732, p =.021, R ^2 change =.098) at an alpha level of.05 and power calculated at.66 for a medium ES. It was concluded that accented sounds are easier to perceive in tone pairs than they are in a musical setting and that subject maturation improves performance of intensity judgement tasks. Suggestions for further research include shortening the length of the experimental session for younger subjects and increasing the number of intensity increments as well as using smaller increments to accommodate individual differences in perception.

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition.

PubMed

Cai, Zhenguang G; Gilbert, Rebecca A; Davis, Matthew H; Gaskell, M Gareth; Farrar, Lauren; Adler, Sarah; Rodd, Jennifer M

2017-11-01

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker's linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1-3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of "bonnet") in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker's dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Linguistic Processing of Accented Speech Across the Lifespan

PubMed Central

Cristia, Alejandrina; Seidl, Amanda; Vaughn, Charlotte; Schmale, Rachel; Bradlow, Ann; Floccia, Caroline

2012-01-01

In most of the world, people have regular exposure to multiple accents. Therefore, learning to quickly process accented speech is a prerequisite to successful communication. In this paper, we examine work on the perception of accented speech across the lifespan, from early infancy to late adulthood. Unfamiliar accents initially impair linguistic processing by infants, children, younger adults, and older adults, but listeners of all ages come to adapt to accented speech. Emergent research also goes beyond these perceptual abilities, by assessing links with production and the relative contributions of linguistic knowledge and general cognitive skills. We conclude by underlining points of convergence across ages, and the gaps left to face in future work. PMID:23162513

An ERP Investigation of Regional and Foreign Accent Processing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goslin, Jeremy; Duffy, Hester; Floccia, Caroline

2012-01-01

This study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine whether we employ the same normalisation mechanisms when processing words spoken with a regional accent or foreign accent. Our results showed that the Phonological Mapping Negativity (PMN) following the onset of the final word of sentences spoken with an unfamiliar regional accent was…

Accent Identification by Adults with Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newton, Caroline; Burns, Rebecca; Bruce, Carolyn

2013-01-01

The UK is a diverse society where individuals regularly interact with speakers with different accents. Whilst there is a growing body of research on the impact of speaker accent on comprehension in people with aphasia, there is none which explores their ability to identify accents. This study investigated the ability of this group to identify the…

The effect of perceived regional accents on individual economic behavior: a lab experiment on linguistic performance, cognitive ratings and economic decisions.

PubMed

Heblich, Stephan; Lameli, Alfred; Riener, Gerhard

2015-01-01

Does it matter if you speak with a regional accent? Speaking immediately reveals something of one's own social and cultural identity, be it consciously or unconsciously. Perceiving accents involves not only reconstructing such imprints but also augmenting them with particular attitudes and stereotypes. Even though we know much about attitudes and stereotypes that are transmitted by, e.g. skin color, names or physical attractiveness, we do not yet have satisfactory answers how accent perception affects human behavior. How do people act in economically relevant contexts when they are confronted with regional accents? This paper reports a laboratory experiment where we address this question. Participants in our experiment conduct cognitive tests where they can choose to either cooperate or compete with a randomly matched male opponent identified only via his rendering of a standardized text in either a regional accent or standard accent. We find a strong connection between the linguistic performance and the cognitive rating of the opponent. When matched with an opponent who speaks the accent of the participant's home region--the in-group opponent--, individuals tend to cooperate significantly more often. By contrast, they are more likely to compete when matched with an accent speaker from outside their home region, the out-group opponent. Our findings demonstrate, firstly, that the perception of an out-group accent leads not only to social discrimination but also influences economic decisions. Secondly, they suggest that this economic behavior is not necessarily attributable to the perception of a regional accent per se, but rather to the social rating of linguistic distance and the in-group/out-group perception it evokes.

The Effect of Perceived Regional Accents on Individual Economic Behavior: A Lab Experiment on Linguistic Performance, Cognitive Ratings and Economic Decisions

PubMed Central

Heblich, Stephan; Lameli, Alfred; Riener, Gerhard

2015-01-01

Does it matter if you speak with a regional accent? Speaking immediately reveals something of one’s own social and cultural identity, be it consciously or unconsciously. Perceiving accents involves not only reconstructing such imprints but also augmenting them with particular attitudes and stereotypes. Even though we know much about attitudes and stereotypes that are transmitted by, e.g. skin color, names or physical attractiveness, we do not yet have satisfactory answers how accent perception affects human behavior. How do people act in economically relevant contexts when they are confronted with regional accents? This paper reports a laboratory experiment where we address this question. Participants in our experiment conduct cognitive tests where they can choose to either cooperate or compete with a randomly matched male opponent identified only via his rendering of a standardized text in either a regional accent or standard accent. We find a strong connection between the linguistic performance and the cognitive rating of the opponent. When matched with an opponent who speaks the accent of the participant’s home region—the in-group opponent –, individuals tend to cooperate significantly more often. By contrast, they are more likely to compete when matched with an accent speaker from outside their home region, the out-group opponent. Our findings demonstrate, firstly, that the perception of an out-group accent leads not only to social discrimination but also influences economic decisions. Secondly, they suggest that this economic behavior is not necessarily attributable to the perception of a regional accent per se, but rather to the social rating of linguistic distance and the in-group/out-group perception it evokes. PMID:25671607

Relative Difficulty of Understanding Foreign Accents as a Marker of Proficiency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lev-Ari, Shiri; van Heugten, Marieke; Peperkamp, Sharon

2017-01-01

Foreign-accented speech is generally harder to understand than native-accented speech. This difficulty is reduced for non-native listeners who share their first language with the non-native speaker. It is currently unclear, however, how non-native listeners deal with foreign-accented speech produced by speakers of a different language. We show…

Attention, Awareness, and Accents in L2 French

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sturm, Jessica L.

2013-01-01

The present research applies the concepts of attention, awareness, and noticing to a previously unresolved strand of inquiry: accent marks in L2 (second language) French. Previous research found that learners who typed accented words had better recall of the accent marks than those who wrote the same words by hand. Sturm suggested that it may have…

Accent Detection and Social Cognition: Evidence of Protracted Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Creel, Sarah C.

2018-01-01

How and when do children become aware that speakers have different accents? While adults readily make a variety of subtle social inferences based on speakers' accents, findings from children are more mixed: while one line of research suggests that even infants may be acutely sensitive to accent unfamiliarity, other studies suggest that 5-year-olds…

Native Speakers' Perceptions of Fluency and Accent in L2 Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pinget, Anne-France; Bosker, Hans Rutger; Quené, Hugo; de Jong, Nivja H.

2014-01-01

Oral fluency and foreign accent distinguish L2 from L1 speech production. In language testing practices, both fluency and accent are usually assessed by raters. This study investigates what exactly native raters of fluency and accent take into account when judging L2. Our aim is to explore the relationship between objectively measured temporal,…

Perceptions about Representative English-Language Accents from Prospective and Practicing Providers of Business-Related Language Services in Argentina

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, James Calvert; Green, Diana J.; Rosewarne, David D.

2004-01-01

The purposes of the study were (a) to identify perceptions about representative English-language accents from prospective and practicing providers of business-related language services residing in Argentina and (b) to examine the differences in their perceptions of these English-language accents. The respondents ranked the accents in this order:…

Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech.

PubMed

Idemaru, Kaori; Wei, Peipei; Gubbins, Lucy

2018-05-01

This study reports an exploratory analysis of the acoustic characteristics of second language (L2) speech which give rise to the perception of a foreign accent. Japanese speech samples were collected from American English and Mandarin Chinese speakers ( n = 16 in each group) studying Japanese. The L2 participants and native speakers ( n = 10) provided speech samples modeling after six short sentences. Segmental (vowels and stops) and prosodic features (rhythm, tone, and fluency) were examined. Native Japanese listeners ( n = 10) rated the samples with regard to degrees of foreign accent. The analyses predicting accent ratings based on the acoustic measurements indicated that one of the prosodic features in particular, tone (defined as high and low patterns of pitch accent and intonation in this study), plays an important role in robustly predicting accent rating in L2 Japanese across the two first language (L1) backgrounds. These results were consistent with the prediction based on phonological and phonetic comparisons between Japanese and English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. The results also revealed L1-specific predictors of perceived accent in Japanese. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature that examines sources of perceived foreign accent.

Event-related potential evidence of processing lexical pitch-accent in auditory Japanese sentences.

PubMed

Koso, Ayumi; Hagiwara, Hiroko

2009-09-23

Neural mechanisms that underlie the processing of lexical pitch-accent in auditory Japanese were investigated by using event-related potentials. Native speakers of Japanese listened to two types of short sentences, both consisting of a noun and a verb. The sentences ended with a verb with either congruous or incongruous pitch-accent pattern, where pitch-accent violations occur at the verb in the incongruent condition. The event-related potentials of the incongruent condition showed an increased widespread negativity that started 400 ms after the onset of the deviant lexical item and lasted for about 400 ms. These results suggest that the negativity evoked by violations in lexical-pitch accent indicates electrophysiological evidence for the online processing of lexical-pitch accent in auditory Japanese.

Children's comprehension of an unfamiliar speaker accent: a review.

PubMed

Harte, Jennifer; Oliveira, Ana; Frizelle, Pauline; Gibbon, Fiona

2016-05-01

The effect of speaker accent on listeners' comprehension has become a key focus of research given the increasing cultural diversity of society and the increased likelihood of an individual encountering a clinician with an unfamiliar accent. To review the studies exploring the effect of an unfamiliar accent on language comprehension in typically developing (TD) children and in children with speech and language difficulties. This review provides a methodological analysis of the relevant studies by exploring the challenges facing this field of research and highlighting the current gaps in the literature. A total of nine studies were identified using a systematic search and organized under studies investigating the effect of speaker accent on language comprehension in (1) TD children and (2) children with speech and/or language difficulties. This review synthesizes the evidence that an unfamiliar speaker accent may lead to a breakdown in language comprehension in TD children and in children with speech difficulties. Moreover, it exposes the inconsistencies found in this field of research and highlights the lack of studies investigating the effect of speaker accent in children with language deficits. Overall, research points towards a developmental trend in children's ability to comprehend accent-related variations in speech. Vocabulary size, language exposure, exposure to different accents and adequate processing resources (e.g. attention) seem to play a key role in children's ability to understand unfamiliar accents. This review uncovered some inconsistencies in the literature that highlight the methodological issues that must be considered when conducting research in this field. It explores how such issues may be controlled in order to increase the validity and reliability of future research. Key clinical implications are also discussed. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

When pitch Accents Encode Speaker Commitment: Evidence from French Intonation.

PubMed

Michelas, Amandine; Portes, Cristel; Champagne-Lavau, Maud

2016-06-01

Recent studies on a variety of languages have shown that a speaker's commitment to the propositional content of his or her utterance can be encoded, among other strategies, by pitch accent types. Since prior research mainly relied on lexical-stress languages, our understanding of how speakers of a non-lexical-stress language encode speaker commitment is limited. This paper explores the contribution of the last pitch accent of an intonation phrase to convey speaker commitment in French, a language that has stress at the phrasal level as well as a restricted set of pitch accents. In a production experiment, participants had to produce sentences in two pragmatic contexts: unbiased questions (the speaker had no particular belief with respect to the expected answer) and negatively biased questions (the speaker believed the proposition to be false). Results revealed that negatively biased questions consistently exhibited an additional unaccented F0 peak in the preaccentual syllable (an H+!H* pitch accent) while unbiased questions were often realized with a rising pattern across the accented syllable (an H* pitch accent). These results provide evidence that pitch accent types in French can signal the speaker's belief about the certainty of the proposition expressed in French. It also has implications for the phonological model of French intonation.

Perception of contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress in unaccented and accented words by younger and older listeners.

PubMed

Gordon-Salant, Sandra; Yeni-Komshian, Grace H; Pickett, Erin J; Fitzgibbons, Peter J

2016-03-01

This study examined the ability of older and younger listeners to perceive contrastive syllable stress in unaccented and Spanish-accented cognate bi-syllabic English words. Younger listeners with normal hearing, older listeners with normal hearing, and older listeners with hearing impairment judged recordings of words that contrasted in stress that conveyed a noun or verb form (e.g., CONduct/conDUCT), using two paradigms differing in the amount of semantic support. The stimuli were spoken by four speakers: one native English speaker and three Spanish-accented speakers (one moderately and two mildly accented). The results indicate that all listeners showed the lowest accuracy scores in responding to the most heavily accented speaker and the highest accuracy in judging the productions of the native English speaker. The two older groups showed lower accuracy in judging contrastive lexical stress than the younger group, especially for verbs produced by the most accented speaker. This general pattern of performance was observed in the two experimental paradigms, although performance was generally lower in the paradigm without semantic support. The findings suggest that age-related difficulty in adjusting to deviations in contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress produced with a Spanish accent may be an important factor limiting perception of accented English by older people.

Perception of contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress in unaccented and accented words by younger and older listeners

PubMed Central

Gordon-Salant, Sandra; Yeni-Komshian, Grace H.; Pickett, Erin J.; Fitzgibbons, Peter J.

2016-01-01

This study examined the ability of older and younger listeners to perceive contrastive syllable stress in unaccented and Spanish-accented cognate bi-syllabic English words. Younger listeners with normal hearing, older listeners with normal hearing, and older listeners with hearing impairment judged recordings of words that contrasted in stress that conveyed a noun or verb form (e.g., CONduct/conDUCT), using two paradigms differing in the amount of semantic support. The stimuli were spoken by four speakers: one native English speaker and three Spanish-accented speakers (one moderately and two mildly accented). The results indicate that all listeners showed the lowest accuracy scores in responding to the most heavily accented speaker and the highest accuracy in judging the productions of the native English speaker. The two older groups showed lower accuracy in judging contrastive lexical stress than the younger group, especially for verbs produced by the most accented speaker. This general pattern of performance was observed in the two experimental paradigms, although performance was generally lower in the paradigm without semantic support. The findings suggest that age-related difficulty in adjusting to deviations in contrastive bi-syllabic lexical stress produced with a Spanish accent may be an important factor limiting perception of accented English by older people. PMID:27036250

Pitch structure, but not selective attention, affects accent weightings in metrical grouping.

PubMed

Prince, Jon B

2014-10-01

Among other cues, pitch and temporal accents contribute to grouping in musical sequences. However, exactly how they combine remains unclear, possibly because of the role of structural organization. In 3 experiments, participants rated the perceived metrical grouping of sequences that either adhered to the rules of tonal Western musical pitch structure (musical key) or did not (atonal). The tonal status of sequences did not provide any grouping cues and was irrelevant to the task. Experiment 1 established equally strong levels of pitch leap accents and duration accents in baseline conditions, which were then recombined in subsequent experiments. Neither accent type was stronger or weaker for tonal and atonal contexts. In Experiment 2, pitch leap accents dominated over duration accents, but the extent of this advantage was greater when sequences were tonal. Experiment 3 ruled out an attentional origin of this effect by replicating this finding while explicitly manipulating attention to pitch or duration accents between participant groups. Overall, the presence of tonal pitch structure made the dimension of pitch more salient at the expense of time. These findings support a dimensional salience framework in which the presence of organizational structure prioritizes the processing of the more structured dimension regardless of task relevance, independent from psychophysical difficulty, and impervious to attentional allocation.

Recognition memory reveals just how CONTRASTIVE contrastive accenting really is

PubMed Central

Fraundorf, Scott H.; Watson, Duane G.; Benjamin, Aaron S.

2010-01-01

The effects of pitch accenting on memory were investigated in three experiments. Participants listened to short recorded discourses that contained contrast sets with two items (e.g. British scientists and French scientists); a continuation specified one item from the set. Pitch accenting on the critical word in the continuation was manipulated between non-contrastive (H* in the ToBI system) and contrastive (L+H*). On subsequent recognition memory tests, the L+H* accent increased hits to correct statements and correct rejections of the contrast item (Experiments 1–3), but did not impair memory for other parts of the discourse (Experiment 2). L+H* also did not facilitate correct rejections of lures not in the contrast set (Experiment 3), indicating that contrastive accents do not simply strengthen the representation of the target item. These results suggest comprehenders use pitch accenting to encode and update information about multiple elements in a contrast set. PMID:20835405

The invisible minority: revisiting the debate on foreign-accented speakers and upward mobility in the workplace.

PubMed

Akomolafe, Soji

2013-01-01

Of some of the major types of discrimination, the one that gets the least attention is national origin discrimination and in particular, accent discrimination, especially when it comes to upward mobility in the workplace. Yet, unlike other forms of discrimination, accent discrimination is rarely a subject of any robust public debate. This paper is a modest attempt to help establish a framework for understanding the relative neglect to which the discourse on accent discrimination has been subjected vis-a-vis the overall national debate on diversity. Hopefully, in the process, it will stimulate a more robust conversation on the plight of foreign-accented speakers.

The Effects of Language Experience and Speech Context on the Phonetic Accommodation of English-accented Spanish Voicing.

PubMed

Llanos, Fernando; Francis, Alexander L

2017-03-01

Native speakers of Spanish with different amounts of experience with English classified stop-consonant voicing (/b/ versus /p/) across different speech accents: English-accented Spanish, native Spanish, and native English. While listeners with little experience with English classified target voicing with an English- or Spanish-like voice onset time (VOT) boundary, predicted by contextual VOT, listeners familiar with English relied on an English-like VOT boundary in an English-accented Spanish context even in the absence of clear contextual cues to English VOT. This indicates that Spanish listeners accommodated English-accented Spanish voicing differently depending on their degree of familiarization with the English norm.

The neural processing of foreign-accented speech and its relationship to listener bias

PubMed Central

Yi, Han-Gyol; Smiljanic, Rajka; Chandrasekaran, Bharath

2014-01-01

Foreign-accented speech often presents a challenging listening condition. In addition to deviations from the target speech norms related to the inexperience of the nonnative speaker, listener characteristics may play a role in determining intelligibility levels. We have previously shown that an implicit visual bias for associating East Asian faces and foreignness predicts the listeners' perceptual ability to process Korean-accented English audiovisual speech (Yi et al., 2013). Here, we examine the neural mechanism underlying the influence of listener bias to foreign faces on speech perception. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, native English speakers listened to native- and Korean-accented English sentences, with or without faces. The participants' Asian-foreign association was measured using an implicit association test (IAT), conducted outside the scanner. We found that foreign-accented speech evoked greater activity in the bilateral primary auditory cortices and the inferior frontal gyri, potentially reflecting greater computational demand. Higher IAT scores, indicating greater bias, were associated with increased BOLD response to foreign-accented speech with faces in the primary auditory cortex, the early node for spectrotemporal analysis. We conclude the following: (1) foreign-accented speech perception places greater demand on the neural systems underlying speech perception; (2) face of the talker can exaggerate the perceived foreignness of foreign-accented speech; (3) implicit Asian-foreign association is associated with decreased neural efficiency in early spectrotemporal processing. PMID:25339883

Perceptual Accent Rating and Attribution in Psychogenic FAS: Some Further Evidence Challenging Whitaker’s Operational Definition

PubMed Central

Keulen, Stefanie; Verhoeven, Jo; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Mariën, Peter; Jonkers, Roel; Mavroudakis, Nicolas; Paquier, Philippe

2016-01-01

A 40-year-old, non-aphasic, right-handed, and polyglot (L1: French, L2: Dutch, and L3: English) woman with a 12-year history of addiction to opiates and psychoactive substances, and clear psychiatric problems, presented with a foreign accent of sudden onset in L1. Speech evolved toward a mostly fluent output, despite a stutter-like behavior and a marked grammatical output disorder. The psychogenic etiology of the accent foreignness was construed based on the patient’s complex medical history and psychodiagnostic, neuropsychological, and neurolinguistic assessments. The presence of a foreign accent was affirmed by a perceptual accent rating and attribution experiment. It is argued that this patient provides additional evidence demonstrating the outdatedness of Whitaker’s (1982) definition of foreign accent syndrome, as only one of the four operational criteria was unequivocally applicable to our patient: her accent foreignness was not only recognized by her relatives and the medical staff but also by a group of native French-speaking laymen. However, our patient defied the three remaining criteria, as central nervous system damage could not conclusively be demonstrated, psychodiagnostic assessment raised the hypothesis of a conversion disorder, and the patient was a polyglot whose newly gained accent was associated with a range of foreign languages, which exceeded the ones she spoke. PMID:26973488

Effects and modeling of phonetic and acoustic confusions in accented speech.

PubMed

Fung, Pascale; Liu, Yi

2005-11-01

Accented speech recognition is more challenging than standard speech recognition due to the effects of phonetic and acoustic confusions. Phonetic confusion in accented speech occurs when an expected phone is pronounced as a different one, which leads to erroneous recognition. Acoustic confusion occurs when the pronounced phone is found to lie acoustically between two baseform models and can be equally recognized as either one. We propose that it is necessary to analyze and model these confusions separately in order to improve accented speech recognition without degrading standard speech recognition. Since low phonetic confusion units in accented speech do not give rise to automatic speech recognition errors, we focus on analyzing and reducing phonetic and acoustic confusability under high phonetic confusion conditions. We propose using likelihood ratio test to measure phonetic confusion, and asymmetric acoustic distance to measure acoustic confusion. Only accent-specific phonetic units with low acoustic confusion are used in an augmented pronunciation dictionary, while phonetic units with high acoustic confusion are reconstructed using decision tree merging. Experimental results show that our approach is effective and superior to methods modeling phonetic confusion or acoustic confusion alone in accented speech, with a significant 5.7% absolute WER reduction, without degrading standard speech recognition.

Accent, intelligibility, and comprehensibility in the perception of foreign-accented Lombard speech

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Chi-Nin

2003-10-01

Speech produced in noise (Lombard speech) has been reported to be more intelligible than speech produced in quiet (normal speech). This study examined the perception of non-native Lombard speech in terms of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and degree of foreign accent. Twelve Cantonese speakers and a comparison group of English speakers read simple true and false English statements in quiet and in 70 dB of masking noise. Lombard and normal utterances were mixed with noise at a constant signal-to-noise ratio, and presented along with noise-free stimuli to eight new English listeners who provided transcription scores, comprehensibility ratings, and accent ratings. Analyses showed that, as expected, utterances presented in noise were less well perceived than were noise-free sentences, and that the Cantonese speakers' productions were more accented, but less intelligible and less comprehensible than those of the English speakers. For both groups of speakers, the Lombard sentences were correctly transcribed more often than their normal utterances in noisy conditions. However, the Cantonese-accented Lombard sentences were not rated as easier to understand than was the normal speech in all conditions. The assigned accent ratings were similar throughout all listening conditions. Implications of these findings will be discussed.

Development of phonological constancy: 19-month-olds, but not 15-month-olds, identify words in a non-native regional accent.

PubMed

Mulak, Karen E; Best, Catherine T; Tyler, Michael D; Kitamura, Christine; Irwin, Julia R

2013-01-01

By 12 months, children grasp that a phonetic change to a word can change its identity (phonological distinctiveness). However, they must also grasp that some phonetic changes do not (phonological constancy). To test development of phonological constancy, sixteen 15-month-olds and sixteen 19-month-olds completed an eye-tracking task that tracked their gaze to named versus unnamed images for familiar words spoken in their native (Australian) and an unfamiliar non-native (Jamaican) regional accent of English. Both groups looked longer at named than unnamed images for Australian pronunciations, but only 19-month-olds did so for Jamaican pronunciations, indicating that phonological constancy emerges by 19 months. Vocabulary size predicted 15-month-olds' identifications for the Jamaican pronunciations, suggesting vocabulary growth is a viable predictor for phonological constancy development. © 2013 The Authors. Child Development © 2013 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Development of phonological constancy: 19-month-olds, but not 15-month-olds, identify words in a non-native regional accent

PubMed Central

Mulak, Karen E.; Best, Catherine T.; Tyler, Michael D.; Kitamura, Christine; Irwin, Julia R.

2014-01-01

By 12 months, children grasp that a phonetic change to a word can change its identity (phonological distinctiveness). However, they must also grasp that some phonetic changes do not (phonological constancy). To test development of phonological constancy, 16 15-month-olds and 16 19-month-olds completed an eye-tracking task that tracked their gaze to named versus unnamed images for familiar words spoken in their native (Australian) and an unfamiliar non-native (Jamaican) regional accent of English. Both groups looked longer at named than unnamed images for Australian pronunciations, but only 19-month-olds did so for Jamaican pronunciations, indicating that phonological constancy emerges by 19 months. Vocabulary size predicted 15-month-olds' identifications for the Jamaican pronunciations, suggesting vocabulary growth is a viable predictor for phonological constancy development. PMID:23521607

Facilitation of creative performance by using blue and red accent lighting in work and learning areas.

PubMed

Kombeiz, Olga; Steidle, Anna

2018-03-01

Research has shown that colours influence motivation and cognitive performance. In achievement contexts, red evokes avoidance motivation that hinders creativity, while blue elicits an approach motivation that facilitates creativity. However, due to their position and mode of presentation, colours may convey a different message. Red accent lighting creates a cosy, friendly room atmosphere that may, even in an achievement context, elicit an approach rather than an avoidance motivation. Results (N = 146) showed that both blue and red accent light increased strategic approach motivation compared to white accent light. Moreover, through the heightened approach motivation, colourful accent light indirectly improved creative performance. Implications for future research on colour and practical implications for colour usage are discussed. Practitioner Summary: Designing work environments for creativity is a new topic in ergonomics research and practice. The present study demonstrates indirect effects of coloured accent light on creativity providing interesting possibilities for the design of workplaces for knowledge workers, classrooms and all other rooms in which people work on new ideas.

Atmospheric Composition Change: Climate-Chemistry Interactions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Isaksen, I.S.A.; Granier, C.; Myhre, G.; Bernsten, T. K.; Dalsoren, S. B.; Gauss, S.; Klimont, Z.; Benestad, R.; Bousquet, P.; Collins, W.;

Seeking an Anchorage. Stability and Variability in Tonal Alignment of Rising Prenuclear Pitch Accents in Cypriot Greek.

PubMed

Themistocleous, Charalambos

2016-12-01

Although tonal alignment constitutes a quintessential property of pitch accents, its exact characteristics remain unclear. This study, by exploring the timing of the Cypriot Greek L*+H prenuclear pitch accent, examines the predictions of three hypotheses about tonal alignment: the invariance hypothesis, the segmental anchoring hypothesis, and the segmental anchorage hypothesis. The study reports on two experiments: the first of which manipulates the syllable patterns of the stressed syllable, and the second of which modifies the distance of the L*+H from the following pitch accent. The findings on the alignment of the low tone (L) are illustrative of the segmental anchoring hypothesis predictions: the L persistently aligns inside the onset consonant, a few milliseconds before the stressed vowel. However, the findings on the alignment of the high tone (H) are both intriguing and unexpected: the alignment of the H depends on the number of unstressed syllables that follow the prenuclear pitch accent. The 'wandering' of the H over multiple syllables is extremely rare among languages, and casts doubt on the invariance hypothesis and the segmental anchoring hypothesis, as well as indicating the need for a modified version of the segmental anchorage hypothesis. To address the alignment of the H, we suggest that it aligns within a segmental anchorage-the area that follows the prenuclear pitch accent-in such a way as to protect the paradigmatic contrast between the L*+H prenuclear pitch accent and the L+H* nuclear pitch accent.

How long-term memory and accentuation interact during spoken language comprehension.

PubMed

Li, Xiaoqing; Yang, Yufang

2013-04-01

Spoken language comprehension requires immediate integration of different information types, such as semantics, syntax, and prosody. Meanwhile, both the information derived from speech signals and the information retrieved from long-term memory exert their influence on language comprehension immediately. Using EEG (electroencephalogram), the present study investigated how the information retrieved from long-term memory interacts with accentuation during spoken language comprehension. Mini Chinese discourses were used as stimuli, with an interrogative or assertive context sentence preceding the target sentence. The target sentence included one critical word conveying new information. The critical word was either highly expected or lowly expected given the information retrieved from long-term memory. Moreover, the critical word was either consistently accented or inconsistently de-accented. The results revealed that for lowly expected new information, inconsistently de-accented words elicited a larger N400 and larger theta power increases (4-6 Hz) than consistently accented words. In contrast, for the highly expected new information, consistently accented words elicited a larger N400 and larger alpha power decreases (8-14 Hz) than inconsistently de-accented words. The results suggest that, during spoken language comprehension, the effect of accentuation interacted with the information retrieved from long-term memory immediately. Moreover, our results also have important consequences for our understanding of the processing nature of the N400. The N400 amplitude is not only enhanced for incorrect information (new and de-accented word) but also enhanced for correct information (new and accented words). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Does a Regional Accent Perturb Speech Processing?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Floccia, Caroline; Goslin, Jeremy; Girard, Frederique; Konopczynski, Gabrielle

2006-01-01

The processing costs involved in regional accent normalization were evaluated by measuring differences in lexical decision latencies for targets placed at the end of sentences with different French regional accents. Over a series of 6 experiments, the authors examined the time course of comprehension disruption by manipulating the duration and…

Business and Technology Students' Preferences for English-Language Accents: Implications for Business Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, James Calvert; Green, Diana J.; Rosewarne, David

1997-01-01

Multiple recordings of a message in various accents were heard by 218 college students, including 26 nonnative English speakers. Ranked English accents in descending order were General American, British, Australian, Indian, Estuary, and Japanese. Perceptual differences were related to gender, ethnicity, nationality, and region. Implications for…

Children's Sociolinguistic Evaluations of Nice Foreigners and Mean Americans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kinzler, Katherine D.; DeJesus, Jasmine M.

2013-01-01

Three experiments investigated 5- to 6-year-old monolingual English-speaking American children's sociolinguistic evaluations of others based on their accent (native, foreign) and social actions (nice, mean, neutral). In Experiment 1, children expressed social preferences for native-accented English speakers over foreign-accented speakers, and they…

A Short Note on Accent-Bias, Social Identity and Ethnocentrism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chakraborty, Rahul

2017-01-01

This paper discusses the interrelations among accent-based biases, social identity and ethnocentrism. Construction of social identity creates a set of ethnocentric values within a person, which indirectly or directly plays a pivotal role in generating accent related biases. Starting with Tajfel's (1959) social identity theory and then the…

Measuring Implicit and Explicit Attitudes toward Foreign-Accented Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pantos, Andrew J.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of listeners' attitudes toward foreign-accented speech and the manner in which those attitudes are formed. This study measured 165 participants' implicit and explicit attitudes toward US- and foreign-accented audio stimuli. Implicit attitudes were measured with an audio Implicit…

Foreign-Accented Speech Perception Ratings: A Multifactorial Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kraut, Rachel; Wulff, Stefanie

2013-01-01

Seventy-eight native English speakers rated the foreign-accented speech (FAS) of 24 international students enrolled in an Intensive English programme at a public university in Texas on degree of accent, comprehensibility and communicative ability. Variables considered to potentially impact listeners' ratings were the sex of the speaker, the first…

Prosody and the Development of Comprehension.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cutler, Anne; Swinney, David A.

1987-01-01

Studies analyzing children's response time to detect word targets revealed that six-year-olds and younger children generally did not show the response time advantage for accented target words which adult listeners show, providing support for the argument that the processing advantage for accented words reflects the semantic role of accent as an…

Contextual Evidence for the Representation of Pitch Accents in Standard Serbian

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zsiga, Elizabeth; Zec, Draga

2013-01-01

This paper reports the results of an experiment that elicits contextual effects on Rising and Falling accents in Standard Serbian, with the goal of determining their acoustic correlates and their phonological representation. Materials systematically vary the distance between pitch accents, inducing "tone crowding," in order to identify the…

Audiovisual cues benefit recognition of accented speech in noise but not perceptual adaptation

PubMed Central

Banks, Briony; Gowen, Emma; Munro, Kevin J.; Adank, Patti

2015-01-01

Perceptual adaptation allows humans to recognize different varieties of accented speech. We investigated whether perceptual adaptation to accented speech is facilitated if listeners can see a speaker’s facial and mouth movements. In Study 1, participants listened to sentences in a novel accent and underwent a period of training with audiovisual or audio-only speech cues, presented in quiet or in background noise. A control group also underwent training with visual-only (speech-reading) cues. We observed no significant difference in perceptual adaptation between any of the groups. To address a number of remaining questions, we carried out a second study using a different accent, speaker and experimental design, in which participants listened to sentences in a non-native (Japanese) accent with audiovisual or audio-only cues, without separate training. Participants’ eye gaze was recorded to verify that they looked at the speaker’s face during audiovisual trials. Recognition accuracy was significantly better for audiovisual than for audio-only stimuli; however, no statistical difference in perceptual adaptation was observed between the two modalities. Furthermore, Bayesian analysis suggested that the data supported the null hypothesis. Our results suggest that although the availability of visual speech cues may be immediately beneficial for recognition of unfamiliar accented speech in noise, it does not improve perceptual adaptation. PMID:26283946

Audiovisual cues benefit recognition of accented speech in noise but not perceptual adaptation.

PubMed

Banks, Briony; Gowen, Emma; Munro, Kevin J; Adank, Patti

2015-01-01

Perceptual adaptation allows humans to recognize different varieties of accented speech. We investigated whether perceptual adaptation to accented speech is facilitated if listeners can see a speaker's facial and mouth movements. In Study 1, participants listened to sentences in a novel accent and underwent a period of training with audiovisual or audio-only speech cues, presented in quiet or in background noise. A control group also underwent training with visual-only (speech-reading) cues. We observed no significant difference in perceptual adaptation between any of the groups. To address a number of remaining questions, we carried out a second study using a different accent, speaker and experimental design, in which participants listened to sentences in a non-native (Japanese) accent with audiovisual or audio-only cues, without separate training. Participants' eye gaze was recorded to verify that they looked at the speaker's face during audiovisual trials. Recognition accuracy was significantly better for audiovisual than for audio-only stimuli; however, no statistical difference in perceptual adaptation was observed between the two modalities. Furthermore, Bayesian analysis suggested that the data supported the null hypothesis. Our results suggest that although the availability of visual speech cues may be immediately beneficial for recognition of unfamiliar accented speech in noise, it does not improve perceptual adaptation.

Structural Influences on Initial Accent Placement in French

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Astesano, Corine; Bard, Ellen Gurman; Turk, Alice

2007-01-01

In addition to the phrase-final accent (FA), the French phonological system includes a phonetically distinct Initial Accent (IA). The present study tested two proposals: that IA marks the onset of phonological phrases, and that it has an independent rhythmic function. Eight adult native speakers of French were instructed to read syntactically…

Disentangling Accent from Comprehensibility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trofimovich, Pavel; Isaacs, Talia

2012-01-01

The goal of this study was to determine which linguistic aspects of second language speech are related to accent and which to comprehensibility. To address this goal, 19 different speech measures in the oral productions of 40 native French speakers of English were examined in relation to accent and comprehensibility, as rated by 60 novice raters…

Shibboleth: An Automated Foreign Accent Identification Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frost, Wende

2013-01-01

The speech of non-native (L2) speakers of a language contains phonological rules that differentiate them from native speakers. These phonological rules characterize or distinguish accents in an L2. The Shibboleth program creates combinatorial rule-sets to describe the phonological pattern of these accents and classifies L2 speakers into their…

Efficient Personalized Mispronunciation Detection of Taiwanese-Accented English Speech Based on Unsupervised Model Adaptation and Dynamic Sentence Selection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Chung-Hsien; Su, Hung-Yu; Liu, Chao-Hong

2013-01-01

This study presents an efficient approach to personalized mispronunciation detection of Taiwanese-accented English. The main goal of this study was to detect frequently occurring mispronunciation patterns of Taiwanese-accented English instead of scoring English pronunciations directly. The proposed approach quickly identifies personalized…

Do College Instructors Have Implicit Bias toward Latino-Accented English Speakers?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Na, Eunkyung

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the implicit attitudes of college-level instructors toward Latino-accented English and the effects of gender, teaching experience, home language, race/ethnicity, and rank on those attitudes. The auditory Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to measure the implicit accent preferences. Participants (N =…

Processing and Comprehension of Accented Speech by Monolingual and Bilingual Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonald, Margarethe; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana; Batko, Michelle; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2018-01-01

This study tested the effect of Spanish-accented speech on sentence comprehension in children with different degrees of Spanish experience. The hypothesis was that earlier acquisition of Spanish would be associated with enhanced comprehension of Spanish-accented speech. Three groups of 5-6-year-old children were tested: monolingual…

Scandinavian Accents in Their Relation to One Another

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liberman, A. S.

1975-01-01

This paper is concerned with four Scandinavian prosodemes: accent 1, accent 2, stoed, and no stoed. The aim is to establish the function of each of them, i.e., the role they play in the system of each Scandinavian language. Available from Liber Laeromedel, Box 1205, S-22105 Lund, Sweden. (Author/TL)

The role of accent imitation in sensorimotor integration during processing of intelligible speech

PubMed Central

Adank, Patti; Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann; Bekkering, Harold

2013-01-01

Recent theories on how listeners maintain perceptual invariance despite variation in the speech signal allocate a prominent role to imitation mechanisms. Notably, these simulation accounts propose that motor mechanisms support perception of ambiguous or noisy signals. Indeed, imitation of ambiguous signals, e.g., accented speech, has been found to aid effective speech comprehension. Here, we explored the possibility that imitation in speech benefits perception by increasing activation in speech perception and production areas. Participants rated the intelligibility of sentences spoken in an unfamiliar accent of Dutch in a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging experiment. Next, participants in one group repeated the sentences in their own accent, while a second group vocally imitated the accent. Finally, both groups rated the intelligibility of accented sentences in a post-test. The neuroimaging results showed an interaction between type of training and pre- and post-test sessions in left Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Supplementary Motor Area, and left Superior Temporal Sulcus. Although alternative explanations such as task engagement and fatigue need to be considered as well, the results suggest that imitation may aid effective speech comprehension by supporting sensorimotor integration. PMID:24109447

Word-level prominence in Persian: An Experimental Study.

PubMed

Sadeghi, Vahid

2017-12-01

Previous literature on the phonetics of stress in Persian has reported that fundamental frequency is the only reliable acoustic correlate of stress, and that stressed and unstressed syllables are not differentiated from each other in the absence of accentuation. In this study, the effects of lexical stress on duration, overall intensity and spectral tilt were examined in Persian both in the accented and unaccented conditions. Results showed that syllable duration is consistently affected by stress in Persian in both the accented and unaccented conditions across all vowel types. Unlike duration, the results for overall intensity and spectral tilt were significant only in the accented condition, suggesting that measures of intensity are not a correlate of stress in Persian but they are mainly caused by the presence of a pitch movement. The findings are phonologically interpreted as suggesting that word-level prominence in Persian is typologically similar to 'stress accent' languages, in which multiple phonetic cues are used to signal the prominence contrast in the accented condition, and stressed and unstressed syllables are different from each other even when the word is not pitch-accented.

The roles of long-term phonotactic and lexical prosodic knowledge in phonological short-term memory.

PubMed

Tanida, Yuki; Ueno, Taiji; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A; Saito, Satoru

2015-04-01

Many previous studies have explored and confirmed the influence of long-term phonological representations on phonological short-term memory. In most investigations, phonological effects have been explored with respect to phonotactic constraints or frequency. If interaction between long-term memory and phonological short-term memory is a generalized principle, then other phonological characteristics-that is, suprasegmental aspects of phonology-should also exert similar effects on phonological short-term memory. We explored this hypothesis through three immediate serial-recall experiments that manipulated Japanese nonwords with respect to lexical prosody (pitch-accent type, reflecting suprasegmental characteristics) as well as phonotactic frequency (reflecting segmental characteristics). The results showed that phonotactic frequency affected the retention not only of the phonemic sequences, but also of pitch-accent patterns, when participants were instructed to recall both the phoneme sequence and accent pattern of nonwords. In addition, accent pattern typicality influenced the retention of the accent pattern: Typical accent patterns were recalled more accurately than atypical ones. These results indicate that both long-term phonotactic and lexical prosodic knowledge contribute to phonological short-term memory performance.

Decision Lists for Lexical Ambiguity Resolution: Application to Accent Restoration in Spanish and French

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-06-01

and compute a table of accent pa t tern distributions as follows: De -accented Form Accent Pat tern cesse cesse cessd cout cofit couta coute...c6td du laisser de cote faute de temps (1) c6td appeler l’ autre cote de l’ at lantique (1) c6td passe de notre cote de la frontiere (2) cSte...vivre sur notre cote ouest toujours verte (2) c6te creer sur la cote du labrador des (2) cSte travaillaient cote a cote , ils avaient The training

A Comparative Analysis of the English-Language Accent Preferences of Prospective and Practicing Businesspersons from around the World

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, James C.; Green, Diana J.; Blaszczynski, Carol; Rosewarne, David D.

2007-01-01

Problem: The studies of the English-language accent preferences of prospective and practicing businesspersons from around the world have not been integrated. Research Questions: What are the English-language accent preferences of prospective and practicing businesspersons from around the world, and how are those preferences influenced by the…

Novel Accent Perception in Typically-Developing School-Aged Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newton, Caroline; Ridgway, Samuel

2016-01-01

Many schools in Western countries like the United Kingdom have become increasingly diverse communities in recent years, and children are likely to be exposed to a variety of accents that are different from their own. While there is a wide body of research exploring accent comprehension in the adult population and in infancy, little has been done…

Effects of Kindermusik Training on Infants' Rhythmic Enculturation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gerry, David W.; Faux, Ashley L.; Trainor, Laurel J.

2010-01-01

Phillips-Silver and Trainor (2005) demonstrated a link between movement and the metrical interpretation of rhythm patterns in 7-month-old infants. Infants bounced on every second beat of a rhythmic pattern with no auditory accents later preferred to listen to an accented version of the pattern with accents every second beat (duple or march meter),…

Children's Use of Semantic Context in Perception of Foreign-Accented Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holt, Rachael Frush; Bent, Tessa

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate children's use of semantic context to facilitate foreign-accented word recognition in noise. Method: Monolingual American English speaking 5- to 7-year-olds (n = 168) repeated either Mandarin- or American English-accented sentences in babble, half of which contained final words that were highly…

The Role of Prosody in a Case of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Katz, William F.; Garst, Diane M.; Levitt, June

2008-01-01

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare disorder characterized by the emergence of a perceived foreign accent following brain damage. The symptomotology, functional bases, and neural substrates of this disorder are still being elucidated. In this case study, acoustic analyses were performed on the speech of a 46-year old monolingual female who…

Utterance-Final Lengthening Is Predictive of Infants' Discrimination of English Accents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Laurence; Floccia, Caroline; Goslin, Jeremy; Butler, Joseph

2014-01-01

Infants in their first year manifest selective patterns of discrimination between languages and between accents of the same language. Prosodic differences are held to be important in whether languages can be discriminated, together with the infant's familiarity with one or both of the accents heard. However, the nature of the prosodic cues that…

Interpreting Pitch Accents in Online Comprehension: H* vs. L+H*

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watson, Duane G.; Tanenhaus, Michael K.; Gunlogson, Christine A.

2008-01-01

Although the presence or absence of a pitch accent clearly can play an important role in signaling the discourse and information structure of an utterance, whether the form of an accent determines the type of information it conveys is more controversial. We used an eye-tracking paradigm to investigate whether H*, which has been argued to signal…

Cross-Linguistic Expression of Contrastive Accent: Clinical Assessment in Spanish and English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinez-Castilla, Pastora; Peppe, Sue

2010-01-01

Well-documented Romance-Germanic differences in the use of accent in speech to convey information-structure and focus cause problems for the assessment of prosodic skills in populations with clinical disorders. The strategies for assessing the ability to use lexical and contrastive accent in English and Spanish are reviewed, and studies in the…

From One to Multiple Accents on a Test of L2 Listening Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ockey, Gary J.; French, Robert

2016-01-01

Concerns about the need for assessing multidialectal listening skills for global contexts are becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the inclusion of multiple accents on listening assessments may threaten test fairness because it is not practical to include every accent that may be encountered in the language use domain on these tests. Given…

Perception and analysis of Spanish accents in English speech

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chism, Cori; Lass, Norman

2002-05-01

The purpose of the present study was to determine what relates most closely to the degree of perceived foreign accent in the English speech of native Spanish speakers: intonation, vowel length, stress, voice onset time (VOT), or segmental accuracy. Nineteen native English speaking listeners rated speech samples from 7 native English speakers and 15 native Spanish speakers for comprehensibility and degree of foreign accent. The speech samples were analyzed spectrographically and perceptually to obtain numerical values for each variable. Correlation coefficients were computed to determine the relationship beween these values and the average foreign accent scores. Results showed that the average foreign accent scores were statistically significantly correlated with three variables: the length of stressed vowels (r=-0.48, p=0.05), voice onset time (r =-0.62, p=0.01), and segmental accuracy (r=0.92, p=0.001). Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Investigating Attitudes towards an Emerging Standard of English: Evaluations of Newscasters' Accents in Trinidad

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deuber, Dagmar; Leung, Glenda-Alicia

2013-01-01

This paper addresses the issue of the emergence of new standards of English in the postcolonial world by means of a language attitude study conducted in the Caribbean island of Trinidad that involved rating the accents of newscasters. Accents represented in the clips played to respondents comprised various local as well as non-local ones. The…

Phonetic Parameters and Perceptual Judgments of Accent in English by American and Japanese Listeners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riney, Timothy J.; Takagi, Naoyuki; Inutsuka, Kumiko

2005-01-01

In this study we identify some of the phonetic parameters that correlate with nonnative speakers' (NNSs) perceptual judgments of accent in English and investigate NNS listener perceptions of English from a World Englishes point of view. Our main experiment involved 3,200 assessments of the perceived degree of accent in English of two speaker…

The Conflation of /l/ and /r/: New Zealand Perceptions of Japanese-Accented English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watanabe, Yutai

2017-01-01

As a case study of non-linguists' perceptions of accent, this paper investigates how accurately and on what basis Japanese-accented English (JAE) is discernible from other L2 varieties of English in New Zealand (NZ). The paper sheds light on how a feature salient in speech is associated with the perceived sociolinguistic identity of speakers. An…

An Advantage for Age? Self-Concept and Self-Regulation as Teachable Foundations in Second Language Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moyer, Alene

2018-01-01

Age of onset has long been assumed to predict outcomes in second/foreign language accent. Yet beyond early childhood, acquiring a new accent has much to do with social-affective factors such as learner identity and motivation, as well as cognitive factors such as learning strategies (Pfenninger, 2017). Newer perspectives acknowledge this…

The Impact of Foreign Accent on Credibility: An Analysis of Cognitive Statement Ratings in a Swiss Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stocker, Ladina

2017-01-01

The present paper reports on a study investigating whether the presence of a foreign accent negatively affects credibility judgments. Previous research suggests that trivia statements recorded by speakers with a foreign accent are judged as less credible than when recorded by native speakers due to increased cognitive demands (Lev-Ari and Keysar…

Generalization of Perceptual Learning of Degraded Speech across Talkers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huyck, Julia Jones; Smith, Rachel H.; Hawkins, Sarah; Johnsrude, Ingrid S.

2017-01-01

Purpose: We investigated whether perceptual learning of noise-vocoded (NV) speech is specific to a particular talker or accent. Method: Four groups of listeners (n = 18 per group) were first trained by listening to 20 NV sentences that had been recorded by a talker with either the same native accent as the listeners or a different regional accent.…

Shades of Cosmopolitanism: EFL Teachers' Perspectives on English Accents and Pronunciation Teaching in the Gulf

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buckingham, Louisa

2015-01-01

Research suggests that passing for a native English speaker (NES) is often perceived as desirable by teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and employers, and students may claim to prefer certain NES accents as learning models. While this may be partly motivated by the prevalence of a particular regional accent in ESL contexts or…

Listening with an Accent: Speech Perception in a Second Language by Late Bilinguals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leikin, Mark; Ibrahim, Raphiq; Eviatar, Zohar; Sapir, Shimon

2009-01-01

The goal of the present study was to examine functioning of late bilinguals in their second language. Specifically, we asked how native and non-native Hebrew speaking listeners perceive accented and native-accented Hebrew speech. To achieve this goal we used the gating paradigm to explore the ability of healthy late fluent bilinguals (Russian and…

Relationship between listeners' nonnative speech recognition and categorization abilities

PubMed Central

Atagi, Eriko; Bent, Tessa

2015-01-01

Enhancement of the perceptual encoding of talker characteristics (indexical information) in speech can facilitate listeners' recognition of linguistic content. The present study explored this indexical-linguistic relationship in nonnative speech processing by examining listeners' performance on two tasks: nonnative accent categorization and nonnative speech-in-noise recognition. Results indicated substantial variability across listeners in their performance on both the accent categorization and nonnative speech recognition tasks. Moreover, listeners' accent categorization performance correlated with their nonnative speech-in-noise recognition performance. These results suggest that having more robust indexical representations for nonnative accents may allow listeners to more accurately recognize the linguistic content of nonnative speech. PMID:25618098

Passing through: queer lesbian film and Fremde Haut.

PubMed

Aaron, Michele

2012-01-01

Expanding the horizons of lesbian film, Fremde Haut is located within three broad frames: the cross-dressing genre, the New Queer Cinema (NQC) movement, and an Accented or diasporic film aesthetic. While strong connections exist between the cross-dressing film and NQC, less addressed are the links between the New Queer and the Accented yet these are of more radical, that is queerer, potential. Through Fremde Haut, this article illustrates how intimately tied to race and nation, gender and sexuality are, to reveal the accented as queer and the queer as accented. Ultimately, what is distinguished is the potency of a new "quare" cinema.

Factors Affecting Accent Acquisition: The Case of Russian Immigrants in Israel

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu-Rabia, Salim; Iliyan, Salman

2011-01-01

A debate centers on whether the native accent is acquired early in life or whether it can be acquired at any time. This study investigated factors that may affect native accent acquisition in a second language. Participants in this study were 50 Russians who immigrated to Israel, 17 males and 33 females. Their age on arrival was 5 to 25 years.…

Development of Hemispheric Specialization for Lexical Pitch-Accent in Japanese Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sato, Yutaka; Sogabe, Yuko; Mazuka, Reiko

2010-01-01

Infants' speech perception abilities change through the first year of life, from broad sensitivity to a wide range of speech contrasts to becoming more finely attuned to their native language. What remains unclear, however, is how this perceptual change relates to brain responses to native language contrasts in terms of the functional…

Development of Phonological Constancy: 19-Month-Olds, but Not 15-Month-Olds, Identify Words in a Non-Native Regional Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mulak, Karen E.; Best, Catherine T.; Tyler, Michael D.; Kitamura, Christine; Irwin, Julia R.

2013-01-01

By 12 months, children grasp that a phonetic change to a word can change its identity ("phonological distinctiveness"). However, they must also grasp that some phonetic changes do "not" ("phonological constancy"). To test development of phonological constancy, sixteen 15-month-olds and sixteen 19-month-olds completed…

THE BACON not the bacon: How children and adults understand accented and unaccented noun phrases

PubMed Central

Arnold, Jennifer E.

2008-01-01

Two eye-tracking experiments examine whether adults and 4 and 5 year old children use the presence or absence of accenting to guide their interpretation of noun phrases (e.g., the bacon) with respect to the discourse context. Unaccented nouns tend to refer to contextually accessible referents, while accented variants tend to be used for less accessible entities. Experiment 1 confirms that accenting is informative for adults, who show a bias toward previously-mentioned objects beginning 300 msec after the onset of unaccented nouns and pronouns. But contrary to findings in the literature, accented words produced no observable bias. In Experiment 2, 4 and 5 year olds were also biased toward previously-mentioned objects with unaccented nouns and pronouns. This builds on findings of limits on children’s on-line reference comprehension (Arnold, Brown-Schmidt, & Trueswell, in press), showing that children’s interpretation of unaccented nouns and pronouns is constrained in contexts with one single highly accessible object. PMID:18358460

Factors affecting the perception of Korean-accented American English

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cho, Kwansun; Harris, John G.; Shrivastav, Rahul

2005-09-01

This experiment examines the relative contribution of two factors, intonation and articulation errors, on the perception of foreign accent in Korean-accented American English. Ten native speakers of Korean and ten native speakers of American English were asked to read ten English sentences. These sentences were then modified using high-quality speech resynthesis techniques [STRAIGHT Kawahara et al., Speech Commun. 27, 187-207 (1999)] to generate four sets of stimuli. In the first two sets of stimuli, the intonation patterns of the Korean speakers and American speakers were switched with one another. The articulatory errors for each speaker were not modified. In the final two sets, the sentences from the Korean and American speakers were resynthesized without any modifications. Fifteen listeners were asked to rate all the stimuli for the degree of foreign accent. Preliminary results show that, for native speakers of American English, articulation errors may play a greater role in the perception of foreign accent than errors in intonation patterns. [Work supported by KAIM.

The Influence of Information Structure on the Depth of Semantic Processing: How Focus and Pitch Accent Determine the Size of the N400 Effect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Lin; Bastiaansen, Marcel; Yang, Yufang; Hagoort, Peter

2011-01-01

To highlight relevant information in dialogues, both wh-question context and pitch accent in answers can be used, such that focused information gains more attention and is processed more elaborately. To evaluate the relative influence of context and pitch accent on the depth of semantic processing, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to…

How native-like can you possibly get: fMRI evidence for processing accent

PubMed Central

Ghazi-Saidi, Ladan; Dash, Tanya; Ansaldo, Ana I.

2015-01-01

Introduction: If ever attained, adopting native-like accent is achieved late in the learning process. Resemblance between L2 and mother tongue can facilitate L2 learning. In particular, cognates (phonologically and semantically similar words across languages), offer the opportunity to examine the issue of foreign accent in quite a unique manner. Methods: Twelve Spanish speaking (L1) adults learnt French (L2) cognates and practiced their native-like pronunciation by means of a computerized method. After consolidation, they were tested on L1 and L2 oral picture- naming during fMRI scanning. Results and Discussion: The results of the present study show that there is a specific impact of accent on brain activation, even if L2 words are cognates, and belong to a pair of closely related languages. Results point that the insula is a key component of accent processing, which is in line with reports from patients with foreign accent syndrome following damage to the insula (e.g., Katz et al., 2012; Moreno-Torres et al., 2013; Tomasino et al., 2013), and healthy L2 learners (Chee et al., 2004). Thus, the left insula has been consistently related to the integration of attentional and working memory abilities, together with fine-tuning of motor programming to achieve optimal articulation. PMID:26578931

Speaker-independent factors affecting the perception of foreign accent in a second languagea)

PubMed Central

Levi, Susannah V.; Winters, Stephen J.; Pisoni, David B.

2012-01-01

Previous research on foreign accent perception has largely focused on speaker-dependent factors such as age of learning and length of residence. Factors that are independent of a speaker’s language learning history have also been shown to affect perception of second language speech. The present study examined the effects of two such factors—listening context and lexical frequency—on the perception of foreign-accented speech. Listeners rated foreign accent in two listening contexts: auditory-only, where listeners only heard the target stimuli, and auditory+orthography, where listeners were presented with both an auditory signal and an orthographic display of the target word. Results revealed that higher frequency words were consistently rated as less accented than lower frequency words. The effect of the listening context emerged in two interactions: the auditory +orthography context reduced the effects of lexical frequency, but increased the perceived differences between native and non-native speakers. Acoustic measurements revealed some production differences for words of different levels of lexical frequency, though these differences could not account for all of the observed interactions from the perceptual experiment. These results suggest that factors independent of the speakers’ actual speech articulations can influence the perception of degree of foreign accent. PMID:17471745

The influence of speech rate and accent on access and use of semantic information.

PubMed

Sajin, Stanislav M; Connine, Cynthia M

2017-04-01

Circumstances in which the speech input is presented in sub-optimal conditions generally lead to processing costs affecting spoken word recognition. The current study indicates that some processing demands imposed by listening to difficult speech can be mitigated by feedback from semantic knowledge. A set of lexical decision experiments examined how foreign accented speech and word duration impact access to semantic knowledge in spoken word recognition. Results indicate that when listeners process accented speech, the reliance on semantic information increases. Speech rate was not observed to influence semantic access, except in the setting in which unusually slow accented speech was presented. These findings support interactive activation models of spoken word recognition in which attention is modulated based on speech demands.

Comprehensibility as a Factor in Listener Interaction Preferences: Implications for the Workplace

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derwing, Tracey M; Munro, Murray J.

2009-01-01

Changing economic realities in Canada are likely to result in increased employment opportunities for immigrant professionals. In Alberta, where these changes have already begun, issues of language in the workplace have surfaced, some relating to oral skills. In this investigation of Canadian-born employees' preferences for 40 L2 accented voices,…

The Rising Tide of Estuary English: The Changing Nature of Oral British Business Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, James Calvert

1995-01-01

Defines "Estuary English," a fast-growing accent of British English that is spreading across England. Discusses its usage in the British business community; its acceptability and future; and its implications for business communicators, teachers, and consultants. (SR)

The Impact of Foreign Accent on Credibility: An Analysis of Cognitive Statement Ratings in a Swiss Context.

PubMed

Stocker, Ladina

2017-06-01

The present paper reports on a study investigating whether the presence of a foreign accent negatively affects credibility judgments. Previous research suggests that trivia statements recorded by speakers with a foreign accent are judged as less credible than when recorded by native speakers due to increased cognitive demands (Lev-Ari and Keysar in J Exp Soc Psychol 46(6):1093-1096, 2010. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.05.025 ). In the present study, 194 French- and 183 Swiss-German-speaking participants were asked to judge the truthfulness of 48 trivia statements recorded by speakers with French, Swiss-German, Italian and English accents by means of an online survey. Before submitting the survey, raters were asked to attribute given labels-including adjectives referring to credibility-to a language group aiming to elicit raters' stereotypes in a direct manner. Although the results of this task indicate that the raters do hold different stereotypes concerning credibility of speech communities, foreign accent does not seem to have an impact on credibility ratings in the Swiss context.

Shhh… I Need Quiet! Children's Understanding of American, British, and Japanese-accented English Speakers.

PubMed

Bent, Tessa; Holt, Rachael Frush

2018-02-01

Children's ability to understand speakers with a wide range of dialects and accents is essential for efficient language development and communication in a global society. Here, the impact of regional dialect and foreign-accent variability on children's speech understanding was evaluated in both quiet and noisy conditions. Five- to seven-year-old children ( n = 90) and adults ( n = 96) repeated sentences produced by three speakers with different accents-American English, British English, and Japanese-accented English-in quiet or noisy conditions. Adults had no difficulty understanding any speaker in quiet conditions. Their performance declined for the nonnative speaker with a moderate amount of noise; their performance only substantially declined for the British English speaker (i.e., below 93% correct) when their understanding of the American English speaker was also impeded. In contrast, although children showed accurate word recognition for the American and British English speakers in quiet conditions, they had difficulty understanding the nonnative speaker even under ideal listening conditions. With a moderate amount of noise, their perception of British English speech declined substantially and their ability to understand the nonnative speaker was particularly poor. These results suggest that although school-aged children can understand unfamiliar native dialects under ideal listening conditions, their ability to recognize words in these dialects may be highly susceptible to the influence of environmental degradation. Fully adult-like word identification for speakers with unfamiliar accents and dialects may exhibit a protracted developmental trajectory.

Auditory-Motor Rhythms and Speech Processing in French and German Listeners

PubMed Central

Falk, Simone; Volpi-Moncorger, Chloé; Dalla Bella, Simone

2017-01-01

Moving to a speech rhythm can enhance verbal processing in the listener by increasing temporal expectancies (Falk and Dalla Bella, 2016). Here we tested whether this hypothesis holds for prosodically diverse languages such as German (a lexical stress-language) and French (a non-stress language). Moreover, we examined the relation between motor performance and the benefits for verbal processing as a function of language. Sixty-four participants, 32 German and 32 French native speakers detected subtle word changes in accented positions in metrically structured sentences to which they previously tapped with their index finger. Before each sentence, they were cued by a metronome to tap either congruently (i.e., to accented syllables) or incongruently (i.e., to non-accented parts) to the following speech stimulus. Both French and German speakers detected words better when cued to tap congruently compared to incongruent tapping. Detection performance was predicted by participants' motor performance in the non-verbal cueing phase. Moreover, tapping rate while participants tapped to speech predicted detection differently for the two language groups, in particular in the incongruent tapping condition. We discuss our findings in light of the rhythmic differences of both languages and with respect to recent theories of expectancy-driven and multisensory speech processing. PMID:28443036

Effects of Kindermusik training on infants' rhythmic enculturation.

PubMed

Gerry, David W; Faux, Ashley L; Trainor, Laurel J

2010-05-01

Phillips-Silver and Trainor (2005) demonstrated a link between movement and the metrical interpretation of rhythm patterns in 7-month-old infants. Infants bounced on every second beat of a rhythmic pattern with no auditory accents later preferred to listen to an accented version of the pattern with accents every second beat (duple or march meter), whereas infants bounced on every third beat of the same rhythmic pattern preferred to listen to a version with accents every third beat (triple or waltz meter). The present study compared infants participating in Kindermusik classes with infants not participating in music classes. In Kindermusik classes infants receive enriched experience moving to music. Following Western musical norms, the majority of the music samples in the classes are in duple meter. During the preference test, Kindermusik infants listened longer overall, indicating heightened interest in musical rhythms. Both groups listened longer to the accented version that matched how they had been bounced, but only the Kindermusik group showed a stronger preference in the case of duple bouncing than in the case of triple bouncing. We conclude that musical classes for infants can accelerate the development of culture-specific metrical perception.

Don't Underestimate the Benefits of Being Misunderstood.

PubMed

Gibson, Edward; Tan, Caitlin; Futrell, Richard; Mahowald, Kyle; Konieczny, Lars; Hemforth, Barbara; Fedorenko, Evelina

2017-06-01

Being a nonnative speaker of a language poses challenges. Individuals often feel embarrassed by the errors they make when talking in their second language. However, here we report an advantage of being a nonnative speaker: Native speakers give foreign-accented speakers the benefit of the doubt when interpreting their utterances; as a result, apparently implausible utterances are more likely to be interpreted in a plausible way when delivered in a foreign than in a native accent. Across three replicated experiments, we demonstrated that native English speakers are more likely to interpret implausible utterances, such as "the mother gave the candle the daughter," as similar plausible utterances ("the mother gave the candle to the daughter") when the speaker has a foreign accent. This result follows from the general model of language interpretation in a noisy channel, under the hypothesis that listeners assume a higher error rate in foreign-accented than in nonaccented speech.

Reduced efficiency of audiovisual integration for nonnative speech.

PubMed

Yi, Han-Gyol; Phelps, Jasmine E B; Smiljanic, Rajka; Chandrasekaran, Bharath

2013-11-01

The role of visual cues in native listeners' perception of speech produced by nonnative speakers has not been extensively studied. Native perception of English sentences produced by native English and Korean speakers in audio-only and audiovisual conditions was examined. Korean speakers were rated as more accented in audiovisual than in the audio-only condition. Visual cues enhanced word intelligibility for native English speech but less so for Korean-accented speech. Reduced intelligibility of Korean-accented audiovisual speech was associated with implicit visual biases, suggesting that listener-related factors partially influence the efficiency of audiovisual integration for nonnative speech perception.

Perception of intelligibility and qualities of non-native accented speakers.

PubMed

Fuse, Akiko; Navichkova, Yuliya; Alloggio, Krysteena

To provide effective treatment to clients, speech-language pathologists must be understood, and be perceived to demonstrate the personal qualities necessary for therapeutic practice (e.g., resourcefulness and empathy). One factor that could interfere with the listener's perception of non-native speech is the speaker's accent. The current study explored the relationship between how accurately listeners could understand non-native speech and their perceptions of personal attributes of the speaker. Additionally, this study investigated how listeners' familiarity and experience with other languages may influence their perceptions of non-native accented speech. Through an online survey, native monolingual and bilingual English listeners rated four non-native accents (i.e., Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Indian) on perceived intelligibility and perceived personal qualities (i.e., professionalism, intelligence, resourcefulness, empathy, and patience) necessary for speech-language pathologists. The results indicated significant relationships between the perception of intelligibility and the perception of personal qualities (i.e., professionalism, intelligence, and resourcefulness) attributed to non-native speakers. However, these findings were not supported for the Chinese accent. Bilingual listeners judged the non-native speech as more intelligible in comparison to monolingual listeners. No significant differences were found in the ratings between bilingual listeners who share the same language background as the speaker and other bilingual listeners. Based on the current findings, greater perception of intelligibility was the key to promoting a positive perception of personal qualities such as professionalism, intelligence, and resourcefulness, important for speech-language pathologists. The current study found evidence to support the claim that bilinguals have a greater ability in understanding non-native accented speech compared to monolingual listeners. The results, however, did not confirm an advantage for bilingual listeners sharing the same language backgrounds with the non-native speaker over other bilingual listeners. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring Listeners' Real-Time Reactions to Regional Accents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watson, Kevin; Clark, Lynn

2015-01-01

Evaluative reactions to language stimuli are presumably dynamic events, constantly changing through time as the signal unfolds, yet the tools we usually use to capture these reactions provide us with only a snapshot of this process by recording reactions at a single point in time. This paper outlines and evaluates a new methodology which employs…

Diphthong Changes in Style Shifting from Southern English to Standard American English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weil, Karen S.; Fitch, James L.; Wolfe, Virginia I.

2000-01-01

Specific diphthongs were produced by four individuals from the coastal southern dialect region who were selected from among those who had successfully completed an accent-reduction program. Results showed that diphthongs used in Southern English were shorter and had less noticeable transitional elements than those in Standard American English.…

Acoustic Correlates of Stress in Central Catalan and Castilian Spanish

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ortega-Llebaria, Marta; Prieto, Pilar

2011-01-01

The general literature on the phonetic correlates of stress agrees that duration, and in stress accent languages, are consistent correlates of stress. However, the role of amplitude changes in the speech signal is more controversial. In particular, the conflicting results of spectral tilt as a correlate of stress have been attributed to the…

The Prosodic Basis of the Tiberian Hebrew System of Accents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dresher, Bezalel Elan

1994-01-01

It is argued that the Tiberian system of accents that annotate the text of the Hebrew Bible has a prosodic basis. Tiberian representation can best be understood by integrating results of phonological, phonetic, and psycholinguistic research on prosodic structure. (93 references) (Author/LB)

And then I saw her race: Race-based expectations affect infants' word processing.

PubMed

Weatherhead, Drew; White, Katherine S

2018-08-01

How do our expectations about speakers shape speech perception? Adults' speech perception is influenced by social properties of the speaker (e.g., race). When in development do these influences begin? In the current study, 16-month-olds heard familiar words produced in their native accent (e.g., "dog") and in an unfamiliar accent involving a vowel shift (e.g., "dag"), in the context of an image of either a same-race speaker or an other-race speaker. Infants' interpretation of the words depended on the speaker's race. For the same-race speaker, infants only recognized words produced in the familiar accent; for the other-race speaker, infants recognized both versions of the words. Two additional experiments showed that infants only recognized an other-race speaker's atypical pronunciations when they differed systematically from the native accent. These results provide the first evidence that expectations driven by unspoken properties of speakers, such as race, influence infants' speech processing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Examining differences in nurses' language, accent, and comprehensibility in nursing home settings based on birth origin and country of education.

PubMed

Wagner, Laura M; Brush, Barbara L; Castle, Nicholas G; Eaton, Michelle; Capezuti, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

As nursing homes turn abroad to fill vacancies, the diverse linguistic backgrounds of nurse hires are creating new challenges in comprehensibility between nurses, providers, and residents. Accents are a natural part of spoken language that may present difficulty even when the parties involved are speaking the same language. We surveyed 1,629 nurses working in 98 nursing homes (NHs) in five U.S. states to determine if and how language difficulties were perceived by nurses and others (e.g. physicians, residents and family members). We found that when participants were asked how often other care team members and residents/families had difficulty understanding them due to language use or accent, foreign born nurses were significantly more likely to report that they experienced difficulty at least some of the time across all groups. This study supports an assessment of nurses' language, accents, and comprehensibility in these settings. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Attitudes towards Foreign Accents among Adult Multilingual Language Users

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dewaele, Jean-Marc; McCloskey, James

2015-01-01

The present study investigates inter-individual variation (linked to personality traits, multilingualism and sociobiographical variables) in the attitudes that 2035 multilinguals have of their own and others' foreign accent (FA). Data were collected through an online questionnaire. We found that multilinguals who were extraverted, emotionally…

A Market of Accents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blommaert, Jan

2009-01-01

This paper describes the cultural semantics of internet courses in American accent. Such courses are offered by corporate providers to specific groups of customers: people in search of success in the globalized business environment. The core of such courses is an order of indexicality which stresses uniformity and homogeneity, producing an…

Prosody as an interactional resource: turn-projection and overlap.

PubMed

Wells, B; Macfarlane, S

1998-01-01

One aim of current research into talk-in-interaction is to identify the resources that enable recipients to monitor the course of a turn in progress in order to project its upcoming completion. This issue is addressed through analysis of instances of overlapping talk, focusing on their design--that is, their particular prosodic and other linguistic characteristics; their placement--in other words, where precisely they occur in relation to the turn being overlapped; and the subsequent behavior of the coparticipants. Phonetic analysis is combined with interactional techniques developed within Conversation Analysis, to warrant the relevance of categories by reference to the behavior of the participants themselves. As French and Local (1983) found, for an incoming to be treated as turn-competitive, it has to be designed with relatively high pitch and loud volume. These turn-competitive incomings are positioned within the turn in progress, and before the final major accent. By contrast, overlapping incomings positioned after the major accent are not designed as or treated as turn-competitive. On the basis of this analysis, we can define transition relevance place (TRP) as the space between the TRP-projecting accent of the current turn and the onset of the next turn. TRP-projecting accents are identifiable on independent grounds, being phonetically distinct from non-TRP-projecting accents. They thus provide a robust resource for participants to monitor the upcoming completion of the turn.

Sound Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolfram, Walt

2013-01-01

Linguist Rosina Lippi-Green concludes in her book, "English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States," "Accent discrimination can be found everywhere in our daily lives. In fact, such behavior is so commonly accepted, so widely perceived as appropriate, that it must be seen as the last back door to…

International Students' Accented English-Communication Difficulties and Developed Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Eunjae; Klieve, Helen; Tsurutani, Chiharu; Harte, Wendy

2017-01-01

The purpose of the present investigation is to explore the communication challenges caused by accented English along with strategies of international students in the Australian context. A quantitative approach was employed in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the linguistic experience of the students. Participants comprised 182…

Neural Correlates of Infant Accent Discrimination: An fNIRS Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cristia, Alejandrina; Minagawa-Kawai, Yasuyo; Egorova, Natalia; Gervain, Judit; Filippin, Luca; Cabrol, Dominique; Dupoux, Emmanuel

2014-01-01

The present study investigated the neural correlates of infant discrimination of very similar linguistic varieties (Quebecois and Parisian French) using functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy. In line with previous behavioral and electrophysiological data, there was no evidence that 3-month-olds discriminated the two regional accents, whereas…

Foreign Accents Revisited: The English Pronunciation of Russian Immigrants.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Irene

1991-01-01

This study investigated factors associated with the acquisition of second-language pronunciation and methodological problems associated with the study of foreign accents. Thirty-six native speakers of Russian fluent in English read specifically constructed English sentences and a prose passage, and talked spontaneously about their daily routine.…

Native and Nonnative Processing of Japanese Pitch Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Xianghua; Tu, Jung-Yueh; Wang, Yue

2012-01-01

The theoretical framework of this study is based on the prevalent debate of whether prosodic processing is influenced by higher level linguistic-specific circuits or reflects lower level encoding of physical properties. Using the dichotic listening technique, the study investigates the hemispheric processing of Japanese pitch accent by native…

Accent, Identity, and a Fear of Loss? ESL Students' Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCrocklin, Shannon; Link, Stephanie

2016-01-01

Because many theorists propose a connection between accent and identity, some theorists have justifiably been concerned about the ethical ramifications of L2 pronunciation teaching. However, English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students often state a desire to sound like native speakers. With little research into ESL students' perceptions of links…

Identifying a Foreign Accent in an Unfamiliar Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Major, Roy C.

2007-01-01

This study explores the question of whether native and nonnative listeners, some familiar with the language and some not, differ in their accent ratings of native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs). Although a few studies have employed native and nonnative judges to evaluate native and nonnative speech, the present study is perhaps the…

An Exploratory Study of Undergraduate College Students' Perceptions and Attitudes toward Foreign Accented Faculty

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kavas, Aysel; Kavas, Alican

2008-01-01

The findings of an exploratory survey related to students' perceptions of factors, including accent and pronunciation, influencing their learning were presented. Data were collected from students through a self-administered questionnaire at one Southeastern University. A big majority (82.4%) of the respondents indicated that instructors'…

The Foundations of Accent and Intelligibility in Pronunciation Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Munro, Murray J.; Derwing, Tracey M.

2011-01-01

Our goal in developing this timeline was to trace the empirical bases of current approaches to L2 pronunciation teaching, with particular attention to the concepts of "accent" and "intelligibility". The process of identifying suitable works for inclusion challenged us in several ways. First, the number of empirical studies of pronunciation…

Asian Varieties of English: Attitudes towards Pronunciation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tokumoto, Mina; Shibata, Miki

2011-01-01

According to previous studies, Japanese EFL learners who wish to acquire American or British English pronunciation are reluctant to speak their L1-accented English. In view of this tendency, the present study examined the attitudes of Asian learners toward their L1-accented English. University students from Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia…

Perceptual Judgments of Accented Speech by Listeners from Different First Language Backgrounds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kang, Okim; Vo, Son Ca Thanh; Moran, Meghan Kerry

2016-01-01

Research in second language speech has often focused on listeners' accent judgment and factors that affect their perception. However, the topic of listeners' application of specific sound categories in their own perceptual judgments has not been widely investigated. The current study explored how listeners from diverse language backgrounds weighed…

The Developmental Trajectory of Toddlers' Comprehension of Unfamiliar Regional Accents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Heugten, Marieke; Krieger, Dena R.; Johnson, Elizabeth K.

2015-01-01

Efficient language use involves the capacity to flexibly adjust to varied pronunciations of words. Although children can contend with some accent variability before their second birthday, it is currently unclear when and how this ability reaches its mature state. In a series of five experiments, we examine the developmental trajectory of toddlers'…

Accent, Intelligibility, and the Role of the Listener: Perceptions of English-Accented German by Native German Speakers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayes-Harb, Rachel; Watzinger-Tharp, Johanna

2012-01-01

We explore the relationship between accentedness and intelligibility, and investigate how listeners' beliefs about nonnative speech interact with their accentedness and intelligibility judgments. Native German speakers and native English learners of German produced German sentences, which were presented to 12 native German speakers in accentedness…

Prosodic Transfer: From Chinese Lexical Tone to English Pitch Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ploquin, Marie

2013-01-01

Chinese tones are associated with a syllable to convey meaning, English pitch accents are prominence markers associated with stressed syllables. As both are created by pitch modulation, their pitch contours can be quite similar. The experiment reported here examines whether native speakers of Chinese produce, when speaking English, the Chinese…

The Influence of Semantic Context on the Perception of Spanish-Accented American English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Behrman, Alison; Akhund, Ali

2013-01-01

Purpose: In this article, the authors examine (a) the effect of semantic context on accentedness, comprehensibility, and intelligibility of Spanish-accented American English (AE) as judged by monolingual AE listeners and (b) the interaction of semantic context and accentedness on comprehensibility and intelligibility. Method: Twenty adult native…

Morphological Make-up as the Predictor of English Word Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salmani-Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali

2009-01-01

For years, phoneticians have tried to simplify pronunciation for EFL/ESL learners. Some have identified four degrees of primary, secondary, tertiary, and weak stress, and others only three degrees: primary, secondary, and weak. Still others have concentrated on two stress levels: accented versus unaccented, or stressed versus unstressed (Bowen,…

Instructor Accents in Online Education and Their Effect on Learning and Attitudes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sanchez, C. A.; Khan, S.

2016-01-01

Reductions in perceptual fluency have been shown to negatively impact attitudes towards learning material, but not learning itself. The current study extends this work to spoken presentations and examines whether the presence of a foreign accent negatively affects learners' experience in an online learning environment. Results indicate that the…

Predicting English Word Accent on Morphological Grounds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salmani Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali

2007-01-01

Learners of English as a foreign/Second Language (EFL/ESL) can easily learn the correct pronunciation of English words, some linguists have tried to simplify English phonology in general, and English accent in particular, over the past 50 years or so; some scholars have talked about four degrees of primary, secondary, tertiary and weak stress…

The Effect of Vocal Training Methods on Improving Turkish Accent Defects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aycan, Kivanc; Evren, Gul Fahriye

2016-01-01

Problem Statement: Despite analyses of how vocal training methods can correct or improve Turkish-language accent defects, for most voice educators, the most important methods continue to be breathe management control and correct vocalization exercises. We therefore sought to demonstrate the relationship of song lyrics to breathe control, accent…

The impact of phonetic dissimilarity on the perception of foreign accented speech

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weil, Shawn A.

2003-10-01

Non-normative speech (i.e., synthetic speech, pathological speech, foreign accented speech) is more difficult to process for native listeners than is normative speech. Does perceptual dissimilarity affect only intelligibility, or are there other costs to processing? The current series of experiments investigates both the intelligibility and time course of foreign accented speech (FAS) perception. Native English listeners heard single English words spoken by both native English speakers and non-native speakers (Mandarin or Russian). Words were chosen based on the similarity between the phonetic inventories of the respective languages. Three experimental designs were used: a cross-modal matching task, a word repetition (shadowing) task, and two subjective ratings tasks which measured impressions of accentedness and effortfulness. The results replicate previous investigations that have found that FAS significantly lowers word intelligibility. Furthermore, in FAS as well as perceptual effort, in the word repetition task, correct responses are slower to accented words than to nonaccented words. An analysis indicates that both intelligibility and reaction time are, in part, functions of the similarity between the talker's utterance and the listener's representation of the word.

Visual Enhancement of Illusory Phenomenal Accents in Non-Isochronous Auditory Rhythms

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Musical rhythms encompass temporal patterns that often yield regular metrical accents (e.g., a beat). There have been mixed results regarding perception as a function of metrical saliency, namely, whether sensitivity to a deviant was greater in metrically stronger or weaker positions. Besides, effects of metrical position have not been examined in non-isochronous rhythms, or with respect to multisensory influences. This study was concerned with two main issues: (1) In non-isochronous auditory rhythms with clear metrical accents, how would sensitivity to a deviant be modulated by metrical positions? (2) Would the effects be enhanced by multisensory information? Participants listened to strongly metrical rhythms with or without watching a point-light figure dance to the rhythm in the same meter, and detected a slight loudness increment. Both conditions were presented with or without an auditory interference that served to impair auditory metrical perception. Sensitivity to a deviant was found greater in weak beat than in strong beat positions, consistent with the Predictive Coding hypothesis and the idea of metrically induced illusory phenomenal accents. The visual rhythm of dance hindered auditory detection, but more so when the latter was itself less impaired. This pattern suggested that the visual and auditory rhythms were perceptually integrated to reinforce metrical accentuation, yielding more illusory phenomenal accents and thus lower sensitivity to deviants, in a manner consistent with the principle of inverse effectiveness. Results were discussed in the predictive framework for multisensory rhythms involving observed movements and possible mediation of the motor system. PMID:27880850

When product designers use perceptually based color tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bender, Walter R.

1998-07-01

Palette synthesis and analysis tools have been built based upon a model of color experience. This model adjusts formal compositional elements such as hue, value, chroma, and their contrasts, as well as size and proportion. Clothing and household product designers were given these tools to give guidance to their selection of seasonal palettes for use in production of the private-label merchandise of a large retail chain. The designers chose base palettes. Accents to these palettes were generated with and without the aid of the color tools. These palettes are compared by using perceptual metrics and interviews. The results are presented.

When product designers use perceptually based color tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bender, Walter R.

2001-01-01

Palette synthesis and analysis tools have been built based upon a model of color experience. This model adjusts formal compositional elements such as hue, value, chroma, and their contrasts, as well as size and proportion. Clothing and household product designers were given these tools to guide their selection of seasonal palettes in the production of the private-label merchandise in a large retail chain. The designers chose base palettes. Accents to these palettes were generated with and without the aid of the color tools. These palettes are compared by using perceptual metrics and interviews. The results are presented.

Equipping K-4 Children to Speak Any Foreign Language with an Authentic Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zuckermann, Ghil'ad; Benmark, Gadi

2010-01-01

In today's rapidly changing globalizing world, it is hard to predict which of many languages a child can learn today will be most useful to them twenty and thirty years from now, when they enter a global work place, interact socially with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, and may face relocation opportunities to foreign countries. Some…

What's Age Got to Do with It? Accounting for Individual Factors in Second Language Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moyer, Alene

2014-01-01

Empirical research conducted over the past few decades suggests that the age at which an individual is first exposed to a second language affects long-term outcomes, in particular for phonology. The question that has occupied scholars of various bents is what, exactly, underlies the robust age effects observed. Does age imply immutable changes in…

The Presentation of EIL in Kuwait: Students' Expectations and Needs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taqi, Hanan A.; Akbar, Rahima S.

2015-01-01

The teaching of native-like accents has been the aim of many EFL educationists long ago; however, this concept is heading towards a major change. Hence, the idea of this paper is based on Jenkins' (2000 & 2002) theory of English as an International Language (EIL). Jenkins' theory analyses the use of English by non-natives speakers (NNS) where…

Examining controls on peak annual streamflow and floods in the Fraser River Basin of British Columbia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Curry, Charles L.; Zwiers, Francis W.

2018-04-01

The Fraser River Basin (FRB) of British Columbia is one of the largest and most important watersheds in western North America, and home to a rich diversity of biological species and economic assets that depend implicitly upon its extensive riverine habitats. The hydrology of the FRB is dominated by snow accumulation and melt processes, leading to a prominent annual peak streamflow invariably occurring in May-July. Nevertheless, while annual peak daily streamflow (APF) during the spring freshet in the FRB is historically well correlated with basin-averaged, 1 April snow water equivalent (SWE), there are numerous occurrences of anomalously large APF in below- or near-normal SWE years, some of which have resulted in damaging floods in the region. An imperfect understanding of which other climatic factors contribute to these anomalously large APFs hinders robust projections of their magnitude and frequency. We employ the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) process-based hydrological model driven by gridded observations to investigate the key controlling factors of anomalous APF events in the FRB and four of its subbasins that contribute nearly 70 % of the annual flow at Fraser-Hope. The relative influence of a set of predictors characterizing the interannual variability of rainfall, snowfall, snowpack (characterized by the annual maximum value, SWEmax), soil moisture and temperature on simulated APF at Hope (the main outlet of the FRB) and at the subbasin outlets is examined within a regression framework. The influence of large-scale climate modes of variability (the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation - ENSO) on APF magnitude is also assessed, and placed in context with these more localized controls. The results indicate that next to SWEmax (univariate Spearman correlation with APF of ρ ^ = 0.64; 0.70 (observations; VIC simulation)), the snowmelt rate (ρ ^ = 0.43 in VIC), the ENSO and PDO indices (ρ ^ = -0.40; -0.41) and (ρ ^ = -0.35; -0.38), respectively, and rate of warming subsequent to the date of SWEmax (ρ ^ = 0.26; 0.38), are the most influential predictors of APF magnitude in the FRB and its subbasins. The identification of these controls on annual peak flows in the region may be of use in understanding seasonal predictions or future projected streamflow changes.

Learning to Comprehend Foreign-Accented Speech by Means of Production and Listening Training

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grohe, Ann-Kathrin; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

The effects of production and listening training on the subsequent comprehension of foreign-accented speech were investigated in a training-test paradigm. During training, German nonnative (L2) and English native (L1) participants listened to a story spoken by a German speaker who replaced all English /?/s with /t/ (e.g., *"teft" for…

Prosodic Marking of Information Structure by Malaysian Speakers of English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gut, Ulrike; Pillai, Stefanie

2014-01-01

Various researchers have shown that second language (L2) speakers have difficulties with marking information structure in English prosodically: They deviate from native speakers not only in terms of pitch accent placement (Grosser, 1997; Gut, 2009; Ramírez Verdugo, 2002) and the type of pitch accent they produce (Wennerstrom, 1994, 1998) but also…

Beliefs regarding the Impact of Accent within Speech-Language Pathology Practice Areas

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levy, Erika S.; Crowley, Catherine J.

2012-01-01

With the demographic shifts in the United States, it is increasingly the case that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) come from different language backgrounds from those of their clients and have nonnative accents in their languages of service. An anonymous web-based survey was completed by students and clinic directors in SLP training programs…

Effects of Noise and Proficiency on Intelligibility of Chinese-Accented English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogers, Catherine L.; Dalby, Jonathan; Nishi, Kanae

2004-01-01

This study compared the intelligibility of native and foreign-accented English speech presented in quiet and mixed with three different levels of background noise. Two native American English speakers and four native Mandarin Chinese speakers for whom English is a second language each read a list of 50 phonetically balanced sentences (Egan, 1948).…

Erratum: Erratum to: "A higher-spin Chern-Simons theory of anyons"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boulanger, N.; Sundell, P.; Valenzuela, M.

2017-09-01

In the published version there is an error in the affiliation (the word "Andre's" with accent) of the author Per Sundell. The present form in this erratum is the correct (should be the word "Andres" without accent). The affiliation under the symbol " b" should read: Departamento de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile

Accent Priority in a Thai University Context: A Common Sense Revisited

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jindapitak, Naratip; Teo, Adisa

2013-01-01

In Thailand, there has been much debate regarding what accents should be prioritized and adopted as models for learning and use in the context of English language education. However, it is not a debate in which the voices of English learners have sufficiently been heard. Several world Englishes scholars have maintained that being a denationalized…

Age Matters, and so May Raters: Rater Differences in the Assessment of Foreign Accents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Becky H.; Jun, Sun-Ah

2015-01-01

Research on the age of learning effect on second language learners' foreign accents utilizes human judgments to determine speech production outcomes. Inferences drawn from analyses of these ratings are then used to inform theories. The present study focuses on rater differences in the age of learning effect research. Three groups of raters who…

Can You Understand Me? Speaking Robots and Accented Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moussalli, Souheila; Cardoso, Walcir

2017-01-01

The results of our previous research on the pedagogical use of Speaking Robots (SRs) revealed positive effects on motivating students to practice their oral skills in a stress-free environment. However, our findings indicated that the SR was sometimes unable to understand students' foreign accented speech. In this paper, we report the results of a…

Using Bona Adaptation to Improve Accent Defects as a Voice Training Method

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aycan, Kivanc

2017-01-01

Purpose: In this research, it is observed that if solfeggio syllables, consonants, and vowels are spoken properly, voice intensity (accent), duration, pitch (high pitch-low pitch) and intonation (the ability to carry a musical voice) related to proper pitch level. In this study, it is observed that rhythmic structures do not form without…

Predicting English Word Accent on Morphological Grounds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salmani-Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali

2007-01-01

Learners of English as a foreign/Second Language (EFL/ESL) can easily learn the correct pronunciation of English words. Linguists have tried to simplify English phonology in general, and English accent in particular, over the past 50 years or so; some scholars have talked about four degrees of primary, secondary, tertiary and weak stress (e.g.,…

Foreign Accent Syndrome: An Organic Disorder?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Borsel, John; Janssens, Leen; Santens, Patrick

2005-01-01

This paper reports the case of a 32-year-old Dutch speaking woman who presented with foreign accent syndrome (FAS). There are good reasons to believe that the speech disturbance in this patient was of psychogenic origin. This case suggests that attested brain damage is not a prerequisite for a speech disorder to qualify as FAS and that FAS is not…

Listening to Accented Speech in a Second Language: First Language and Age of Acquisition Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larraza, Saioa; Samuel, Arthur G.; Oñederra, Miren Lourdes

2016-01-01

Bilingual speakers must acquire the phonemic inventory of 2 languages and need to recognize spoken words cross-linguistically; a demanding job potentially made even more difficult due to dialectal variation, an intrinsic property of speech. The present work examines how bilinguals perceive second language (L2) accented speech and where…

How to Speak Standard American English without a Foreign Accent. Russian Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Catran, Jack

The transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Russian immigrants in erasure of their foreign accent can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

A Cross-Linguistic Investigation of the Effect of Raters' Accent Familiarity on Speaking Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Becky; Alegre, Analucia; Eisenberg, Ann

2016-01-01

The project aimed to examine the effect of raters' familiarity with accents on their judgments of non-native speech. Participants included three groups of raters who were either from Spanish Heritage, Spanish Non-Heritage, or Chinese Heritage backgrounds (n = 16 in each group) using Winke & Gass's (2013) definition of a heritage learner as…

Do Language Attitudes Determine Accent? A Study of Bilinguals in the USA

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moyer, Alene

2007-01-01

This study presents new data on the degree of "foreign" accent among immigrant learners of English in the USA (total N = 50) as it correlates to learner orientation to the target language and target language culture. Correlation analyses confirm the significance of age of onset and length of immersion, as well as learner attitudes, including: (a)…

Policies and Practices regarding Students with Accents in Speech-Language Pathology Training Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levy, Erika S.; Crowley, Catherine J.

2012-01-01

Speech-language pathology (SLP) training programs are the initial gateway for nonnative speakers of English to join the SLP profession. An anonymous web-based survey in New York State examined policies and practices implemented when SLP students have foreign accents in English or in other languages. Responses were elicited from 530 students and 28…

The Availability of Vocal Training for Improvement of Accent and Articulation Defects in Speech Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aycan, Kivanc; Cimen, Gul; Yerer, M. Betul

2012-01-01

This study is designed to test the use of vocal training for articulation and accent defects which might be an important trouble while Turkish speaking. For this reason vocal training has been performed on a group of students selected randomly form the Erciyes University Turkish teaching profession 3rd class and the difference before and after…

On-Line Smiles: Does Gender Make a Difference in the Use of Graphic Accents?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Witmer, Diane; Katzman, Sandra

1997-01-01

Examines whether it is possible to determine the gender of a message sender from cues in the message. Finds partial support for the hypothesis that women use more graphic accents than men do in their computer-mediated communication. Finds also that women tend to challenge and "flame" more than men. Discusses implications and poses…

To What Extent Does a Regional Dialect and Accent Impact on the Development of Reading and Writing Skills?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snell, Julia; Andrews, Richard

2017-01-01

The issue of whether a regional accent and/or dialect impact(s) on the development of literacy skills remains current in the UK. For decades the issue has dogged debate concerning education outcomes, portable skills and employability. This article summarises research on the topic using systematic review methodology. A scoping review was undertaken…

The Processing of the Right-Sided Accent Mark in Left Neglect Dyslexia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cubelli, Roberto; Beschin, Nicoletta

2005-01-01

Italian polysyllabic words with stress falling on the last syllable are written with a diacritic sign on the last vowel. It allows discrimination between two words with the same orthographic segments (e.g., papa [pope], papa [dad]). The effect of the accent mark in left neglect dyslexia has never been investigated. In the current study, six…

The Teaching and Learning of Spelling in the Spanish Heritage Language Classroom: Mastering Written Accent Marks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beaudrie, Sara M.

2017-01-01

Spanish spelling, especially the use of written accent marks, is a major stumbling block for Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners (Carreira 2002). In fact, Mikulski (2006) found that most SHL learners ranked bettering their spelling and grammar as a very important learning goal. Despite its importance in literacy development and its perceived…

The Relevance of Accent in L2 Pronunciation Instruction: A Matter of Teaching Cultures or Language Ideologies?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Falkert, Anika

2016-01-01

The aim of this paper is to offer a critical discussion of the role of native and foreign accents in L2 pronunciation teaching. Several studies concluded that classroom practices of grammar instruction are strongly influenced by teaching cultures. We will examine whether this is also the case for pronunciation teaching. While the CEFR…

The Sound of German: Descriptions of Accent by Native and Non-Native Listeners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilkerson, Miranda E.

2013-01-01

This paper presents a study of factors affecting judgments of native and non-native accent in German. The data suggest that listener status (native or non-native speakers) and degree of experience with German play a role in the aspects of speech which raters cite as salient. Interestingly, the same descriptive terms used by raters were shown to…

Speech Analysis and Visual Image: Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loo, Alfred; Chung, C. W.; Lam, Alan

2016-01-01

Students will speak a second language with an accent if they learn the language after the age of six. It does not matter how motivated and clever they are, the accent will not go away. Only a few gifted students can speak a second language flawlessly. The exact reasons for this phenomenon are unknown. Although a large number of hypotheses have…

Building up Thai EFL Students' Positive Attitudes toward Their Non-Native English Accented Speech with the Use of Phonetics Website

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tananuraksakul, Noparat

2017-01-01

This paper examined the hypothesis that Thai EFL students' positive attitudes toward their non-native English accented speech could be promoted by the use of University of Iowa's "Sounds of American English" website, known as the "number 1 phonetics website". Fifty-two undergraduate students in the field of sciences…

Effects of Strength of Accent on an L2 Interactive Lecture Listening Comprehension Test

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ockey, Gary J.; Papageorgiou, Spiros; French, Robert

2016-01-01

This article reports on a study which aimed to determine the effect of strength of accent on listening comprehension of interactive lectures. Test takers (N = 21,726) listened to an interactive lecture given by one of nine speakers and responded to six comprehension items. The test taker responses were analyzed with the Rasch computer program…

The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for native speakers of Mandarin: Production and perception of English word-final voicing contrasts

PubMed Central

Hayes-Harb, Rachel; Smith, Bruce L.; Bent, Tessa; Bradlow, Ann R.

2009-01-01

This study investigated the intelligibility of native and Mandarin-accented English speech for native English and native Mandarin listeners. The word-final voicing contrast was considered (as in minimal pairs such as `cub' and `cup') in a forced-choice word identification task. For these particular talkers and listeners, there was evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (i.e., native Mandarin listeners were more accurate than native English listeners at identifying Mandarin-accented English words). However, there was no evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for talkers (i.e., native Mandarin listeners did not find Mandarin-accented English speech more intelligible than native English speech). When listener and talker phonological proficiency (operationalized as accentedness) was taken into account, it was found that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners held only for the low phonological proficiency listeners and low phonological proficiency speech. The intelligibility data were also considered in relation to various temporal-acoustic properties of native English and Mandarin-accented English speech in effort to better understand the properties of speech that may contribute to the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit. PMID:19606271

Acquisition of stress and pitch accent in English-Spanish bilingual children

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Sahyang; Andruski, Jean; Nathan, Geoffrey S.; Casielles, Eugenia; Work, Richard

2005-09-01

Although understanding of prosodic development is considered crucial for understanding of language acquisition in general, few studies have focused on how children develop native-like prosody in their speech production. This study will examine the acquisition of lexical stress and postlexical pitch accent in two English-Spanish bilingual children. Prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish are different in terms of frequent stress patterns (trochaic versus penultimate), phonetic realization of stress (reduced unstressed vowel versus full unstressed vowel), and frequent pitch accent types (H* versus L*+H), among others. Thus, English-Spanish bilingual children's prosodic development may provide evidence of their awareness of language differences relatively early during language development, and illustrate the influence of markedness or input frequency in prosodic acquisition. For this study, recordings from the children's one-word stage are used. Durations of stressed and unstressed syllables and F0 peak alignment are measured, and pitch accent types in different accentual positions (nuclear versus prenuclear) are transcribed using American English ToBI and Spanish ToBI. Prosodic development is compared across ages within each language and across languages at each age. Furthermore, the bilingual children's productions are compared with monolingual English and Spanish parents' productions.

Relative Salience of Speech Rhythm and Speech Rate on Perceived Foreign Accent in a Second Language.

PubMed

Polyanskaya, Leona; Ordin, Mikhail; Busa, Maria Grazia

2017-09-01

We investigated the independent contribution of speech rate and speech rhythm to perceived foreign accent. To address this issue we used a resynthesis technique that allows neutralizing segmental and tonal idiosyncrasies between identical sentences produced by French learners of English at different proficiency levels and maintaining the idiosyncrasies pertaining to prosodic timing patterns. We created stimuli that (1) preserved the idiosyncrasies in speech rhythm while controlling for the differences in speech rate between the utterances; (2) preserved the idiosyncrasies in speech rate while controlling for the differences in speech rhythm between the utterances; and (3) preserved the idiosyncrasies both in speech rate and speech rhythm. All the stimuli were created in intoned (with imposed intonational contour) and flat (with monotonized, constant F0) conditions. The original and the resynthesized sentences were rated by native speakers of English for degree of foreign accent. We found that both speech rate and speech rhythm influence the degree of perceived foreign accent, but the effect of speech rhythm is larger than that of speech rate. We also found that intonation enhances the perception of fine differences in rhythmic patterns but reduces the perceptual salience of fine differences in speech rate.

The role of beat gesture and pitch accent in semantic processing: an ERP study.

PubMed

Wang, Lin; Chu, Mingyuan

2013-11-01

The present study investigated whether and how beat gesture (small baton-like hand movements used to emphasize information in speech) influences semantic processing as well as its interaction with pitch accent during speech comprehension. Event-related potentials were recorded as participants watched videos of a person gesturing and speaking simultaneously. The critical words in the spoken sentences were accompanied by a beat gesture, a control hand movement, or no hand movement, and were expressed either with or without pitch accent. We found that both beat gesture and control hand movement induced smaller negativities in the N400 time window than when no hand movement was presented. The reduced N400s indicate that both beat gesture and control movement facilitated the semantic integration of the critical word into the sentence context. In addition, the words accompanied by beat gesture elicited smaller negativities in the N400 time window than those accompanied by control hand movement over right posterior electrodes, suggesting that beat gesture has a unique role for enhancing semantic processing during speech comprehension. Finally, no interaction was observed between beat gesture and pitch accent, indicating that they affect semantic processing independently. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mild Developmental Foreign Accent Syndrome and Psychiatric Comorbidity: Altered White Matter Integrity in Speech and Emotion Regulation Networks

PubMed Central

Berthier, Marcelo L.; Roé-Vellvé, Núria; Moreno-Torres, Ignacio; Falcon, Carles; Thurnhofer-Hemsi, Karl; Paredes-Pacheco, José; Torres-Prioris, María J.; De-Torres, Irene; Alfaro, Francisco; Gutiérrez-Cardo, Antonio L.; Baquero, Miquel; Ruiz-Cruces, Rafael; Dávila, Guadalupe

2016-01-01

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a speech disorder that is defined by the emergence of a peculiar manner of articulation and intonation which is perceived as foreign. In most cases of acquired FAS (AFAS) the new accent is secondary to small focal lesions involving components of the bilaterally distributed neural network for speech production. In the past few years FAS has also been described in different psychiatric conditions (conversion disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia) as well as in developmental disorders (specific language impairment, apraxia of speech). In the present study, two adult males, one with atypical phonetic production and the other one with cluttering, reported having developmental FAS (DFAS) since their adolescence. Perceptual analysis by naïve judges could not confirm the presence of foreign accent, possibly due to the mildness of the speech disorder. However, detailed linguistic analysis provided evidence of prosodic and segmental errors previously reported in AFAS cases. Cognitive testing showed reduced communication in activities of daily living and mild deficits related to psychiatric disorders. Psychiatric evaluation revealed long-lasting internalizing disorders (neuroticism, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, depression, alexithymia, hopelessness, and apathy) in both subjects. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data from each subject with DFAS were compared with data from a group of 21 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects. Diffusion parameters (MD, AD, and RD) in predefined regions of interest showed changes of white matter microstructure in regions previously related with AFAS and psychiatric disorders. In conclusion, the present findings militate against the possibility that these two subjects have FAS of psychogenic origin. Rather, our findings provide evidence that mild DFAS occurring in the context of subtle, yet persistent, developmental speech disorders may be associated with structural brain anomalies. We suggest that the simultaneous involvement of speech and emotion regulation networks might result from disrupted neural organization during development, or compensatory or maladaptive plasticity. Future studies are required to examine whether the interplay between biological trait-like diathesis (shyness, neuroticism) and the stressful experience of living with mild DFAS lead to the development of internalizing psychiatric disorders. PMID:27555813

Gender Differences in Motivation and L2 Accent Attainment: An Investigation of Young Kurdish Learners of Turkish

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polat, Nihat

2011-01-01

Although some earlier studies reported female and child superiority in learning a second language (L2), current research has been inconclusive as to whether, and why, this might be the case. Using a socio-cultural paradigm, this study addresses how motivation, gender and age relate to the attainment of a native-like accent for young Kurdish…

The Wildcat Corpus of Native- and Foreign-Accented English: Communicative Efficiency across Conversational Dyads with Varying Language Alignment Profiles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Engen, Kristin J.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Baker, Rachel E.; Choi, Arim; Kim, Midam; Bradlow, Ann R.

2010-01-01

This paper describes the development of the Wildcat Corpus of native- and foreign-accented English, a corpus containing scripted and spontaneous speech recordings from 24 native speakers of American English and 52 non-native speakers of English. The core element of this corpus is a set of spontaneous speech recordings, for which a new method of…

German Pitches in English: Production and Perception of Cross-Varietal Differences in L2

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ulbrich, Christiane

2013-01-01

The present study examines the effect of cross-varietal prosodic characteristics of two German varieties, Northern Standard German (NG) and Swiss German (SG), on the production and perception of foreign accent in L2 Belfast English. The analysis of production data revealed differences in the realisation of nuclear pitch accents in L1 German and L2…

In the Right Place at the Right Time: Asian English Accents in a Listening Test for Healthcare Professions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suebsook, Khwanchanok; Adunyarittigun, Dumrong

2016-01-01

The rise of medical tourism and the increasing number of international patients from Asian countries have led Thai healthcare professionals to serve a lot of Asian patients and to encounter a complexity of language use in their workplace. There is a necessity for these professionals to strive for an understanding of Asian accents spoken by the…

On Voice-Onset Time as a Cue to Foreign Accent in Spanish: Native and Nonnative Perceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schoonmaker-Gates, Elena

2015-01-01

Although previous research has documented the relationship between voice-onset time (VOT) and the production of foreign accent in English and Spanish, less is known about the role of this cue in perception. VOT refers to the aspiration that occurs between the release of a stop consonant and the beginning of the following segment. In Spanish and…

Can non-interactive language input benefit young second-language learners?

PubMed

Au, Terry Kit-Fong; Chan, Winnie Wailan; Cheng, Liao; Siegel, Linda S; Tso, Ricky Van Yip

2015-03-01

To fully acquire a language, especially its phonology, children need linguistic input from native speakers early on. When interaction with native speakers is not always possible - e.g. for children learning a second language that is not the societal language - audios are commonly used as an affordable substitute. But does such non-interactive input work? Two experiments evaluated the usefulness of audio storybooks in acquiring a more native-like second-language accent. Young children, first- and second-graders in Hong Kong whose native language was Cantonese Chinese, were given take-home listening assignments in a second language, either English or Putonghua Chinese. Accent ratings of the children's story reading revealed measurable benefits of non-interactive input from native speakers. The benefits were far more robust for Putonghua than English. Implications for second-language accent acquisition are discussed.

Current Sociopolitical, Sociocultural, and Sociolinguistic Issues of Latino Immigrants in Julia Álvarez's Novel "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Molina-Naar, José

2016-01-01

The sociopolitical, sociocultural, and sociolinguistic issues many Latino immigrants face as they embark on the process of adjusting to American society have been depicted by many Hispanic American writers in the United States. Julia Álvarez's "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" attempts to raise awareness of these issues through…

The Accented EFL Teacher: Classroom Implications (El acento del profesor de inglés como lengua extranjera: implicaciones pedagógicas)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arboleda Arboleda, Argemiro; Castro Garcés, Ángela Yicely

2012-01-01

This article reports the findings of a research study on how significant having a foreign accent is for non-native English as a foreign language teachers and learners at university level. It points out the perceptions that teachers and students have about the most relevant issues in the teaching and learning processes. Data were collected by means…

"I like the Americans...but I Certainly Don't Aim for an American Accent": Language Attitudes, Vitality and Foreign Language Learning in Denmark

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ladegaard, Hans J.; Sachdev, Itesh

2006-01-01

The power and status of America in the world today are undeniable. This paper presents some empirical data about the attitudes and perceptions Danish learners of EFL have about British and American English. Ninety-six EFL learners participated in a verbal-guise experiment that involved rating different accents of English: American, Australian,…

Acoustic and perceptual effects of overall F0 range in a lexical pitch accent distinction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wade, Travis

2002-05-01

A speaker's overall fundamental frequency range is generally considered a variable, nonlinguistic element of intonation. This study examined the precision with which overall F0 is predictable based on previous intonational context and the extent to which it may be perceptually significant. Speakers of Tokyo Japanese produced pairs of sentences differing lexically only in the presence or absence of a single pitch accent as responses to visual and prerecorded speech cues presented in an interactive manner. F0 placement of high tones (previously observed to be relatively variable in pitch contours) was found to be consistent across speakers and uniformly dependent on the intonation of the different sentences used as cues. In a subsequent perception experiment, continuous manipulation of these same sentences between typical accented and typical non-accent-containing versions were presented to Japanese listeners for lexical identification. Results showed that listeners' perception was not significantly altered in compensation for artificial manipulation of preceding intonation. Implications are discussed within an autosegmental analysis of tone. The current results are consistent with the notion that pitch range (i.e., specific vertical locations of tonal peaks) does not simply vary gradiently across speakers and situations but constitutes a predictable part of the phonetic specification of tones.

Listening with a foreign-accent: The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit in Mandarin speakers of English

PubMed Central

Xie, Xin; Fowler, Carol A.

2013-01-01

This study examined the intelligibility of native and Mandarin-accented English speech for native English and native Mandarin listeners. In the latter group, it also examined the role of the language environment and English proficiency. Three groups of listeners were tested: native English listeners (NE), Mandarin-speaking Chinese listeners in the US (M-US) and Mandarin listeners in Beijing, China (M-BJ). As a group, M-US and M-BJ listeners were matched on English proficiency and age of acquisition. A nonword transcription task was used. Identification accuracy for word-final stops in the nonwords established two independent interlanguage intelligibility effects. An interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (ISIB-L) was manifest by both groups of Mandarin listeners outperforming native English listeners in identification of Mandarin-accented speech. In the benefit for talkers (ISIB-T), only M-BJ listeners were more accurate identifying Mandarin-accented speech than native English speech. Thus, both Mandarin groups demonstrated an ISIB-L while only the M-BJ group overall demonstrated an ISIB-T. The English proficiency of listeners was found to modulate the magnitude of the ISIB-T in both groups. Regression analyses also suggested that the listener groups differ in their use of acoustic information to identify voicing in stop consonants. PMID:24293741

How clarinettists articulate: The effect of blowing pressure and tonguing on initial and final transients.

PubMed

Li, Weicong; Almeida, André; Smith, John; Wolfe, Joe

2016-02-01

Articulation, including initial and final note transients, is important to tasteful music performance. Clarinettists' tongue-reed contact, the time variation of the blowing pressure P¯mouth, the mouthpiece pressure, the pressure in the instrument bore, and the radiated sound were measured for normal articulation, accents, sforzando, staccato, and for minimal attack, i.e., notes started very softly. All attacks include a phase when the amplitude of the fundamental increases exponentially, with rates r ∼1000 dB s(-1) controlled by varying both the rate of increase in P¯mouth and the timing of tongue release during this increase. Accented and sforzando notes have shorter attacks (r∼1300 dB s(-1)) than normal notes. P¯mouth reaches a higher peak value for accented and sforzando notes, followed by a steady decrease for accented notes or a rapid fall to a lower, nearly steady value for sforzando notes. Staccato notes are usually terminated by tongue contact, producing an exponential decrease in sound pressure with rates similar to those calculated from the bandwidths of the bore resonances: ∼400 dB s(-1). In all other cases, notes are stopped by decreasing P¯mouth. Notes played with different dynamics are qualitatively similar, but louder notes have larger P¯mouth and larger r.

Talker and accent variability effects on spoken word recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nyang, Edna E.; Rogers, Catherine L.; Nishi, Kanae

2003-04-01

A number of studies have shown that words in a list are recognized less accurately in noise and with longer response latencies when they are spoken by multiple talkers, rather than a single talker. These results have been interpreted as support for an exemplar-based model of speech perception, in which it is assumed that detailed information regarding the speaker's voice is preserved in memory and used in recognition, rather than being eliminated via normalization. In the present study, the effects of varying both accent and talker are investigated using lists of words spoken by (a) a single native English speaker, (b) six native English speakers, (c) three native English speakers and three Japanese-accented English speakers. Twelve /hVd/ words were mixed with multi-speaker babble at three signal-to-noise ratios (+10, +5, and 0 dB) to create the word lists. Native English-speaking listeners' percent-correct recognition for words produced by native English speakers across the three talker conditions (single talker native, multi-talker native, and multi-talker mixed native and non-native) and three signal-to-noise ratios will be compared to determine whether sources of speaker variability other than voice alone add to the processing demands imposed by simple (i.e., single accent) speaker variability in spoken word recognition.

Acoustic and laryngographic measures of the laryngeal reflexes of linguistic prominence and vocal effort in German1

PubMed Central

Mooshammer, Christine

2010-01-01

This study uses acoustic and physiological measures to compare laryngeal reflexes of global changes in vocal effort to the effects of modulating such aspects of linguistic prominence as sentence accent, induced by focus variation, and word stress. Seven speakers were recorded by using a laryngograph. The laryngographic pulses were preprocessed to normalize time and amplitude. The laryngographic pulse shape was quantified using open and skewness quotients and also by applying a functional version of the principal component analysis. Acoustic measures included the acoustic open quotient and spectral balance in the vowel ∕e∕ during the test syllable. The open quotient and the laryngographic pulse shape indicated a significantly shorter open phase for loud speech than for soft speech. Similar results were found for lexical stress, suggesting that lexical stress and loud speech are produced with a similar voice source mechanism. Stressed syllables were distinguished from unstressed syllables by their open phase and pulse shape, even in the absence of sentence accent. Evidence for laryngeal involvement in signaling focus, independent of fundamental frequency changes, was not as consistent across speakers. Acoustic results on various spectral balance measures were generally much less consistent compared to results from laryngographic data. PMID:20136226

U.S. Airline Transport Pilot International Flight Language Experiences, Report 5: Language Experiences in Native English-Speaking Airspace/Airports

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-12-01

how these commu- nication exchanges affected their perceptions of safety, communications, workload, and situational awareness. The pilots’ answers to...the questions and discussions during the interviews were their perception of the situ- ations they encountered. Many stories were anecdotal, and some...rate, and accent, followed by pitch, expectation, intonation , and phraseology. Some accents were easier to understand, while the ones unfamiliar to

Effects of gender and regional dialect on prosodic patterns in American English

PubMed Central

Clopper, Cynthia G.; Smiljanic, Rajka

2011-01-01

While cross-dialect prosodic variation has been well established for many languages, most variationist research on regional dialects of American English has focused on the vowel system. The current study was designed to explore prosodic variation in read speech in two regional varieties of American English: Southern and Midland. Prosodic dialect variation was analyzed in two domains: speaking rate and the phonetic expression of pitch movements associated with accented and phrase-final syllables. The results revealed significant effects of regional dialect on the distributions of pauses, pitch accents, and phrasal-boundary tone combinations. Significant effects of talker gender were also observed on the distributions of pitch accents and phrasal-boundary tone combinations. The findings from this study demonstrate that regional and gender identity features are encoded in part through prosody, and provide further motivation for the close examination of prosodic patterns across regional and social varieties of American English. PMID:21686317

Talker familiarity and spoken word recognition in school-age children*

PubMed Central

Levi, Susannah V.

2014-01-01

Research with adults has shown that spoken language processing is improved when listeners are familiar with talkers’ voices, known as the familiar talker advantage. The current study explored whether this ability extends to school-age children, who are still acquiring language. Children were familiarized with the voices of three German–English bilingual talkers and were tested on the speech of six bilinguals, three of whom were familiar. Results revealed that children do show improved spoken language processing when they are familiar with the talkers, but this improvement was limited to highly familiar lexical items. This restriction of the familiar talker advantage is attributed to differences in the representation of highly familiar and less familiar lexical items. In addition, children did not exhibit accent-general learning; despite having been exposed to German-accented talkers during training, there was no improvement for novel German-accented talkers. PMID:25159173

The accent method of voice therapy: effect of accentuations on FO, SPL, and airflow.

PubMed

Kotby, M N; Shiromoto, O; Hirano, M

1993-12-01

The effect of the increased flow rate (delta U) in response to the Accent Method exercises on fundamental frequency (FO) and sound pressure level (SPL) was studied in three subjects (professionally trained, trained, and untrained in this method). In all the subjects, the rhythmic accentuated exercises produced a variable degree of increase in FO (delta FO) and SPL (delta SPL). The professionally trained subject showed greater delta FO and delta SPL in response to the delta U in the fastest tempo, which requires higher skills. Both trained subjects showed a greater correlation between delta U and both delta SPL and delta FO, as well as between delta FO and delta SPL, as compared to the untrained subject. The effects of the accentuated exercises on FO and SPL in response to the increased airflow rate (delta U) thus appear to demonstrate the treating effectiveness of the Accent Method.

L'environnement pedagogique: source de difficulte dans la maitrise des habiletes phonetiques en langue seconde (The Learning Environment: Source of Difficulty in the Mastery of Second Language Phonetic Skills).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Champagne, Cecile

1984-01-01

Research is reported that showed phonetic and phonological training to be given peripheral attention or neglected in second language instruction in one geographic area. It is suggested this neglect stems from (1) low teacher and student expectation of success in attaining a native-like accent, and (2) assumptions that a non-native-like accent will…

When one person's mistake is another's standard usage: the effect of foreign accent on syntactic processing.

PubMed

Hanulíková, Adriana; van Alphen, Petra M; van Goch, Merel M; Weber, Andrea

2012-04-01

How do native listeners process grammatical errors that are frequent in non-native speech? We investigated whether the neural correlates of syntactic processing are modulated by speaker identity. ERPs to gender agreement errors in sentences spoken by a native speaker were compared with the same errors spoken by a non-native speaker. In line with previous research, gender violations in native speech resulted in a P600 effect (larger P600 for violations in comparison with correct sentences), but when the same violations were produced by the non-native speaker with a foreign accent, no P600 effect was observed. Control sentences with semantic violations elicited comparable N400 effects for both the native and the non-native speaker, confirming no general integration problem in foreign-accented speech. The results demonstrate that the P600 is modulated by speaker identity, extending our knowledge about the role of speaker's characteristics on neural correlates of speech processing.

Word Durations in Non-Native English

PubMed Central

Baker, Rachel E.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Bonnasse-Gahot, Laurent; Kim, Midam; Van Engen, Kristin J.; Bradlow, Ann R.

2010-01-01

In this study, we compare the effects of English lexical features on word duration for native and non-native English speakers and for non-native speakers with different L1s and a range of L2 experience. We also examine whether non-native word durations lead to judgments of a stronger foreign accent. We measured word durations in English paragraphs read by 12 American English (AE), 20 Korean, and 20 Chinese speakers. We also had AE listeners rate the `accentedness' of these non-native speakers. AE speech had shorter durations, greater within-speaker word duration variance, greater reduction of function words, and less between-speaker variance than non-native speech. However, both AE and non-native speakers showed sensitivity to lexical predictability by reducing second mentions and high frequency words. Non-native speakers with more native-like word durations, greater within-speaker word duration variance, and greater function word reduction were perceived as less accented. Overall, these findings identify word duration as an important and complex feature of foreign-accented English. PMID:21516172

Rhythm histograms and musical meter: A corpus study of Malian percussion music.

PubMed

London, Justin; Polak, Rainer; Jacoby, Nori

2017-04-01

Studies of musical corpora have given empirical grounding to the various features that characterize particular musical styles and genres. Palmer & Krumhansl (1990) found that in Western classical music the likeliest places for a note to occur are the most strongly accented beats in a measure, and this was also found in subsequent studies using both Western classical and folk music corpora (Huron & Ommen, 2006; Temperley, 2010). We present a rhythmic analysis of a corpus of 15 performances of percussion music from Bamako, Mali. In our corpus, the relative frequency of note onsets in a given metrical position does not correspond to patterns of metrical accent, though there is a stable relationship between onset frequency and metrical position. The implications of this non-congruence between simple statistical likelihood and metrical structure for the ways in which meter and metrical accent may be learned and understood are discussed, along with importance of cross-cultural studies for psychological research.

Dimension-Based Statistical Learning Affects Both Speech Perception and Production.

PubMed

Lehet, Matthew; Holt, Lori L

2017-04-01

Multiple acoustic dimensions signal speech categories. However, dimensions vary in their informativeness; some are more diagnostic of category membership than others. Speech categorization reflects these dimensional regularities such that diagnostic dimensions carry more "perceptual weight" and more effectively signal category membership to native listeners. Yet perceptual weights are malleable. When short-term experience deviates from long-term language norms, such as in a foreign accent, the perceptual weight of acoustic dimensions in signaling speech category membership rapidly adjusts. The present study investigated whether rapid adjustments in listeners' perceptual weights in response to speech that deviates from the norms also affects listeners' own speech productions. In a word recognition task, the correlation between two acoustic dimensions signaling consonant categories, fundamental frequency (F0) and voice onset time (VOT), matched the correlation typical of English, and then shifted to an "artificial accent" that reversed the relationship, and then shifted back. Brief, incidental exposure to the artificial accent caused participants to down-weight perceptual reliance on F0, consistent with previous research. Throughout the task, participants were intermittently prompted with pictures to produce these same words. In the block in which listeners heard the artificial accent with a reversed F0 × VOT correlation, F0 was a less robust cue to voicing in listeners' own speech productions. The statistical regularities of short-term speech input affect both speech perception and production, as evidenced via shifts in how acoustic dimensions are weighted. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Interactive processing of contrastive expressions by Russian children.

PubMed

Sekerina, Irina A; Trueswell, John C

2012-04-05

Children's ability to interpret color adjective noun phrases (e.g., red butterfly) as contrastive was examined in an eyetracking study with 6-year-old Russian children. Pitch accent placement (on the adjective red , or on the noun butterfly ) was compared within a visual context containing two red referents (a butterfly and a fox) when only one of them had a contrast member (a purple butterfly) or when both had a contrast member (a purple butterfly and a grey fox). Contrastiveness was enhanced by the Russian-specific 'split constituent' construction (e.g., Red put butterfly . . .) in which a contrastive interpretation of the color term requires pitch accent on the adjective, with the nonsplit sentences serving as control. Regardless of the experimental manipulations, children had to wait until hearing the noun (butterfly) to identify the referent, even in splits. This occurred even under conditions for which the prosody and the visual context allow adult listeners to infer the relevant contrast set and anticipate the referent prior to hearing the noun (accent on the adjective in 1-Contrast scenes). Pitch accent on the adjective did facilitate children's referential processing, but only for the nonsplit constituents. Moreover, visual contexts that encouraged the correct contrast set (1-Contrast) only facilitated referential processing after hearing the noun, even in splits. Further analyses showed that children can anticipate the reference like adults but only when the contrast set is made salient by the preceding supportive discourse, that is, when the inference about the intended contrast set is provided by the preceding utterance.

Patient satisfaction and efficacy of accent radiofrequency for facial skin wrinkle reduction

PubMed Central

Jaffary, Fariba; Nilforoushzadeh, Mohammad Ali; Zarkoob, Hajar

2013-01-01

Background: Radiofrequency (RF) is a new technique to treat facial wrinkles. This study was designed to assess the efficacy of Accent RF in wrinkle reduction of different areas of the face. Materials and Methods: Patients with mild to severe facial wrinkles were treated with Accent using RF energies of 35-145 W. The average energy used in this study was 83.11 W. Patients received four subsequent weekly RF sessions. Wrinkle improvement was rated by two physicians comparing 6-month post treatment photographs with pretreatment photos. Moreover, patient satisfaction was assessed at 1 and 6 months after the last session of the treatment. Results: A total of 45 women participated in this study. In terms of patient satisfaction one month after the last treatment, 8.9% of the patients declared their dissatisfaction, 53.3% were somehow satisfied, 33.3% were satisfied, and 4.4% were very satisfied. At 6 months, patient satisfaction was as follows: 4.4% dissatisfied, 31.1% somehow satisfied, 46.7% satisfied, and 17.8% very satisfied. Patient satisfaction 6 months after the last treatment was significantly higher than 1 month post treatment (P = 0.006). At 6 months, patient satisfaction was not more than 75% in any treatment areas of the face. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that Accent RF may be considered as a possible effective option for facial skin rejuvenation although its efficacy and safety needs to be evaluated further in randomized controlled trials. PMID:24523783

Catalan speakers' perception of word stress in unaccented contexts.

PubMed

Ortega-Llebaria, Marta; del Mar Vanrell, Maria; Prieto, Pilar

2010-01-01

In unaccented contexts, formant frequency differences related to vowel reduction constitute a consistent cue to word stress in English, whereas in languages such as Spanish that have no systematic vowel reduction, stress perception is based on duration and intensity cues. This article examines the perception of word stress by speakers of Central Catalan, in which, due to its vowel reduction patterns, words either alternate stressed open vowels with unstressed mid-central vowels as in English or contain no vowel quality cues to stress, as in Spanish. Results show that Catalan listeners perceive stress based mainly on duration cues in both word types. Other cues pattern together with duration to make stress perception more robust. However, no single cue is absolutely necessary and trading effects compensate for a lack of differentiation in one dimension by changes in another dimension. In particular, speakers identify longer mid-central vowels as more stressed than shorter open vowels. These results and those obtained in other stress-accent languages provide cumulative evidence that word stress is perceived independently of pitch accents by relying on a set of cues with trading effects so that no single cue, including formant frequency differences related to vowel reduction, is absolutely necessary for stress perception.

Search for Nucleon Decay via n→ν¯π0 and p→ν¯π+ in Super-Kamiokande

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abe, K.; Hayato, Y.; Iida, T.; Iyogi, K.; Kameda, J.; Koshio, Y.; Kozuma, Y.; Marti, Ll.; Miura, M.; Moriyama, S.; Nakahata, M.; Nakayama, S.; Obayashi, Y.; Sekiya, H.; Shiozawa, M.; Suzuki, Y.; Takeda, A.; Takenaga, Y.; Ueno, K.; Ueshima, K.; Yamada, S.; Yokozawa, T.; Ishihara, C.; Kaji, H.; Kajita, T.; Kaneyuki, K.; Lee, K. P.; McLachlan, T.; Okumura, K.; Shimizu, Y.; Tanimoto, N.; Labarga, L.; Kearns, E.; Litos, M.; Raaf, J. L.; Stone, J. L.; Sulak, L. R.; Goldhaber, M.; Bays, K.; Kropp, W. R.; Mine, S.; Regis, C.; Renshaw, A.; Smy, M. B.; Sobel, H. W.; Ganezer, K. S.; Hill, J.; Keig, W. E.; Jang, J. S.; Kim, J. Y.; Lim, I. T.; Albert, J. B.; Scholberg, K.; Walter, C. W.; Wendell, R.; Wongjirad, T. M.; Ishizuka, T.; Tasaka, S.; Learned, J. G.; Matsuno, S.; Smith, S. N.; Hasegawa, T.; Ishida, T.; Ishii, T.; Kobayashi, T.; Nakadaira, T.; Nakamura, K.; Nishikawa, K.; Oyama, Y.; Sakashita, K.; Sekiguchi, T.; Tsukamoto, T.; Suzuki, A. T.; Takeuchi, Y.; Ikeda, M.; Minamino, A.; Nakaya, T.; Fukuda, Y.; Itow, Y.; Mitsuka, G.; Tanaka, T.; Jung, C. K.; Lopez, G. D.; Taylor, I.; Yanagisawa, C.; Ishino, H.; Kibayashi, A.; Mino, S.; Mori, T.; Sakuda, M.; Toyota, H.; Kuno, Y.; Yoshida, M.; Kim, S. B.; Yang, B. S.; Okazawa, H.; Choi, Y.; Nishijima, K.; Koshiba, M.; Yokoyama, M.; Totsuka, Y.; Martens, K.; Schuemann, J.; Vagins, M. R.; Chen, S.; Heng, Y.; Yang, Z.; Zhang, H.; Kielczewska, D.; Mijakowski, P.; Connolly, K.; Dziomba, M.; Thrane, E.; Wilkes, R. J.; Super-Kamiokande Collaboration

2014-09-01

We present the results of searches for nucleon decay via n→ν¯π0 and p→ν¯π+ using data from a combined 172.8 kt .yr exposure of Super-Kamiokande-I,-II, and-III. We set lower limits on the partial lifetime for each of these modes: τn→accent="true">ν¯π0>1.1×1033 years and τp→accent="true">ν¯π+>3.9×1032 years at a 90% confidence level.

The Acquisition of English Focus Marking by Non-Native Speakers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, Rachel Elizabeth

This dissertation examines Mandarin and Korean speakers' acquisition of English focus marking, which is realized by accenting particular words within a focused constituent. It is important for non-native speakers to learn how accent placement relates to focus in English because appropriate accent placement and realization makes a learner's English more native-like and easier to understand. Such knowledge may also improve their English comprehension skills. In this study, 20 native English speakers, 20 native Mandarin speakers, and 20 native Korean speakers participated in four experiments: (1) a production experiment, in which they were recorded reading the answers to questions, (2) a perception experiment, in which they were asked to determine which word in a recording was the last prominent word, (3) an understanding experiment, in which they were asked whether the answers in recorded question-answer pairs had context-appropriate prosody, and (4) an accent placement experiment, in which they were asked which word they would make prominent in a particular context. Finally, a new group of native English speakers listened to utterances produced in the production experiment, and determined whether the prosody of each utterance was appropriate for its context. The results of the five experiments support a novel predictive model for second language prosodic focus marking acquisition. This model holds that both transfer of linguistic features from a learner's native language (L1) and features of their second language (L2) affect learners' acquisition of prosodic focus marking. As a result, the model includes two complementary components: the Transfer Component and the L2 Challenge Component. The Transfer Component predicts that prosodic structures in the L2 will be more easily acquired by language learners that have similar structures in their L1 than those who do not, even if there are differences between the L1 and L2 in how the structures are realized. The L2 Challenge Component predicts that for difficult tasks, language learners will rely on widely-applied prosodic patterns, making them more successful at prosodically marking broad focus than narrow focus. However, for easy tasks, language learners will more successfully mark information structures that have a more direct relationship between focus and accent placement.

Intonation as an encoder of speaker certainty: information and confirmation yes-no questions in Catalan.

PubMed

Vanrell, Maria del Mar; Mascaró, Ignasi; Torres-Tamarit, Francesc; Prieto, Pilar

2013-06-01

Recent studies in the field of intonational phonology have shown that information-seeking questions can be distinguished from confirmation-seeking questions by prosodic means in a variety of languages (Armstrong, 2010, for Puerto Rican Spanish; Grice & Savino, 1997, for Bari Italian; Kügler, 2003, for Leipzig German; Mata & Santos, 2010, for European Portuguese; Vanrell, Mascaró, Prieto, & Torres-Tamarit, 2010, for Catalan). However, all these studies have relied on production experiments and little is known about the perceptual relevance of these intonational cues. This paper explores whether Majorcan Catalan listeners distinguish information- and confirmation-seeking questions by means of two distinct nuclear falling pitch accents. Three behavioral tasks were conducted with 20 Majorcan Catalan subjects, namely a semantic congruity test, a rating test, and a classical categorical perception identification/discrimination test. The results show that a difference in pitch scaling on the leading H tone of the H+L* nuclear pitch accent is the main cue used by Majorcan Catalan listeners to distinguish confirmation questions from information-seeking questions. Thus, while a iH+L* pitch accent signals an information-seeking question (i.e., the speaker has no expectation about the nature of the answer), the H+L* pitch accent indicates that the speaker is asking about mutually shared information. We argue that these results have implications in representing the distinctions of tonal height in Catalan. The results also support the claim that phonological contrasts in intonation, together with other linguistic strategies, can signal the speakers' beliefs about the certainty of the proposition expressed.

Interactive processing of contrastive expressions by Russian children

PubMed Central

Sekerina, Irina A.; Trueswell, John C.

2013-01-01

Children's ability to interpret color adjective noun phrases (e.g., red butterfly) as contrastive was examined in an eyetracking study with 6-year-old Russian children. Pitch accent placement (on the adjective red, or on the noun butterfly) was compared within a visual context containing two red referents (a butterfly and a fox) when only one of them had a contrast member (a purple butterfly) or when both had a contrast member (a purple butterfly and a grey fox). Contrastiveness was enhanced by the Russian-specific ‘split constituent’ construction (e.g., Red put butterfly . . .) in which a contrastive interpretation of the color term requires pitch accent on the adjective, with the nonsplit sentences serving as control. Regardless of the experimental manipulations, children had to wait until hearing the noun (butterfly) to identify the referent, even in splits. This occurred even under conditions for which the prosody and the visual context allow adult listeners to infer the relevant contrast set and anticipate the referent prior to hearing the noun (accent on the adjective in 1-Contrast scenes). Pitch accent on the adjective did facilitate children's referential processing, but only for the nonsplit constituents. Moreover, visual contexts that encouraged the correct contrast set (1-Contrast) only facilitated referential processing after hearing the noun, even in splits. Further analyses showed that children can anticipate the reference like adults but only when the contrast set is made salient by the preceding supportive discourse, that is, when the inference about the intended contrast set is provided by the preceding utterance. PMID:24465066

Some Problems of American Students in Mastering Persian Phonology.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ghadessy, Esmael

1988-12-01

An adult learning to speak a foreign language normally retains an "accent" which may affect the intelligibility of certain sounds, but more often simply conveys the fact that the speaker is a non-native speaker. Various scholars have experimented and discussed the elements involved in a foreign accent. However, in Iran very few researchers have attempted to verify scientifically what are the phonetic and phonological aspects of an "accent." This author tried to determine whether or not a selected group of words, emphasizing stop voicing, produced by native speakers of Persian had significant phonetic and phonemic differences from those achieved by the American students. Subjects for the experiments were three groups of students, one Iranian, two American. A contrastive analysis of the Persian and the English stop consonants was made. An identical measurement test for all three groups was administered. Utilized was a Kay Sona-graph for acoustic analysis, and all spoken data from the Iranian group were compared with those of the American groups. An examination of acoustic correlates of Tehran stops produced by American students shows that the phonetically different but similar feature of /voice/ found in Tehran, Persian and English stops is intuitive to the Americans, and that the language learner cannot readily disassociate a phonological feature from habits of articulation. The results of this research support using the phonetic method for adult learners who want to improve their pronunciation ability. Further research and experimentation is necessary on the effect of the suprasegmental elements on a foreign accent and the most effective teaching materials and methods and to explore other possible techniques in the teaching process.

Reducing lighting energy use in retail display windows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freyssinier, Jean Paul; Frering, Daniel; Taylor, Jennifer; Narendran, Nadarajah; Rizzo, Patricia

2006-08-01

A field study was conducted at three clothing stores to validate previous laboratory findings indicating that colored LEDs used as background display lighting could: 1) lower the power demand of accent lighting by up to 50 percent; and 2) provide greater attention capture and visual appeal than current lighting practice. Blue LEDs provided a colored background for window mannequins by illuminating white backdrops. Eliminating fluorescent general lighting and reducing the number and wattage of halogen accent lamps in the display windows reduced the lighting power demand by up to 50 percent. During an eight-week period, more than 700 shoppers rated the attractiveness, eye-catching ability, comfort, and visibility of four different lighting conditions. The results of this field study showed that by introducing color contrast between the displayed objects and the background, the power demand of the accent lighting could be reduced by up to 50 percent without sacrificing visual appeal, visibility, ability to capture the attention of shoppers, and the ability to see the colors of the objects on display. Furthermore, the sales of the products on display were not affected by the 50 percent reduction in lighting.

Feeling the beat: premotor and striatal interactions in musicians and non-musicians during beat perception

PubMed Central

Grahn, Jessica A.; Rowe, James B.

2009-01-01

Little is known about the underlying neurobiology of rhythm and beat perception, despite its universal cultural importance. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study rhythm perception in musicians and non-musicians. Three conditions varied in the degree to which external reinforcement versus internal generation of the beat was required. The ‘Volume’ condition strongly externally marked the beat with volume changes, the ‘Duration’ condition marked the beat with weaker accents arising from duration changes, and the ‘Unaccented’ condition required the beat to be entirely internally generated. In all conditions, beat rhythms compared to nonbeat control rhythms revealed putamen activity. The presence of a beat was also associated with greater connectivity between the putamen and the supplementary motor area (SMA), the premotor cortex (PMC) and auditory cortex. In contrast, the type of accent within the beat conditions modulated the coupling between premotor and auditory cortex, with greater modulation for musicians than non-musicians. Importantly, the putamen's response to beat conditions was not due to differences in temporal complexity between the three rhythm conditions. We propose that a cortico-subcortical network including the putamen, SMA, and PMC is engaged for the analysis of temporal sequences and prediction or generation of putative beats, especially under conditions that may require internal generation of the beat. The importance of this system for auditory-motor interaction and development of precisely timed movement is suggested here by its facilitation in musicians. PMID:19515922

Feeling the beat: premotor and striatal interactions in musicians and nonmusicians during beat perception.

PubMed

Grahn, Jessica A; Rowe, James B

2009-06-10

Little is known about the underlying neurobiology of rhythm and beat perception, despite its universal cultural importance. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study rhythm perception in musicians and nonmusicians. Three conditions varied in the degree to which external reinforcement versus internal generation of the beat was required. The "volume" condition strongly externally marked the beat with volume changes, the "duration" condition marked the beat with weaker accents arising from duration changes, and the "unaccented" condition required the beat to be entirely internally generated. In all conditions, beat rhythms compared with nonbeat control rhythms revealed putamen activity. The presence of a beat was also associated with greater connectivity between the putamen and the supplementary motor area (SMA), the premotor cortex (PMC), and auditory cortex. In contrast, the type of accent within the beat conditions modulated the coupling between premotor and auditory cortex, with greater modulation for musicians than nonmusicians. Importantly, the response of the putamen to beat conditions was not attributable to differences in temporal complexity between the three rhythm conditions. We propose that a cortico-subcortical network including the putamen, SMA, and PMC is engaged for the analysis of temporal sequences and prediction or generation of putative beats, especially under conditions that may require internal generation of the beat. The importance of this system for auditory-motor interaction and development of precisely timed movement is suggested here by its facilitation in musicians.

How and when predictability interacts with accentuation in temporally selective attention during speech comprehension.

PubMed

Li, Xiaoqing; Lu, Yong; Zhao, Haiyan

2014-11-01

The present study used EEG to investigate how and when top-down prediction interacts with bottom-up acoustic signals in temporally selective attention during speech comprehension. Mandarin Chinese spoken sentences were used as stimuli. We systematically manipulated the predictability and de/accentuation of the critical words in the sentence context. Meanwhile, a linguistic attention probe 'ba' was presented concurrently with the critical words or not. The results showed that, first, words with a linguistic attention probe elicited a larger N1 than those without a probe. The latency of this N1 effect was shortened for accented or lowly predictable words, indicating more attentional resources allocated to these words. Importantly, prediction and accentuation showed a complementary interplay on the latency of this N1 effect, demonstrating that when the words had already attracted attention due to low predictability or due to the presence of pitch accent, the other factor did not modulate attention allocation anymore. Second, relative to the lowly predictable words, the highly predictable words elicited a reduced N400 and enhanced gamma-band power increases, especially under the accented conditions; moreover, under the accented conditions, shorter N1 peak-latency was found to correlate with larger gamma-band power enhancement, which indicates that a close relationship might exist between early selective attention and later semantic integration. Finally, the interaction between top-down selective attention (driven by prediction) and bottom-up selective attention (driven by accentuation) occurred before lexical-semantic processing, namely before the N400 effect evoked by predictability, which was discussed with regard to the language comprehension models. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Recognizing speech in a novel accent: the motor theory of speech perception reframed.

PubMed

Moulin-Frier, Clément; Arbib, Michael A

2013-08-01

The motor theory of speech perception holds that we perceive the speech of another in terms of a motor representation of that speech. However, when we have learned to recognize a foreign accent, it seems plausible that recognition of a word rarely involves reconstruction of the speech gestures of the speaker rather than the listener. To better assess the motor theory and this observation, we proceed in three stages. Part 1 places the motor theory of speech perception in a larger framework based on our earlier models of the adaptive formation of mirror neurons for grasping, and for viewing extensions of that mirror system as part of a larger system for neuro-linguistic processing, augmented by the present consideration of recognizing speech in a novel accent. Part 2 then offers a novel computational model of how a listener comes to understand the speech of someone speaking the listener's native language with a foreign accent. The core tenet of the model is that the listener uses hypotheses about the word the speaker is currently uttering to update probabilities linking the sound produced by the speaker to phonemes in the native language repertoire of the listener. This, on average, improves the recognition of later words. This model is neutral regarding the nature of the representations it uses (motor vs. auditory). It serve as a reference point for the discussion in Part 3, which proposes a dual-stream neuro-linguistic architecture to revisits claims for and against the motor theory of speech perception and the relevance of mirror neurons, and extracts some implications for the reframing of the motor theory.

Performance variability on perceptual discrimination tasks in profoundly deaf adults with cochlear implants.

PubMed

Hay-McCutcheon, Marcia J; Peterson, Nathaniel R; Pisoni, David B; Kirk, Karen Iler; Yang, Xin; Parton, Jason

The purpose of this study was to evaluate performance on two challenging listening tasks, talker and regional accent discrimination, and to assess variables that could have affected the outcomes. A prospective study using 35 adults with one cochlear implant (CI) or a CI and a contralateral hearing aid (bimodal hearing) was conducted. Adults completed talker and regional accent discrimination tasks. Two-alternative forced-choice tasks were used to assess talker and accent discrimination in a group of adults who ranged in age from 30 years old to 81 years old. A large amount of performance variability was observed across listeners for both discrimination tasks. Three listeners successfully discriminated between talkers for both listening tasks, 14 participants successfully completed one discrimination task and 18 participants were not able to discriminate between talkers for either listening task. Some adults who used bimodal hearing benefitted from the addition of acoustic cues provided through a HA but for others the HA did not help with discrimination abilities. Acoustic speech feature analysis of the test signals indicated that both the talker speaking rate and the fundamental frequency (F0) helped with talker discrimination. For accent discrimination, findings suggested that access to more salient spectral cues was important for better discrimination performance. The ability to perform challenging discrimination tasks successfully likely involves a number of complex interactions between auditory and non-auditory pre- and post-implant factors. To understand why some adults with CIs perform similarly to adults with normal hearing and others experience difficulty discriminating between talkers, further research will be required with larger populations of adults who use unilateral CIs, bilateral CIs and bimodal hearing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The role of prominence in determining the scope of boundary-related lengthening in Greek.

PubMed

Katsika, Argyro

2016-03-01

This study aims at examining and accounting for the scope of the temporal effect of phrase boundaries. Previous research has indicated that there is an interaction between boundary-related lengthening and prominence such that the former extends towards the nearby prominent syllable. However, it is unclear whether this interaction is due to lexical stress and/or phrasal prominence (marked by pitch accent) and how far towards the prominent syllable the effect extends. Here, we use an electromagnetic articulography (EMA) study of Greek to examine the scope of boundary-related lengthening as a function of lexical stress and pitch accent separately. Boundaries are elicited by the means of a variety of syntactic constructions.. The results show an effect of lexical stress. Phrase-final lengthening affects the articulatory gestures of the phrase-final syllable that are immediately adjacent to the boundary in words with final stress, but is initiated earlier within phrase-final words with non-final stress. Similarly, the articulatory configurations during inter-phrasal pauses reach their point of achievement later in words with final stress than in words with non-final stress. These effects of stress hold regardless of whether the phrase-final word is accented or de-accented. Phrase-initial lengthening, on the other hand, is consistently detected on the phrase-initial constriction, independently of where the stress is within the preceding, phrase-final, word. These results indicate that the lexical aspect of prominence plays a role in determining the scope of boundary-related lengthening in Greek. Based on these results, a gestural account of prosodic boundaries in Greek is proposed in which lexical and phrasal prosody interact in a systematic and coordinated fashion. The cross-linguistic dimensions of this account and its implications for prosodic structure are discussed.

How soon they forget: changes to beliefs after learning about tobacco.

PubMed

Wisniewski, Matthew G; Bartone, Anne; Hastrup, Janice L; Coutinho, Mariana V C; Geer, Micah; Simms, Leonard J

2013-01-01

University students' beliefs about tobacco and nicotine were assessed before an educational intervention aimed at correcting tobacco-related misinformation. Beliefs were again measured immediately after the intervention, and then again after a 2-, 4-, 6-, or 8-week retention interval. Initially, participants showed significantly more accurate beliefs about tobacco than pre-intervention, but this improvement decreased after the retention interval. Results suggest that methods currently used in an attempt to alleviate tobacco misinformation in the public may be effective for short-term, but not long-term retention. The current study accents the need to design tobacco programs that optimize retention of belief change so that people may use that knowledge confidently in future health-related decisions.

Auditory perceptual simulation: Simulating speech rates or accents?

PubMed

Zhou, Peiyun; Christianson, Kiel

2016-07-01

When readers engage in Auditory Perceptual Simulation (APS) during silent reading, they mentally simulate characteristics of voices attributed to a particular speaker or a character depicted in the text. Previous research found that auditory perceptual simulation of a faster native English speaker during silent reading led to shorter reading times that auditory perceptual simulation of a slower non-native English speaker. Yet, it was uncertain whether this difference was triggered by the different speech rates of the speakers, or by the difficulty of simulating an unfamiliar accent. The current study investigates this question by comparing faster Indian-English speech and slower American-English speech in the auditory perceptual simulation paradigm. Analyses of reading times of individual words and the full sentence reveal that the auditory perceptual simulation effect again modulated reading rate, and auditory perceptual simulation of the faster Indian-English speech led to faster reading rates compared to auditory perceptual simulation of the slower American-English speech. The comparison between this experiment and the data from Zhou and Christianson (2016) demonstrate further that the "speakers'" speech rates, rather than the difficulty of simulating a non-native accent, is the primary mechanism underlying auditory perceptual simulation effects. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intelligibility of foreign-accented speech: Effects of listening condition, listener age, and listener hearing status

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferguson, Sarah Hargus

2005-09-01

It is well known that, for listeners with normal hearing, speech produced by non-native speakers of the listener's first language is less intelligible than speech produced by native speakers. Intelligibility is well correlated with listener's ratings of talker comprehensibility and accentedness, which have been shown to be related to several talker factors, including age of second language acquisition and level of similarity between the talker's native and second language phoneme inventories. Relatively few studies have focused on factors extrinsic to the talker. The current project explored the effects of listener and environmental factors on the intelligibility of foreign-accented speech. Specifically, monosyllabic English words previously recorded from two talkers, one a native speaker of American English and the other a native speaker of Spanish, were presented to three groups of listeners (young listeners with normal hearing, elderly listeners with normal hearing, and elderly listeners with hearing impairment; n=20 each) in three different listening conditions (undistorted words in quiet, undistorted words in 12-talker babble, and filtered words in quiet). Data analysis will focus on interactions between talker accent, listener age, listener hearing status, and listening condition. [Project supported by American Speech-Language-Hearing Association AARC Award.

Nailfold capillaroscopic changes in Kindler syndrome.

PubMed

Dobrev, Hristo P; Vutova, Nina I

2015-11-01

Kindler syndrome (KS), the fourth major type of hereditary epidermolysis bullosa (HEB), is a rare, autosomal recessive disorder characterized by skin fragility and blistering at birth followed by development of marked photosensitivity and progressive poikilodermatous skin changes in later years. We reported here the case of a 54-year-old woman, who fulfills the diagnostic criteria of KS type of HEB, putting accent on the nailfold capillaroscopic changes. Using videocapillaroscopy we observed pronounced alterations in finger nail capillaries including reduction in capillary density, features of neoangiogenesis (architectural derangement, elongated loops, extremely tortuous, bushy or branching capillaries, thin, branching and interconnected capillaries), enlarged and giant capillaries. We consider the changes observed as an adaptive mechanism that compensate the loss of capillaries due to chronic periungual trauma. Further studies with larger number of patients are needed to confirm the significance of capillaroscopy findings for patients with HEB.

Prosodic structure shapes the temporal realization of intonation and manual gesture movements.

PubMed

Esteve-Gibert, Núria; Prieto, Pilar

2013-06-01

Previous work on the temporal coordination between gesture and speech found that the prominence in gesture coordinates with speech prominence. In this study, the authors investigated the anchoring regions in speech and pointing gesture that align with each other. The authors hypothesized that (a) in contrastive focus conditions, the gesture apex is anchored in the intonation peak and (b) the upcoming prosodic boundary influences the timing of gesture and intonation movements. Fifteen Catalan speakers pointed at a screen while pronouncing a target word with different metrical patterns in a contrastive focus condition and followed by a phrase boundary. A total of 702 co-speech deictic gestures were acoustically and gesturally analyzed. Intonation peaks and gesture apexes showed parallel behavior with respect to their position within the accented syllable: They occurred at the end of the accented syllable in non-phrase-final position, whereas they occurred well before the end of the accented syllable in phrase-final position. Crucially, the position of intonation peaks and gesture apexes was correlated and was bound by prosodic structure. The results refine the phonological synchronization rule (McNeill, 1992), showing that gesture apexes are anchored in intonation peaks and that gesture and prosodic movements are bound by prosodic phrasing.

The Effects of Lexical Pitch Accent on Infant Word Recognition in Japanese

PubMed Central

Ota, Mitsuhiko; Yamane, Naoto; Mazuka, Reiko

2018-01-01

Learners of lexical tone languages (e.g., Mandarin) develop sensitivity to tonal contrasts and recognize pitch-matched, but not pitch-mismatched, familiar words by 11 months. Learners of non-tone languages (e.g., English) also show a tendency to treat pitch patterns as lexically contrastive up to about 18 months. In this study, we examined if this early-developing capacity to lexically encode pitch variations enables infants to acquire a pitch accent system, in which pitch-based lexical contrasts are obscured by the interaction of lexical and non-lexical (i.e., intonational) features. Eighteen 17-month-olds learning Tokyo Japanese were tested on their recognition of familiar words with the expected pitch or the lexically opposite pitch pattern. In early trials, infants were faster in shifting their eyegaze from the distractor object to the target object than in shifting from the target to distractor in the pitch-matched condition. In later trials, however, infants showed faster distractor-to-target than target-to-distractor shifts in both the pitch-matched and pitch-mismatched conditions. We interpret these results to mean that, in a pitch-accent system, the ability to use pitch variations to recognize words is still in a nascent state at 17 months. PMID:29375452

Dynamic allocation of attention to metrical and grouping accents in rhythmic sequences.

PubMed

Kung, Shu-Jen; Tzeng, Ovid J L; Hung, Daisy L; Wu, Denise H

2011-04-01

Most people find it easy to perform rhythmic movements in synchrony with music, which reflects their ability to perceive the temporal periodicity and to allocate attention in time accordingly. Musicians and non-musicians were tested in a click localization paradigm in order to investigate how grouping and metrical accents in metrical rhythms influence attention allocation, and to reveal the effect of musical expertise on such processing. We performed two experiments in which the participants were required to listen to isochronous metrical rhythms containing superimposed clicks and then to localize the click on graphical and ruler-like representations with and without grouping structure information, respectively. Both experiments revealed metrical and grouping influences on click localization. Musical expertise improved the precision of click localization, especially when the click coincided with a metrically strong beat. Critically, although all participants located the click accurately at the beginning of an intensity group, only musicians located it precisely when it coincided with a strong beat at the end of the group. Removal of the visual cue of grouping structures enhanced these effects in musicians and reduced them in non-musicians. These results indicate that musical expertise not only enhances attention to metrical accents but also heightens sensitivity to perceptual grouping.

The coordination of boundary tones and its interaction with prominence.

PubMed

Katsika, Argyro; Krivokapić, Jelena; Mooshammer, Christine; Tiede, Mark; Goldstein, Louis

2014-05-01

This study investigates the coordination of boundary tones as a function of stress and pitch accent. Boundary tone coordination has not been experimentally investigated previously, and the effect of prominence on this coordination, and whether it is lexical (stress-driven) or phrasal (pitch accent-driven) in nature is unclear. We assess these issues using a variety of syntactic constructions to elicit different boundary tones in an Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) study of Greek. The results indicate that the onset of boundary tones co-occurs with the articulatory target of the final vowel. This timing is further modified by stress, but not by pitch accent: boundary tones are initiated earlier in words with non-final stress than in words with final stress regardless of accentual status. Visual data inspection reveals that phrase-final words are followed by acoustic pauses during which specific articulatory postures occur. Additional analyses show that these postures reach their achievement point at a stable temporal distance from boundary tone onsets regardless of stress position. Based on these results and parallel findings on boundary lengthening reported elsewhere, a novel approach to prosody is proposed within the context of Articulatory Phonology: rather than seeing prosodic (lexical and phrasal) events as independent entities, a set of coordination relations between them is suggested. The implications of this account for prosodic architecture are discussed.

Saqqar: A 34 km diameter impact structure in Saudi Arabia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kenkmann, Thomas; Afifi, Abdulkader M.; Stewart, Simon A.; Poelchau, Michael H.; Cook, Douglas J.; Neville, Allen S.

2015-11-01

Here we present the first proof of an impact origin for the Saqqar circular structure in northwestern Saudi Arabia (Neville et al. ), with an apparent diameter of 34 km, centered at 29°35'N, 38°42'E. The structure is formed in Cambrian-Devonian siliciclastics and is unconformably overlain by undeformed Cretaceous and Paleogene sediments. The age of impact is not well constrained and lies somewhere between 410 and 70 Ma. The subsurface structure is constrained by 2-D reflection seismic profiles and six drilled wells. First-order structural features are a central uplift that rises approximately 2 km above regional datums, surrounded by a ring syncline. The crater rim is defined by circumferential normal faults. The central uplift and ring syncline correspond to a Bouguer gravity high and an annular ring-like low, respectively. The wells were drilled within the central uplift, the deepest among them exceed 2 km depth. Sandstone core samples from these wells show abundant indicators of a shock metamorphic overprint. Planar deformation features (PDFs) were measured with orientations along (0001), {101¯3}, and less frequently along {101¯1} and {101¯4}. Planar fractures (PFs) predominantly occur along (0001) and {101¯1}, and are locally associated with feather features (FFs). In addition, some shocked feldspar grains and strongly deformed mica flakes were found. The recorded shock pressure ranges between 5 and 15 GPa. The preserved level of shock and the absence of an allochthonous crater fill suggest that Saqqar was eroded by 1-2 km between the Devonian and Maastrichtian. The documentation of unequivocal shock features proves the formation of the Saqqar structure by a hypervelocity impact event.

Individual differences in perceptual adaptability of foreign sound categories

PubMed Central

Schertz, Jessamyn; Cho, Taehong; Lotto, Andrew; Warner, Natasha

2015-01-01

Listeners possess a remarkable ability to adapt to acoustic variability in the realization of speech sound categories (e.g. different accents). The current work tests whether non-native listeners adapt their use of acoustic cues in phonetic categorization when they are confronted with changes in the distribution of cues in the input, as native listeners do, and examines to what extent these adaptation patterns are influenced by individual cue-weighting strategies. In line with previous work, native English listeners, who use VOT as a primary cue to the stop voicing contrast (e.g. ‘pa’ vs. ‘ba’), adjusted their use of f0 (a secondary cue to the contrast) when confronted with a noncanonical “accent” in which the two cues gave conflicting information about category membership. Native Korean listeners’ adaptation strategies, while variable, were predictable based on their initial cue weighting strategies. In particular, listeners who used f0 as the primary cue to category membership adjusted their use of VOT (their secondary cue) in response to the noncanonical accent, mirroring the native pattern of “downweighting” a secondary cue. Results suggest that non-native listeners show native-like sensitivity to distributional information in the input and use this information to adjust categorization, just as native listeners do, with the specific trajectory of category adaptation governed by initial cue-weighting strategies. PMID:26404530

Evaluating causes of foreign accent in English sentences spoken by native speakers of Italian differing in age of arrival (AOA) in Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flege, James; Mackay, Ian; Imai, Satomi

2003-04-01

This study evaluated potential causes of foreign accent (FA) by including native Italian (NI) speakers with a later age of arrival (AOA) in Canada than in previous studies. Three NI groups (n=18 each) differing in AOA (means=10, 18, and 26 years) participated. Listeners used a 9-point scale to rate sentences produced by the three NI groups and native English controls. The ratings obtained for all four groups differed significantly. The stronger foreign accents of the AOA-18 than AOA-10 group might be attributed to the passing of a critical period, or to stronger cross-language interference by more robust Italian phonetic categories. The difference might also be attributed to differences in language use. This is because the AOA-10 and AOA-18 groups (but not the AOA-18 and AOA-26 groups) differed significantly in percentage of English and Italian use, length of residence in Canada, and years of education in Canada. None of these explanations will apparently explain the stronger FAs of the AOA-26 than AOA-18 group. The difference between these groups might be attributed to cognitive aging [Hakuta et al., Appl. Psycholinguistics (in press)], which results in gradually less successful second-language acquisition across the adult life span. [Work supported by NIH.

The coordination of boundary tones and its interaction with prominence1

PubMed Central

Katsika, Argyro; Krivokapić, Jelena; Mooshammer, Christine; Tiede, Mark; Goldstein, Louis

2014-01-01

This study investigates the coordination of boundary tones as a function of stress and pitch accent. Boundary tone coordination has not been experimentally investigated previously, and the effect of prominence on this coordination, and whether it is lexical (stress-driven) or phrasal (pitch accent-driven) in nature is unclear. We assess these issues using a variety of syntactic constructions to elicit different boundary tones in an Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) study of Greek. The results indicate that the onset of boundary tones co-occurs with the articulatory target of the final vowel. This timing is further modified by stress, but not by pitch accent: boundary tones are initiated earlier in words with non-final stress than in words with final stress regardless of accentual status. Visual data inspection reveals that phrase-final words are followed by acoustic pauses during which specific articulatory postures occur. Additional analyses show that these postures reach their achievement point at a stable temporal distance from boundary tone onsets regardless of stress position. Based on these results and parallel findings on boundary lengthening reported elsewhere, a novel approach to prosody is proposed within the context of Articulatory Phonology: rather than seeing prosodic (lexical and phrasal) events as independent entities, a set of coordination relations between them is suggested. The implications of this account for prosodic architecture are discussed. PMID:25300341

The influence of lexical characteristics and talker accent on the recognition of English words by speakers of Japanese.

PubMed

Yoneyama, Kiyoko; Munson, Benjamin

2017-02-01

Whether or not the influence of listeners' language proficiency on L2 speech recognition was affected by the structure of the lexicon was examined. This specific experiment examined the effect of word frequency (WF) and phonological neighborhood density (PND) on word recognition in native speakers of English and second-language (L2) speakers of English whose first language was Japanese. The stimuli included English words produced by a native speaker of English and English words produced by a native speaker of Japanese (i.e., with Japanese-accented English). The experiment was inspired by the finding of Imai, Flege, and Walley [(2005). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117, 896-907] that the influence of talker accent on speech intelligibility for L2 learners of English whose L1 is Spanish varies as a function of words' PND. In the currently study, significant interactions between stimulus accentedness and listener group on the accuracy and speed of spoken word recognition were found, as were significant effects of PND and WF on word-recognition accuracy. However, no significant three-way interaction among stimulus talker, listener group, and PND on either measure was found. Results are discussed in light of recent findings on cross-linguistic differences in the nature of the effects of PND on L2 phonological and lexical processing.

Foreign Subtitles Help but Native-Language Subtitles Harm Foreign Speech Perception

PubMed Central

Mitterer, Holger; McQueen, James M.

2009-01-01

Understanding foreign speech is difficult, in part because of unusual mappings between sounds and words. It is known that listeners in their native language can use lexical knowledge (about how words ought to sound) to learn how to interpret unusual speech-sounds. We therefore investigated whether subtitles, which provide lexical information, support perceptual learning about foreign speech. Dutch participants, unfamiliar with Scottish and Australian regional accents of English, watched Scottish or Australian English videos with Dutch, English or no subtitles, and then repeated audio fragments of both accents. Repetition of novel fragments was worse after Dutch-subtitle exposure but better after English-subtitle exposure. Native-language subtitles appear to create lexical interference, but foreign-language subtitles assist speech learning by indicating which words (and hence sounds) are being spoken. PMID:19918371

Finding intonational boundaries using acoustic cues related to the voice source

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Jeung-Yoon; Hasegawa-Johnson, Mark; Cole, Jennifer

2005-10-01

Acoustic cues related to the voice source, including harmonic structure and spectral tilt, were examined for relevance to prosodic boundary detection. The measurements considered here comprise five categories: duration, pitch, harmonic structure, spectral tilt, and amplitude. Distributions of the measurements and statistical analysis show that the measurements may be used to differentiate between prosodic categories. Detection experiments on the Boston University Radio Speech Corpus show equal error detection rates around 70% for accent and boundary detection, using only the acoustic measurements described, without any lexical or syntactic information. Further investigation of the detection results shows that duration and amplitude measurements, and, to a lesser degree, pitch measurements, are useful for detecting accents, while all voice source measurements except pitch measurements are useful for boundary detection.

Accenting Fashion: Cosmetics, Toiletries and Fragrances. Resources in Technology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Threlfall, K. Denise; Ritz, John M.

1994-01-01

Presents information on the manufacture of cosmetics, toiletries, and fragrances. Includes a design brief, giving context, challenge, objectives, material and equipment needs, evaluation, student outcomes, and quiz. (SK)

2D Effective Electron Mass at the Fermi Level in Accumulation and Inversion Layers of MOSFET Nano Devices.

PubMed

Singh, S L; Singh, S B; Ghatak, K P

2018-04-01

In this paper an attempt is made to study the 2D Fermi Level Mass (FLM) in accumulation and inversion layers of nano MOSFET devices made of nonlinear optical, III-V, ternary, Quaternary, II-VI, IV-VI, Ge and stressed materials by formulating 2D carrier dispersion laws on the basis of k → ⋅ p → ⋅ formalism and considering the energy band constants of a particular material. It is observed taking accumulation and inversion layers of Cd3As2, CdGeAs2, InSb, Hg1-xCdxTe and In1-xGaxAsyP1-y lattice matched to InP, CdS, GaSb and Ge as examples that the FLM depends on sub band index for nano MOSFET devices made of Cd3As2 and CdGeAs2 materials which is the characteristic features such 2D systems. Besides, the FLM depends on the scattering potential in all the cases and the same mass changes with increasing surface electric field. The FLM exists in the band gap which is impossible without heavy doping.

CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORETIC BEHAVIOR OF SEVEN SULFONYLUREAS

EPA Science Inventory

The electrophoretic behavior of bensulfuron Me, sulfometuron Me, nicosulfuron (Accent), chlorimuron Et, thifensulfuron Me (Harmony), metsulfuron Me, and chlorsulfuron was studied under capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) conditio...

Psychogenic or neurogenic origin of agrammatism and foreign accent syndrome in a bipolar patient: a case report.

PubMed

Poulin, Stéphane; Macoir, Joël; Paquet, Nancy; Fossard, Marion; Gagnon, Louis

2007-01-04

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare speech disorder characterized by the appearance of a new accent, different from the speaker's native language and perceived as foreign by the speaker and the listener. In most of the reported cases, FAS follows stroke but has also been found following traumatic brain injury, cerebral haemorrhage and multiple sclerosis. In very few cases, FAS was reported in patients presenting with psychiatric disorders but the link between this condition and FAS was confirmed in only one case. In this report, we present the case of FG, a bipolar patient presenting with language disorders characterized by a foreign accent and agrammatism, initially categorized as being of psychogenic origin. The patient had an extensive neuropsychological and language evaluation as well as brain imaging exams. In addition to FAS and agrammatism, FG also showed a working memory deficit and executive dysfunction. Moreover, these clinical signs were related to altered cerebral activity on an FDG-PET scan that showed diffuse hypometabolism in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes bilaterally as well as a focal deficit in the area of the anterior left temporal lobe. When compared to the MRI, these deficits were related to asymmetric atrophy, which was retrospectively seen in the left temporal and frontal opercular/insular region without a focal lesion. To our knowledge, FG is the first case of FAS imaged with an 18F-FDG-PET scan. The nature and type of neuropsychological and linguistic deficits, supported by neuroimaging data, exclude a neurotoxic or neurodegenerative origin for this patient's clinical manifestations. For similar reasons, a psychogenic etiology is also highly improbable. To account for the FAS and agrammatism in FG, various explanations have been ruled out. Because of the focal deficit seen on the brain imaging, involving the left insular and anterior temporal cortex, two brain regions frequently involved in aphasic syndrome but also in FAS, a cerebrovascular origin must be considered the best explanation to account for FG's language deficits.

East and Southern Africa English Accents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bobda, Augustin Simo

2001-01-01

Discusses English pronunciation features in the anglophone countries of East and Southern Africa. Focus is on restructuring of the STRUT vowel to /a/,/i/, and /e/ epenthesis, and short tone groups.(Author/VWL)

Establishing Credibility in the Multicultural Classroom: When the Instructor Speaks with an Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McLean, Chikako Akamatsu

2007-01-01

Applying theories of cultural dimensions, teacher credibility, and nonverbal immediacy, this chapter explores classroom management techniques used by Asian female teachers to establish credibility. (Contains 1 note.)

Cross-cultural perspectives on pitch memory.

PubMed

Trehub, Sandra E; Glenn Schellenberg, E; Nakata, Takayuki

2008-05-01

We examined effects of age and culture on children's memory for the pitch level of familiar music. Canadian 9- and 10-year-olds distinguished the original pitch level of familiar television theme songs from foils that were pitch-shifted by one semitone, whereas 5- to 8-year-olds failed to do so (Experiment 1). In contrast, Japanese 5- and 6-year-olds distinguished the pitch-shifted foils from the originals, performing significantly better than same-age Canadian children (Experiment 2). Moreover, Japanese 6-year-olds were more accurate than their 5-year-old counterparts. These findings challenge the prevailing view of enhanced pitch memory during early life. We consider factors that may account for Japanese children's superior performance such as their use of a pitch accent language (Japanese) rather than a stress accent language (English) and their experience with musical pitch labels.

Study of accent-based music speech protocol development for improving voice problems in stroke patients with mixed dysarthria.

PubMed

Kim, Soo Ji; Jo, Uiri

2013-01-01

Based on the anatomical and functional commonality between singing and speech, various types of musical elements have been employed in music therapy research for speech rehabilitation. This study was to develop an accent-based music speech protocol to address voice problems of stroke patients with mixed dysarthria. Subjects were 6 stroke patients with mixed dysarthria and they received individual music therapy sessions. Each session was conducted for 30 minutes and 12 sessions including pre- and post-test were administered for each patient. For examining the protocol efficacy, the measures of maximum phonation time (MPT), fundamental frequency (F0), average intensity (dB), jitter, shimmer, noise to harmonics ratio (NHR), and diadochokinesis (DDK) were compared between pre and post-test and analyzed with a paired sample t-test. The results showed that the measures of MPT, F0, dB, and sequential motion rates (SMR) were significantly increased after administering the protocol. Also, there were statistically significant differences in the measures of shimmer, and alternating motion rates (AMR) of the syllable /K$\\inve$/ between pre- and post-test. The results indicated that the accent-based music speech protocol may improve speech motor coordination including respiration, phonation, articulation, resonance, and prosody of patients with dysarthria. This suggests the possibility of utilizing the music speech protocol to maximize immediate treatment effects in the course of a long-term treatment for patients with dysarthria.

Dimension-based statistical learning affects both speech perception and production

PubMed Central

Lehet, Matthew; Holt, Lori L.

2016-01-01

Multiple acoustic dimensions signal speech categories. However, dimensions vary in their informativeness; some are more diagnostic of category membership than others. Speech categorization reflects these dimensional regularities such that diagnostic dimensions carry more “perceptual weight” and more effectively signal category membership to native listeners. Yet, perceptual weights are malleable. When short-term experience deviates from long-term language norms, such as in a foreign accent, the perceptual weight of acoustic dimensions in signaling speech category membership rapidly adjusts. The present study investigated whether rapid adjustments in listeners’ perceptual weights in response to speech that deviates from the norms also affects listeners’ own speech productions. In a word recognition task, the correlation between two acoustic dimensions signaling consonant categories, fundamental frequency (F0) and voice onset time (VOT), matched the correlation typical of English, then shifted to an “artificial accent” that reversed the relationship, and then shifted back. Brief, incidental exposure to the artificial accent caused participants to down-weight perceptual reliance on F0, consistent with previous research. Throughout the task, participants were intermittently prompted with pictures to produce these same words. In the block in which listeners heard the artificial accent with a reversed F0 x VOT correlation, F0 was a less robust cue to voicing in listeners’ own speech productions. The statistical regularities of short-term speech input affect both speech perception and production, as evidenced via shifts in how acoustic dimensions are weighted. PMID:27666146

Social dominance orientation, nonnative accents, and hiring recommendations.

PubMed

Hansen, Karolina; Dovidio, John F

2016-10-01

Discrimination against nonnative speakers is widespread and largely socially acceptable. Nonnative speakers are evaluated negatively because accent is a sign that they belong to an outgroup and because understanding their speech requires unusual effort from listeners. The present research investigated intergroup bias, based on stronger support for hierarchical relations between groups (social dominance orientation [SDO]), as a predictor of hiring recommendations of nonnative speakers. In an online experiment using an adaptation of the thin-slices methodology, 65 U.S. adults (54% women; 80% White; Mage = 35.91, range = 18-67) heard a recording of a job applicant speaking with an Asian (Mandarin Chinese) or a Latino (Spanish) accent. Participants indicated how likely they would be to recommend hiring the speaker, answered questions about the text, and indicated how difficult it was to understand the applicant. Independent of objective comprehension, participants high in SDO reported that it was more difficult to understand a Latino speaker than an Asian speaker. SDO predicted hiring recommendations of the speakers, but this relationship was mediated by the perception that nonnative speakers were difficult to understand. This effect was stronger for speakers from lower status groups (Latinos relative to Asians) and was not related to objective comprehension. These findings suggest a cycle of prejudice toward nonnative speakers: Not only do perceptions of difficulty in understanding cause prejudice toward them, but also prejudice toward low-status groups can lead to perceived difficulty in understanding members of these groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Lighting the Learning Environment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fielding, Randall

2000-01-01

Explores the benefits and pitfalls of day lighting, indirect light, and full-spectrum lamps for general illumination and accent lighting in classrooms. Discussions include lighting considerations in areas where computers are used and fixture cost factors versus efficiency. (GR)

Calendars in the Moldavian Soviet Republic and Republic of Moldova

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gaina, Alex

2007-10-01

A critical overview of the National Calendars (former Calendars), published in the Moldavian S.S.R. - Republic of Moldova is given, in which one accent on biographies of scientists and not on science itself.

The signalling of German rising-falling intonation categories--the interplay of synchronization, shape, and height.

PubMed

Niebuhr, Oliver

2007-01-01

Based on the phonology of the Kiel Intonation Model (KIM), a tripartite opposition of German intonation is investigated: early, medial, and late peaks. These intonation categories, which can be projected onto H + L*, H*, and L* + H in the AM framework, are described in the KIM as rising-falling F(0) peak patterns differentiated by their synchronization with the accented-vowel onset. Perception experiments were carried out, showing that the function-based identification of the peak categories is not only influenced by peak synchronization, but also by peak shape and height. While the complete spectrum of findings is not covered by the current phonological modelling, the findings corroborate the existence of all three categories in German intonation and support the idea that the timing of the peak movements with regard to the accented vowel is important for their perceptual differentiation.

Anticipatory effects of intonation: Eye movements during instructed visual search

PubMed Central

Ito, Kiwako; Speer, Shari R

2007-01-01

Three eye-tracking experiments investigated the role of pitch accents during online discourse comprehension. Participants faced a grid with ornaments, and followed pre-recorded instructions such as “Next, hang the blue ball” to decorate holiday trees. Experiment 1 demonstrated a processing advantage for felicitous as compared to infelicitous uses of L+H* on the adjective noun pair (e.g. blue ball followed by GREEN ball vs. green BALL). Experiment 2 confirmed that L+H* on a contrastive adjective led to ‘anticipatory’ fixations, and demonstrated a “garden path” effect for infelicitous L+H* in sequences with no discourse contrast (e.g. blue angel followed by GREEN ball resulted in erroneous fixations to the cell of angels). Experiment 3 examined listeners’ sensitivity to coherence between pitch accents assigned to discourse markers such as ‘And then,’ and those assigned to the target object noun phrase. PMID:19190719

Cross-linguistic differences in prosodic cues to syntactic disambiguation in German and English

PubMed Central

O’Brien, Mary Grantham; Jackson, Carrie N.; Gardner, Christine E.

2012-01-01

This study examined whether late-learning English-German L2 learners and late-learning German-English L2 learners use prosodic cues to disambiguate temporarily ambiguous L1 and L2 sentences during speech production. Experiments 1a and 1b showed that English-German L2 learners and German-English L2 learners used a pitch rise and pitch accent to disambiguate prepositional phrase-attachment sentences in German. However, the same participants, as well as monolingual English speakers, only used pitch accent to disambiguate similar English sentences. Taken together, these results indicate the L2 learners used prosody to disambiguate sentences in both of their languages and did not fully transfer cues to disambiguation from their L1 to their L2. The results have implications for the acquisition of L2 prosody and the interaction between prosody and meaning in L2 production. PMID:24453383

Listening to accented speech in a second language: First language and age of acquisition effects.

PubMed

Larraza, Saioa; Samuel, Arthur G; Oñederra, Miren Lourdes

2016-11-01

Bilingual speakers must acquire the phonemic inventory of 2 languages and need to recognize spoken words cross-linguistically; a demanding job potentially made even more difficult due to dialectal variation, an intrinsic property of speech. The present work examines how bilinguals perceive second language (L2) accented speech and where accommodation to dialectal variation takes place. Dialectal effects were analyzed at different levels: An AXB discrimination task tapped phonetic-phonological representations, an auditory lexical-decision task tested for effects in accessing the lexicon, and an auditory priming task looked for semantic processing effects. Within that central focus, the goal was to see whether perceptual adjustment at a given level is affected by 2 main linguistic factors: bilinguals' first language and age of acquisition of the L2. Taking advantage of the cross-linguistic situation of the Basque language, bilinguals with different first languages (Spanish or French) and ages of acquisition of Basque (simultaneous, early, or late) were tested. Our use of multiple tasks with multiple types of bilinguals demonstrates that in spite of very similar discrimination capacity, French-Basque versus Spanish-Basque simultaneous bilinguals' performance on lexical access significantly differed. Similarly, results of the early and late groups show that the mapping of phonetic-phonological information onto lexical representations is a more demanding process that accentuates non-native processing difficulties. L1 and AoA effects were more readily overcome in semantic processing; accented variants regularly created priming effects in the different groups of bilinguals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Current Research in Southeast Asia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beh, Yolanda

1992-01-01

Summaries of eight language-related research projects are presented from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Topics include a sociolinguistic profile, teacher and learner views of language lessons, Malay-accented English and employability, reading difficulties, language culture disjunction, placement interviews, and…

Designing acoustics for linguistically diverse classrooms: Effects of background noise, reverberation and talker foreign accent on speech comprehension by native and non-native English-speaking listeners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peng, Zhao Ellen

The current classroom acoustics standard (ANSI S12.60-2010) recommends core learning spaces not to exceed background noise level (BNL) of 35 dBA and reverberation time (RT) of 0.6 second, based on speech intelligibility performance mainly by the native English-speaking population. Existing literature has not correlated these recommended values well with student learning outcomes. With a growing population of non-native English speakers in American classrooms, the special needs for perceiving degraded speech among non-native listeners, either due to realistic room acoustics or talker foreign accent, have not been addressed in the current standard. This research seeks to investigate the effects of BNL and RT on the comprehension of English speech from native English and native Mandarin Chinese talkers as perceived by native and non-native English listeners, and to provide acoustic design guidelines to supplement the existing standard. This dissertation presents two studies on the effects of RT and BNL on more realistic classroom learning experiences. How do native and non-native English-speaking listeners perform on speech comprehension tasks under adverse acoustic conditions, if the English speech is produced by talkers of native English (Study 1) versus native Mandarin Chinese (Study 2)? Speech comprehension materials were played back in a listening chamber to individual listeners: native and non-native English-speaking in Study 1; native English, native Mandarin Chinese, and other non-native English-speaking in Study 2. Each listener was screened for baseline English proficiency level, and completed dual tasks simultaneously involving speech comprehension and adaptive dot-tracing under 15 acoustic conditions, comprised of three BNL conditions (RC-30, 40, and 50) and five RT scenarios (0.4 to 1.2 seconds). The results show that BNL and RT negatively affect both objective performance and subjective perception of speech comprehension, more severely for non-native listeners than for native listeners. While the presence of foreign accent is generally detrimental, an interlanguage benefit was identified on both speech comprehension and the self-report frustration and perceived performance ratings, specifically for non-native listeners with matched foreign accent as the talker. Suggested design guidelines for BNL and RT are identified for attaining optimal speech comprehension performance to improve classroom acoustics for the non-native English-speaking population.

Name-changes in post-war France: the traumatic experiences of the Shoah and its consequences on the second and third generation with reference to the example of name-changes.

PubMed

Masson, Céline

2013-02-01

Starting from our collective initiative to work on the theme of 'The strength of the name', which has given rise both to a conference as well as a documentary called: And their name, they have changed it, I have sought to draw attention in this article to the difference between proper names, patronymic names, and the so-called Name-of-the-father. Pronouncing names involves designating the languages of names, which also refer to the accents of names, since I have proposed the idea that each name is evocative of a language, and that changing it also modifies the language of the name. I have approached the question of the name by considering cases of name-changes, essential with regard to Ashkenazi Jewish families who changed their name after the Shoah, along with the trauma that numerous Jewish families suffered after the war. French jurisprudence does not permit reversion to the original name, once it has been changed to a more French-sounding name, owing to the immutability of the name and the foreign sound of the names of origin. Copyright © 2013 Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Site-specific recoil-induced effects on inner-shell photoionization of linear triatomic molecules: N 1 s photoelectron spectra of N2 O

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krivosenko, Yu. S.; Pavlychev, A. A.

2016-11-01

We investigate hard X-ray ionization of linear triatomic molecules accenting recoil-induced effects on the dynamics of molecular frame. This dynamics is studied within the two-springs and harmonic approximations. The mode-channel relationship connecting the excitations of vibrational, rotational and translational degrees of freedom with the Σ → Σ and Σ → Π photoionization channels is applied to compute the N 1s-1 photoelectron spectra of molecular N2 O for various photon energies. The distinct ionized-site- and molecular-orientation-specific changes in the vibration structure of the 1 s photoelectron lines of terminal and central nitrogen atoms are revealed and discussed.

Estudios de Linguistica y Sociolinguistica (Studies in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cruz, Gerardo Lopez, Comp.; Zamarron, Jose Luis Moctezuma, Comp.

This book contains the following articles on research in the field of general linguistics and sociolinguistics: "Papago Plurals" (Jane H. Hill, Ofella Zepeda); "Typological Characteristics of the Yumanas Languages" (Mauricio J. Mixco); "Observations on Accent in Yutoaztec" (Leopoldo Valinas); "Development of…

Word Recognition Reflects Dimension-Based Statistical Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Idemaru, Kaori; Holt, Lori L.

2011-01-01

Speech processing requires sensitivity to long-term regularities of the native language yet demands listeners to flexibly adapt to perturbations that arise from talker idiosyncrasies such as nonnative accent. The present experiments investigate whether listeners exhibit "dimension-based statistical learning" of correlations between acoustic…

Gradient Phonological Inconsistency Affects Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Muench, Kristin L.; Creel, Sarah C.

2013-01-01

Learners frequently experience phonologically inconsistent input, such as exposure to multiple accents. Yet, little is known about the consequences of phonological inconsistency for language learning. The current study examines vocabulary acquisition with different degrees of phonological inconsistency, ranging from no inconsistency (e.g., both…

The Twenty-First LACUS Forum, 1994.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Powell, Mava Jo, Ed.

Fifty-three papers on linguistic theory and language research, including a number of prize-winning essays, address these topics: aspects of discourse analysis; bilingualism; Chinese modal verbs; early bilingual speech; linguistic metatheory; music and accent discrepancy; diphthongs; hiatus; vowel patterns; suprasegmentals; neologisms; aspects of…

Accent on Foreign Languages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McWilliams, Larry; And Others

A guide on foreign languages is presented for counselors, administrators, teachers, and parents. An introductory section discusses reasons for foreign language study, college entrance or exit requirements, foreign language and SAT scores, careers that use foreign languages, myths about learning foreign languages, and information about French,…

Cultural Collisions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nahal, Anita

2005-01-01

Much has been written about the sometimes contentious relationship between international teaching assistants (ITAs) and their American students. ITAs sometimes have unfamiliar accents, teaching styles and cultural nuances that can create an environment where teaching and learning become a challenge. In an ideal classroom, both the student and…

The impact of parameters of store illumination on food shopper response.

PubMed

Berčík, Jakub; Horská, Elena; Wang, Regina W Y; Chen, Ying-Chun

2016-11-01

Customer behavior in sales areas is strongly influenced by the perception of surroundings and feelings of well-being. By using dynamic retail solutions of basic, accent and dramatic lighting it is possible to attract attention, create a unique in-store environment and give customers a reason to stay and return to the store. The simplest and also the most successful method to reach customer attention in food selection (buying) process is through eye-catchingly illuminated visuals of products. Visual senses has evolved to top ranks in the sensory hierarchy, therefore visual stimuli have a tendency to overcome all other senses. The paper deals with a comprehensive interdisciplinary research of the influence of light and color on the emotional state of consumers (valence) on the food market. It integrates the measurement of light intensity, color temperature or emitted color spectrum in grocery stores, recognition of emotional response and the time of its occurrence among respondents due to different lighting types and color in simulated laboratory conditions. The research is focused on accent lighting in the segment of fresh unpackaged food. Using a mobile 16-channel electroencephalograph (EEG equipment) from EPOC company and a mini camera we observed the response time and the emotional status (valence), in order to reveal true consumer preferences in different lighting conditions (color temperature and color rendering index) and their non-traditional color (yellow, purple, red, blue and green) for the selected food type. The paper suggests possibilities for rational combination of the effective, efficient and energy-saving accent lighting, by which the retailer can achieve not only an eye-catching and attractive presentation of merchandised products, but also significant savings within operating their stores. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Imitation, Awareness, and Folk Linguistic Artifacts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brunner, Elizabeth Gentry

2010-01-01

Imitations are sophisticated performances displaying regular patterns. The study of imitation allows linguists to understand speakers' perceptions of sociolinguistic variation. In this dissertation, I analyze imitations of non-native accents in order to answer two questions: what can imitation reveal about perception, and how are "folk linguistic…

45 CFR 1626.6 - Verification of citizenship.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 4 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Verification of citizenship. 1626.6 Section 1626.6 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION RESTRICTIONS... citizenship. A recipient shall not consider factors such as a person's accent, limited English-speaking...

45 CFR 1626.6 - Verification of citizenship.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 4 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Verification of citizenship. 1626.6 Section 1626.6 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION RESTRICTIONS... citizenship. A recipient shall not consider factors such as a person's accent, limited English-speaking...

Student Perceptions of the Acceptance of Communication Diverseness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Barbara D.

2006-01-01

Transacting business with individuals who may speak English fluently but have an accent is common today. Use of translation services such as in transportation facilities, government offices, educational institutions, and manufacturers' instruction manuals is on the increase. Consequently, linguistic diversity issues require relevant academic…

Interactive Presentation of Content

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Magdin, Martin; Turcáni, Milan; Vrábel, Marek

2009-01-01

In the paper we discus about design of universal environment for solution of creating effective multimedia applications with accent on the implementation of interactive elements with the possibility of using the adaptive systems (AS). We also discuss about possibilities of offline presentation of this interactive multimedia adaptive animations…

45 CFR 1626.6 - Verification of citizenship.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Verification of citizenship. 1626.6 Section 1626.6 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION RESTRICTIONS... citizenship. A recipient shall not consider factors such as a person's accent, limited English-speaking...

45 CFR 1626.6 - Verification of citizenship.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 4 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Verification of citizenship. 1626.6 Section 1626.6 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION RESTRICTIONS... citizenship. A recipient shall not consider factors such as a person's accent, limited English-speaking...

The timing of language learning shapes brain structure associated with articulation.

PubMed

Berken, Jonathan A; Gracco, Vincent L; Chen, Jen-Kai; Klein, Denise

2016-09-01

We compared the brain structure of highly proficient simultaneous (two languages from birth) and sequential (second language after age 5) bilinguals, who differed only in their degree of native-like accent, to determine how the brain develops when a skill is acquired from birth versus later in life. For the simultaneous bilinguals, gray matter density was increased in the left putamen, as well as in the left posterior insula, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and left and right occipital cortex. For the sequential bilinguals, gray matter density was increased in the bilateral premotor cortex. Sequential bilinguals with better accents also showed greater gray matter density in the left putamen, and in several additional brain regions important for sensorimotor integration and speech-motor control. Our findings suggest that second language learning results in enhanced brain structure of specific brain areas, which depends on whether two languages are learned simultaneously or sequentially, and on the extent to which native-like proficiency is acquired.

Titan Accent Mark

NASA Image and Video Library

2015-10-05

A coincidence of viewing angle makes Pandora appear to be hovering over Titan, almost like an accent mark. Little Pandora is much closer to Cassini than hazy Titan in this view. (Titan is nearly three times farther away.) Even so, Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometers across) dwarfs Pandora (50 miles or 81 kilometers across). This gives us some sense of the diversity in sizes, and shapes, of Saturn's many moons. North on Titan is up and rotated 19 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 4, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) from Titan. Image scale is 7 miles (12 kilometers) per pixel on Titan. Pandora is at a distance of 436,000 miles (698,000 kilometers) away from the spacecraft. The scale on Pandora is about 3 miles (4 kilometers) per pixel. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18338

Talker-specific learning in amnesia: Insight into mechanisms of adaptive speech perception

PubMed Central

Trude, Alison M.; Duff, Melissa C.; Brown-Schmidt, Sarah

2014-01-01

A hallmark of human speech perception is the ability to comprehend speech quickly and effortlessly despite enormous variability across talkers. However, current theories of speech perception do not make specific claims about the memory mechanisms involved in this process. To examine whether declarative memory is necessary for talker-specific learning, we tested the ability of amnesic patients with severe declarative memory deficits to learn and distinguish the accents of two unfamiliar talkers by monitoring their eye-gaze as they followed spoken instructions. Analyses of the time-course of eye fixations showed that amnesic patients rapidly learned to distinguish these accents and tailored perceptual processes to the voice of each talker. These results demonstrate that declarative memory is not necessary for this ability and points to the involvement of non-declarative memory mechanisms. These results are consistent with findings that other social and accommodative behaviors are preserved in amnesia and contribute to our understanding of the interactions of multiple memory systems in the use and understanding of spoken language. PMID:24657480

ACCENT ON ACCESS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

CHATELAIN, LEON, JR.; AND OTHERS

EMPHASIS IS GIVEN ON ACCESSIBILITY TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS BY THE HANDICAPPED. ATTENTION IS DIRECTED TO THIS SUBJECT INASMUCH AS ARCHITECTS GENERALLY HAVE OVERLOOKED THE PROBLEM. HENCE, PUBLIC BUILDINGS ARE NOT TRULY AVAILABLE TO THE TOTAL PUBLIC. IN RECENT YEARS, HOWEVER, LEGISLATION HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY MORE COMMON TO CORRECT THE SITUATION. THE…

Mispronunciation Detection for Language Learning and Speech Recognition Adaptation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ge, Zhenhao

2013-01-01

The areas of "mispronunciation detection" (or "accent detection" more specifically) within the speech recognition community are receiving increased attention now. Two application areas, namely language learning and speech recognition adaptation, are largely driving this research interest and are the focal points of this work.…

On Observing World English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Urdang, Lawrence

1990-01-01

Reviews the current state of World English. Subjects addressed include standard accents and dialects, prejudicial attitudes toward nonstandard "local" usages, the use of English as the language of diplomacy, American influences on the language, and the fracturing of English in non-English-speaking countries around the world. (17 references) (JL)

Topics in Finance Part IV--Valuation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laux, Judy

2010-01-01

This article looks at security valuation from the perspective of the financial manager, accenting the relationships to stockholder wealth maximization (SWM), risk and return, and potential agency problems. It also covers some of the pertinent literature related to how investors and creditors price the stocks and bonds of corporations.

Topics in Finance Part III--Leverage

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laux, Judy

2010-01-01

This article investigates operating and financial leverage from the perspective of the financial manager, accenting the relationships to stockholder wealth maximization (SWM), risk and return, and potential agency problems. It also covers some of the pertinent literature related specifically to the implications of operating and financial risk and…

The Role of Phonetics in the Teaching of Foreign Languages in India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bansal, R. K.

1974-01-01

Oral work is considered the most effective way of laying the foundations for language proficiency. Recognition and production of vowels and consonants, use of a pronouncing dictionary, and practice in accent rhythm and intonation should all be included in a pronunciation course. (SC)

Telerobotics control of ExoGeoLab lander instruments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lillo, A.; Foing, B. H.

2017-09-01

This document is about the improvement of the autonomy and capabilities of the prototype lander ExoGeoLab, designed to host remote controlled instruments for analogue Moon/Mars manned missions. Accent is put on new exploration capabilities for the lander to reduce the need for EVA.

Chemical and physical characterization of fertile soil-derived ice residuals from the Fifth International Ice Nucleation workshop in November 2014 (FIN-1)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hiranuma, Naruki; Möhler, Ottmar; Kulkarni, Gourihar; Laskin, Alexander; Zelenyuk, Alla

2017-04-01

The climate impact of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) derived from fertile soils on global scale has been recently accented by their diversity and efficient freezing ability. However, their representation in atmospheric models is limited in part due to our incomplete knowledge of fertile soil composition, abundance and associated sensitivity to heterogeneous ice nucleation. To fill given knowledge gap, we have investigated a unique/rich set of ice crystal residual samples derived from a variety of fertile soil samples obtained through our participation in the Fifth International Ice Nucleation workshop (FIN-1). FIN-1 was held at the Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere (AIDA) facility at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), which is the world's foremost facility for studying ice clouds in a controlled setting, in November 2014 to comprehensively study the heterogeneous ice formation in the atmosphere with collaboration among 10 international groups that were funded through European consortium, NSF and USDOE agencies. Here, we will present the nanoscale surface morphology and elemental/molecular composition of ice crystal residuals as well as that of total aerosol samples from the FIN-1 activity to identify and classify any specific mineral and organic inclusions that may have promoted nucleation of ice. Comparing total aerosols to residuals will shed light on the composition and abundance of certain particle types in INPs. Acknowledgements: The valuable contributions of the INUIT (Ice Nuclei Research Unit) collaborators, the FIN organizers, their institutions and the FIN-1 Workshop science team are gratefully acknowledged.

Stand and deliver: the art of speaking in public.

PubMed

Mariano, Carmen M

2002-01-01

Anyone who took Latin in high school learned that many English words are derived from Latin roots. One such word is auditorium. It comes from the Latin words audio, which means "to hear," and taurus, which means "the bull." Therefore, an auditorium is a place where people go to hear the bull. This article is written to change that. It is written to end the bull. Carmen Mariano has spoken before audiences in seven states and five countries. He has a master's degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from Boston College. Neither degree has cured Carmen of his Boston accent, but both have taught him something about the power of the spoken word. Carmen shares that knowledge, and that power, in this article. And that is no bull.

A Glimpse into the Cultural Foundations of Open Innovation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Formica, Piero

2018-01-01

In the knowledge economy, greater togetherness is the prerequisite for innovating and having more: selflessness extends scope while selfishness increases limitations. But human beings are not automatically attracted to innovation: between the two lies culture, and cultural values vary widely, with the egoistic accent or the altruistic intonation…

Derivational Suffixes as Cues to Stress Position in Reading Greek

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grimani, Aikaterini; Protopapas, Athanassios

2017-01-01

Background: In languages with lexical stress, reading aloud must include stress assignment. Stress information sources across languages include word-final letter sequences. Here, we examine whether such sequences account for stress assignment in Greek and whether this is attributable to absolute rules involving accenting morphemes or to…

Phonetics and Phonology of Thematic Contrast in German

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braun, Bettina

2006-01-01

It is acknowledged that contrast plays an important role in understanding discourse and information structure. While it is commonly assumed that contrast can be marked by intonation only, our understanding of the intonational realization of contrast is limited. For German there is mainly introspective evidence that the rising theme accent (or…

Efficacy of Accent Modification Training for International Medical Professionals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khurana, Poonam; Huang, Edgar

2013-01-01

International medical graduates (IMGs) comprise 26% of the U.S. physician work force. While IMGs bring all their knowledge and expertise, their pronunciation and intonation patterns often become a barrier in their ability to be understood. This breakdown in communication can affect physician-patient or physician-staff understanding and hence…

Locating Gender Bias and Systemic Discrimination in Public Schooling Bureaucracy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jull, Stephen K.

2002-01-01

The current bureaucratic model used in administering public education in Canada displays a systemic gender bias that results from sociopolitical-cultural assumptions concerning gender roles, capitalism, hierarchy, and patriarchy. A proposed neo-bureaucracy would replace individual ownership of success with an accent on teamwork and group…

Intensity Accents in French 2 Year Olds' Speech.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, George D.

The acoustic features and functions of accentuation in French are discussed, and features of accentuation in the speech of French 2-year-olds are explored. The four major acoustic features used to signal accentual distinctions are fundamental frequency of voicing, duration of segments and syllables, intensity of segments and syllables, and…

The Effect of Phonological Variation on Adult Learner Comprehension.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eisenstein, Miriam; Berkowitz, Diana

1981-01-01

Reports on a study of the relationship of English phonological variation to intelligibility for adult second language learners of English. Indicates that learners tested on their ability to understand working-class (New Yorkese), educated (Standard English), and Foreign-accented speakers of English found the standard more intelligible than the…

Native Reactions to Non-Native Speech: A Review of Empirical Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eisenstein, Miriam

1983-01-01

Recent research on native speakers' reactions to nonnative speech that views listeners, speakers, and language from a variety of perspectives using both objective and subjective research paradigms is reviewed. Studies of error gravity, relative intelligibility of language samples, the role of accent, speakers' characteristics, and context in which…

Language Attitudes in Guangzhou, China.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalmar, Ivan; And Others

1987-01-01

Presents comparison of Cantonese and non-Cantonese students' expressed judgments of two samples of speech produced by same person but presented as coming from two different speakers. Although all students thought the better speaker would have a better chance for social advancement, Cantonese subjects who spoke with heavy Cantonese accents were…

Music: Comprehensive Musicianship Program. Grade 6.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burton, Leon H., Ed.; Thomson, William, Ed.

Forty-nine music lessons for use in sixth grade classes are presented. A number of these lessons feature songs and musical instruments from or about Hawaii, and lessons stress learning about tempos, accents, meters, notes, and rhythm patterns. The lessons introduce the history of instruments such as the ukulele, recorder, rhythm instruments, and…

Anticipatory Effects of Intonation: Eye Movements during Instructed Visual Search

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ito, Kiwako; Speer, Shari R.

2008-01-01

Three eye-tracking experiments investigated the role of pitch accents during online discourse comprehension. Participants faced a grid with ornaments, and followed prerecorded instructions such as "Next, hang the blue ball" to decorate holiday trees. Experiment 1 demonstrated a processing advantage for felicitous as compared to infelicitous uses…

Writing in Nonstandard English. Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 67.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taavitsainen, Irma, Ed.; Melchers, Gunnel, Ed.; Pahta, Paivi, Ed.

Chapters in this book include the following: "Dickens as Sociolinguist: Dialect in 'David Copperfield'" (Patricia Poussa); "Contemporary Irish Writing and a Model of Speech Realism (John M. Kirk); "Dialect and Accent in Jim Cartwright's Play "Road" as Seen Through Erving Goffman's Theory on Footing" (Marion Fields); "The Representation of…

Students' Perceptions of Their Readiness for Community College Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Millar, Brad; Tanner, David

2011-01-01

Although the drop-out problem is particularly acute at the community college, there is very little research on student attrition that is specific to community colleges. Differences between the community college and four-year institutions stems are accented by entrance requirements that are traditionally much more rigorous at traditional colleges…

A Study of Semantic Features: Electrophysiological Correlates.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wetzel, Frederick; And Others

This study investigates whether words differing in a single contrastive semantic feature (positive/negative) can be discriminated by auditory evoked responses (AERs). Ten right-handed college students were provided with auditory stimuli consisting of 20 relational words (more/less; high/low, etc.) spoken with a middle American accent and computer…

Comparing Identification of Standardized and Regionally Valid Vowels

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Richard; Souza, Pamela

2012-01-01

Purpose: In perception studies, it is common to use vowel stimuli from standardized recordings or synthetic stimuli created using values from well-known published research. Although the use of standardized stimuli is convenient, unconsidered dialect and regional accent differences may introduce confounding effects. The goal of this study was to…

Age as a Factor in Ethnic Accent Identification in Singapore

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tan, Ying Ying

2012-01-01

This study seeks to answer two research questions. First, can listeners distinguish the ethnicity of the speakers on the basis of voice quality alone? Second, do demographic differences among the listeners affect discriminability? A simple but carefully designed and controlled ethnic identification test was carried out on 325 Singaporean…

Theory of Mind and Children's Trait Attributions about Average and Typically Stigmatized Peers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lapan, Candace; Boseovski, Janet J.

2016-01-01

Previous research indicates that children hold negative beliefs about peers with foreign accents, physical disabilities, and people who are obese. The current study examined skills associated with individual differences in children's social judgements about these typically stereotyped groups. Theory of mind, memory, and cognitive inhibition were…

SAFETY GUIDES FOR YOU--IN THE PRIMARY GRADES.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

WALKER, LUVERNE CRABTREE

THIS SAFETY INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE FOR PRIMARY-GRADE TEACHERS PRESENTS NINE DIFFERENT SAFETY UNITS, INCLUDING TRAFFIC SAFETY, PLAYTIME SAFETY, SAFE EATING AND DRINKING HABITS, SAFE CLOTHING, HOME SAFETY, ANIMAL SAFETY, CIVIL DEFENSE SECURITY, AND TESTING SAFETY PRACTICES. EACH UNIT STRESSES THE REASONS FOR ACCENTING SAFETY, WHAT TO KNOW AND DO, AND…

Preverbal Infants Infer Third-Party Social Relationships Based on Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liberman, Zoe; Woodward, Amanda L.; Kinzler, Katherine D.

2017-01-01

Language provides rich social information about its speakers. For instance, adults and children make inferences about a speaker's social identity, geographic origins, and group membership based on her language and accent. Although infants prefer speakers of familiar languages (Kinzler, Dupoux, & Spelke, 2007), little is known about the…

Mimicking Accented Speech as L2 Phonological Awareness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mora, Joan C.; Rochdi, Youssef; Kivistö-de Souza, Hanna

2014-01-01

This study investigated Spanish-speaking learners' awareness of a non-distinctive phonetic difference between Spanish and English through a delayed mimicry paradigm. We assessed learners' speech production accuracy through voice onset time (VOT) duration measures in word-initial pre-vocalic /p t k/ in Spanish and English words, and in Spanish…

Tuttitalia: The Italian Journal of the Association for Language Learning, 1994-1997.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bartrum, Anna, Ed.; Wilkin, Andrew, Ed.

1997-01-01

This journal focuses on the learning and teaching of Italian as a foreign language. Selected articles include the following: "Immigrant Women in Bologna: Themes and Problems"; "But Those Cursed Accents: Where Did They Go?"; "Modern Languages in the Primary School: The Scottish Experience"; "Suggested Strategies…

Humanities-Oriented Accents in Teaching Mathematics to Prospective Primary School Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tabov, Jordan; Gortcheva, Iordanka

2016-01-01

Our research includes undergraduate students who major in primary school education. Their academic background is prevailingly in the humanities. This poses specific demands on their mathematics instruction at university. To attract them to their mathematics course and raise its effectiveness, we use a series of activities. Writing assignments…

Accent on Social Philosophy: The Certification Bugaboo

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mattran, Kenneth

1976-01-01

The author briefly discusses the pros and cons of the practice of certifying people to perform educational tasks, and concludes that credentialling is a necessity which adult educators should make the best of by ensuring that certification has substance enough to assure those whom they serve of practitioners' professional calibre. (AJ)

Perceived Foreign Accent: Extended Stays Abroad, Level of Instruction, and Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinsen, Rob A.; Alvord, Scott M.; Tanner, Joshua

2014-01-01

Studies have examined various factors that affect pronunciation including phonetic context, style variation, first language transfer, and experience abroad. A plethora of research has also linked motivation to higher levels of proficiency in the second language. The present study uses native speaker ratings and multiple regression analysis to…

Regional accents. The RCN policy unit compares NHS plans across the UK.

PubMed

2003-09-01

All three NHS plans that form the modernization agenda can be characterised by three themes: Centralization Partnership Culture change. Despite the absence of a Northern Ireland plan, the issues and themes that emerge in the other three plans are prevalent in Northern Ireland too. CENTRALISATION: The tendency to centralize has led to a greater involvement of health ministers, rather than civil servants, in the day-to-day running of the health services, but ministers are preparing to hand over operational control of new policies. PARTNERSHIP: Partnership underpins many of the new structural arrangements, with an emphasis on increased inter-professional working and education, but merged health and social care structures create funding tensions. CULTURE CHANGE: Culture change focuses on creating patient-centred care and dismantling the power of the health professions, while the curbing of professional autonomy is central to enhancing and improving patients' overall experience of the NHS. The cumulative effect of these developments is likely to lead to increasing debate about the future funding, provision and accountability of the NHS as regional and country differences continue to develop.

Intonational Meaning in Institutional Settings: The Role of Syntagmatic Relations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wichmann, Anne

2010-01-01

This paper addresses the power of intonation to convey interpersonal or attitudinal meaning. Speakers have been shown to accommodate to each other in the course of conversation, and this convergence may be perceived as a sign of empathy. Accommodation often involves paradigmatic choices--choosing the same words, gestures, regional accent or…

Renaissance Woman: A Portrait of Carolyn Brodie

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kenney, Brian

2008-01-01

In this article, the author profiles Carolyn Brodie, winner of this year's Scholastic Library Publishing Award. One can be completely charmed by Brodie's soft-spoken Arkansas accent, warm demeanor, and genteel manners. While the graciousness is authentic, the woman behind it is fearless, with a clear vision for youth services, remarkable tenacity,…

A New Look at a Cause of Foreign Accent.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erazmus, Edward T.

1982-01-01

The theory of articulatory setting, originally published in 1964, is outlined and expanded on, drawing on experiences with Polish and English. The theory proposes that each language has a unique configuration of articulators accounting for or establishing the natural sounds of that language that give it phonological unity and differentiate it from…

Proceedings of the National Academy of Education, Volume 6, 1979.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Academy of Education, Washington, DC.

As the title suggests, this publication reviews and accents the activities which took place under the aegis of the National Academy of Education during 1979. The Annual Report of the President and reports of the Spring and Fall meetings, respectively, outline: events which occurred during the year; studies, books, reviews and research either…

Teacher Teams Help Schools Turn Around

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sawchuk, Stephen

2011-01-01

It's hard to imagine two schools superficially more different from each other than Blackstone Elementary, with its labyrinthine 1970s layout, and Orchard Gardens K-8 School, which opened in 2003, with its modern skylights and cheery primary-color accents. But they were similar in the way that matters most in young lives: Both Boston schools were…

The Oral Accentuation of Greek.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, W. Sidney

1967-01-01

A brief review of theory and traditional approaches to the problem of oral reading of Greek dating from the fall of Constantinople (1453) focuses on the importance of two major linguistic features of Byzantine pronunciation. The first examines the nature of the dynamic (stress) accent and the second is concerned with differences in vowel lengths…

Beyond the Particular: Prosody and the Coordination of Actions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Szczepek Reed, Beatrice

2012-01-01

The majority of research on prosody in conversation to date has focused on exploring the role of individual prosodic features, such as certain types of pitch accent, pitch register or voice quality, for the accomplishment of specified social actions. From this research the picture emerges that when it comes to the implementation of specific…

A Tonal Grammar of Kere (Papuan) in Typological Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rarrick, Samantha Carol

2017-01-01

While tonal systems have typically been classified as "pitch accent" or "true tonal", there is growing evidence that systems instead have a variety of features which vary across languages, rather than falling into discrete categories. These category labels have been used widely in literature about the languages of New Guinea,…

Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 17, Numbers 1 and 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Linn, Mary Sarah, Ed.; Oliverio, Giulia R. M., Ed.

"Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics" is intended as a forum for the presentation of the latest original research by the faculty and students of the Department of Linguistics and other related departments of the University of Kansas. Papers in this volume include: "Some Issues in Japanese Accent" (Kenneth Miner);…

Confucianism and Accents: Understanding the Plight of the Asian International Student in the U.S.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Jennifer T.

2017-01-01

Research has shown that international students experience acculturation stress while adjusting to life in the U.S., resolving over time. However, acculturation stress can be exacerbated by several factors, leading to a negative impact on academic performance and general wellness. Asian international students traditionally underutilize counseling…

Nature and Content of L2 Socialization Patterns and Attainment of a Turkish Accent by Kurds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polat, Nihat

2011-01-01

Studies have shown that learners with high degrees of socialization with the target language community acquire the target language better (Lybeck, 2002; Schumann, 1978). Milroy's (1987) use of social network theory in sociolinguistics indicates that socialization patterns are constituted by structural relationships of different types and…

Gender Differences in Identity and Acculturation Patterns and L2 Accent Attainment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polat, Nihat; Mahalingappa, Laura J.

2010-01-01

Addressing the influence of sociocultural theory, current views of second language acquisition situate language learning in a much broader context than the isolated box of the classroom. There is need to consider second language (L2) acquisition practices more broadly. This study addresses differences between girls and boys of Kurdish ethnic…

5. VIEW OF THE LAMP HOUSE LOOKING EAST. DECORATIVE BRICK ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

5. VIEW OF THE LAMP HOUSE LOOKING EAST. DECORATIVE BRICK CORBELING AND PILASTERS DIVIDE THE BAYS. BRICK CORBELING ACCENTS THE EAVES. CONCRETE LINTELS ABOVE THE WINDOW OPENINGS PROVIDE ADDITIONAL DETAILING. - Tower Hill No. 2 Mine, Approximately 0.47 mile Southwest of intersection of Stone Church Road & Township Route 561, Hibbs, Fayette County, PA

The Emotional and Ethical Development of College Students with Acknowledgement to Piaget and Other Theorists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Vernon

The paper describes an experimental program for college freshmen which applies Piaget's theory of human development to students' academic and social experiences. The program, Accenting Development of Abstract Processes of Thought (ADAPT), was designed to facilitate movement of students from concrete operational thought patterns to more formal…

77 FR 6102 - Combined Notice of Filings #3

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-02-07

... Docket Numbers: ER12-948-000 Applicants: Accent Energy Midwest II LLC Description: Baseline new Market...: 5 p.m. ET 2/21/12 Docket Numbers: ER12-949-000 Applicants: PacifiCorp Description: Black Hills NITSA... Description: Application for Market-Based Rate Authority to be effective 4/1/2012. Filed Date: 1/31/12...

14 CFR 65.33 - Eligibility requirements: General.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... certificate a person must— (a) Be at least 18 years of age; (b) Be of good moral character; (c) Be able to read, write, and understand the English language and speak it without accent or impediment of speech..., hold at least a second-class medical certificate issued under part 67 of this chapter within the 12...

Soap Operas and Captioning in the EFL Class.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huffman, Donald T.

A teacher describes the use of closed-caption decoding of television melodramas to teach English as a second language (ESL). The approach uses evening soap operas that afford a range of English usage and accents, realistic dialogue, entertainment, and coverage of current social issues and are closed-captioned for the hearing-impaired. The programs…

Passing as Black: Racial Identity Work among Biracial Americans

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khanna, Nikki; Johnson, Cathryn

2010-01-01

Drawing on interview data with black-white biracial adults, we examine the considerable agency most have in asserting their racial identities to others. Extending research on "identity work" (Snow and Anderson 1987), we explore the strategies biracial people use to conceal (i.e., pass), cover, and/or accent aspects of their racial ancestries, and…

Prosody and Spoken Word Recognition in Early and Late Spanish-English Bilingual Individuals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boutsen, Frank R.; Dvorak, Justin D.; Deweber, Derick D.

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study was conducted to compare the influence of word properties on gated single-word recognition in monolingual and bilingual individuals under conditions of native and nonnative accent and to determine whether word-form prosody facilitates recognition in bilingual individuals. Method: Word recognition was assessed in monolingual and…

Infants' Perception of the Intonation of Broad and Narrow Focus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Joseph; Vigário, Marina; Frota, Sónia

2016-01-01

Infants perceive intonation contrasts early in development in contrast to lexical stress but similarly to lexical pitch accent. Previous studies have mostly focused on pitch height/direction contrasts; however, languages use a variety of pitch features to signal meaning, including differences in pitch timing. In this study, we investigate infants'…

La estilistica bergsoniana y la teoria del acento, de Vossler (The Bergsonian Style and Vossler's Theory on Accent)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Criado de Val, Manuel

1975-01-01

Discusses the esthetic ideas of Henri Bergson with particular emphasis on his thoughts about "intuition" in art and the importance of the prosodic features of literary style. The prosodic quality parallels or reproduces the rhythm of the thoughts being expressed. (Text is in Spanish.) (TL)

The Cerebellum Generates Motor-to-Auditory Predictions: ERP Lesion Evidence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knolle, Franziska; Schroger, Erich; Baess, Pamela; Kotz, Sonja A.

2012-01-01

Forward predictions are crucial in motor action (e.g., catching a ball, or being tickled) but may also apply to sensory or cognitive processes (e.g., listening to distorted speech or to a foreign accent). According to the "internal forward model," the cerebellum generates predictions about somatosensory consequences of movements. These predictions…

Challenging Linguicism: Action Strategies for Counselors and Client-Colleagues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen-Hayes, Stuart F.; Chen, Mei-whei; Athar, Naveeda

Linguicism was first defined as "linguistically related racism" in the early 1990s and only since 1992 have the courts begun to realize the legitimacy of discrimination based upon accent. Professional counselors have experienced the pain and oppression of linguicism in their own lives and in the lives of their family members, students,…

Young Children's Intonational Marking of New, Given and Contrastive Referents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grünloh, Thomas; Lieven, Elena; Tomasello, Michael

2015-01-01

In the current study we investigate whether 2- and 3-year-old German children use intonation productively to mark the informational status of referents. Using a story-telling task, we compared children's and adults' intonational realization via pitch accent (H*, L* and de-accentuation) of New, Given, and Contrastive referents. Both children and…

Striving for Voice: Language Acquisition and Canadian Immigrant Women

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kilbride, Kenise Murphy; Ali, Mehrunnisa Ahmad

2010-01-01

Under headings such as finances, child care, cultural challenges, location, racism, teachers, and accents, 30 immigrant women speaking either Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, or Urdu told their stories of arriving in Canada without English, and the obstacles they faced in trying to acquire English. While differing in their goals for learning English,…

Autonomy in Second Language Phonology: Choice vs. Limits

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moyer, Alene

2017-01-01

Learning a new sound system poses challenges of a social, psychological, and cognitive nature, but the learner's decisions are key to ultimate attainment. This presentation focuses on two essential concepts: CHOICE, or how one wants to sound in the target language; and LIMITS, or various challenges to one's goals vis-a-vis accent. Qualitative and…

'USS Arizona' and 'USS California' tropical hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L.)

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Both ‘USS Arizona’ and ‘USS California’ were selected for use as accent plants for patios, pools or other outside areas in climates with warm summers or as perennial flowering landscape shrubs in USDA hardiness zones 9 and 10. The cultivars were selected for their exceptional vibrant flowers, well-b...

TOILET ROOM IN THE PROJECTION BOOTH. NOTE THE HEXAGONAL FLOOR ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

TOILET ROOM IN THE PROJECTION BOOTH. NOTE THE HEXAGONAL FLOOR TILES WITH ACCENTED BORDER AND GLAZED WALL TILES, ALL OF WHICH WERE ORIGINAL/ TYPICAL IN TOILET ROOMS IN THIS FACILITY VIEW FACING NORTHWEST - U.S. Naval Base, Pearl Harbor, Theater, Hornet Avenue between Enterprise & Pokomoke Streets, Pearl City, Honolulu County, HI

Cerebral Dominance, Language Acquisition, and Foreign Accents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scovel, Tom

1969-01-01

Implicit in the discussion of views taken by Wolfe, Geschwind, and Newmark is a claim that no learning theory based solely on "nurture" can account for the fact that language acquisition in childhood is a trait, in adulthood a skill. The child can master the language system completely, regardless of his intellectual capacity or his social…

Coupling between perception and action timing during sensorimotor synchronization.

PubMed

Serrien, Deborah J; Spapé, Michiel M

2010-12-17

Time is an important parameter in behaviour, especially when synchronization with external events is required. To evaluate the nature of the association between perception and action timing, this study introduced pitch accented tones during performance of a sensorimotor tapping task. Furthermore, regularity of the pacing cues was modified by small (subliminal) or large (conscious) timing perturbations. A global analysis across the intervals showed that repeated accented tones increased the tap-tone asynchrony in the regular (control) and irregular (subliminal) trials but not in the irregular trials with awareness of the perturbations. Asynchrony variability demonstrated no effect of accentuation in the regular and subliminal irregular trials, whereas it increased in the conscious irregular trials. A local analysis of the intervals showed that pitch accentuation lengthened the duration of the tapping responses, but only in the irregular trials with large timing perturbations. These data underline that common timing processes are automatically engaged for perception and action, although this arrangement can be overturned by cognitive intervention. Overall, the findings highlight a flexible association between perception and action timing within a functional information processing framework. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Accent and television journalism: evidence for the practice of speech language pathologists and audiologists.

PubMed

Lopes, Leonardo Wanderley; Lima, Ivonaldo Leidson Barbosa; Silva, Eveline Gonçalves; Almeida, Larissa Nadjara Alves de; Almeida, Anna Alice Figueiredo de

2013-01-01

To analyze the preferences and attitudes of listeners in relation to regional (RA) and softened accents (SA) in television journalism. Three television news presenters recorded carrier phrases and a standard text using RA and SA. The recordings were presented to 105 judges who listened to the word pairs and answered whether they perceived differences between the RA and SA, and the type of pronunciation that they preferred in the speech of television news presenters. Afterwards, they listened to the sentences and judged seven attributes in the contexts of RA and SA using a semantic differential scale. The listeners perceived the difference between the regional and softened pronunciation (p<0.0001). They preferred the SA in the presenters' speech in all variants studied (p<0.0001). There was an association between linguistic variants and the judgment of attitudes (p=0.002). The listeners regarded the presence of SA in the presenters' speech as positive in all variants studied (p<0.0001). The listeners prefer and assign positive values to the SA in the speech of television journalists in all linguistic variants studied.

Talker-specific learning in amnesia: Insight into mechanisms of adaptive speech perception.

PubMed

Trude, Alison M; Duff, Melissa C; Brown-Schmidt, Sarah

2014-05-01

A hallmark of human speech perception is the ability to comprehend speech quickly and effortlessly despite enormous variability across talkers. However, current theories of speech perception do not make specific claims about the memory mechanisms involved in this process. To examine whether declarative memory is necessary for talker-specific learning, we tested the ability of amnesic patients with severe declarative memory deficits to learn and distinguish the accents of two unfamiliar talkers by monitoring their eye-gaze as they followed spoken instructions. Analyses of the time-course of eye fixations showed that amnesic patients rapidly learned to distinguish these accents and tailored perceptual processes to the voice of each talker. These results demonstrate that declarative memory is not necessary for this ability and points to the involvement of non-declarative memory mechanisms. These results are consistent with findings that other social and accommodative behaviors are preserved in amnesia and contribute to our understanding of the interactions of multiple memory systems in the use and understanding of spoken language. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Disordered speech disrupts conversational entrainment: a study of acoustic-prosodic entrainment and communicative success in populations with communication challenges

PubMed Central

Borrie, Stephanie A.; Lubold, Nichola; Pon-Barry, Heather

2015-01-01

Conversational entrainment, a pervasive communication phenomenon in which dialogue partners adapt their behaviors to align more closely with one another, is considered essential for successful spoken interaction. While well-established in other disciplines, this phenomenon has received limited attention in the field of speech pathology and the study of communication breakdowns in clinical populations. The current study examined acoustic-prosodic entrainment, as well as a measure of communicative success, in three distinctly different dialogue groups: (i) healthy native vs. healthy native speakers (Control), (ii) healthy native vs. foreign-accented speakers (Accented), and (iii) healthy native vs. dysarthric speakers (Disordered). Dialogue group comparisons revealed significant differences in how the groups entrain on particular acoustic–prosodic features, including pitch, intensity, and jitter. Most notably, the Disordered dialogues were characterized by significantly less acoustic-prosodic entrainment than the Control dialogues. Further, a positive relationship between entrainment indices and communicative success was identified. These results suggest that the study of conversational entrainment in speech pathology will have essential implications for both scientific theory and clinical application in this domain. PMID:26321996

Individual Differences in Audio-Vocal Speech Imitation Aptitude in Late Bilinguals: Functional Neuro-Imaging and Brain Morphology

PubMed Central

Reiterer, Susanne Maria; Hu, Xiaochen; Erb, Michael; Rota, Giuseppina; Nardo, Davide; Grodd, Wolfgang; Winkler, Susanne; Ackermann, Hermann

2011-01-01

An unanswered question in adult language learning or late bi and multilingualism is why individuals show marked differences in their ability to imitate foreign accents. While recent research acknowledges that more adults than previously assumed can still acquire a “native” foreign accent, very little is known about the neuro-cognitive correlates of this special ability. We investigated 140 German-speaking individuals displaying varying degrees of “mimicking” capacity, based on natural language text, sentence, and word imitations either in their second language English or in Hindi and Tamil, languages they had never been exposed to. The large subject pool was strictly controlled for previous language experience prior to magnetic resonance imaging. The late-onset (around 10 years) bilinguals showed significant individual differences as to how they employed their left-hemisphere speech areas: higher hemodynamic activation in a distinct fronto-parietal network accompanied low ability, while high ability paralleled enhanced gray matter volume in these areas concomitant with decreased hemodynamic responses. Finally and unexpectedly, males were found to be more talented foreign speech mimics. PMID:22059077

Development of a Mandarin-English Bilingual Speech Recognition System for Real World Music Retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Qingqing; Pan, Jielin; Lin, Yang; Shao, Jian; Yan, Yonghong

In recent decades, there has been a great deal of research into the problem of bilingual speech recognition-to develop a recognizer that can handle inter- and intra-sentential language switching between two languages. This paper presents our recent work on the development of a grammar-constrained, Mandarin-English bilingual Speech Recognition System (MESRS) for real world music retrieval. Two of the main difficult issues in handling the bilingual speech recognition systems for real world applications are tackled in this paper. One is to balance the performance and the complexity of the bilingual speech recognition system; the other is to effectively deal with the matrix language accents in embedded language**. In order to process the intra-sentential language switching and reduce the amount of data required to robustly estimate statistical models, a compact single set of bilingual acoustic models derived by phone set merging and clustering is developed instead of using two separate monolingual models for each language. In our study, a novel Two-pass phone clustering method based on Confusion Matrix (TCM) is presented and compared with the log-likelihood measure method. Experiments testify that TCM can achieve better performance. Since potential system users' native language is Mandarin which is regarded as a matrix language in our application, their pronunciations of English as the embedded language usually contain Mandarin accents. In order to deal with the matrix language accents in embedded language, different non-native adaptation approaches are investigated. Experiments show that model retraining method outperforms the other common adaptation methods such as Maximum A Posteriori (MAP). With the effective incorporation of approaches on phone clustering and non-native adaptation, the Phrase Error Rate (PER) of MESRS for English utterances was reduced by 24.47% relatively compared to the baseline monolingual English system while the PER on Mandarin utterances was comparable to that of the baseline monolingual Mandarin system. The performance for bilingual utterances achieved 22.37% relative PER reduction.

Priming as a Motivating Factor in Sociophonetic Variation and Change.

PubMed

Clark, Lynn

2018-04-24

Understanding how and why pronunciations vary and change has been a dominant theme in variationist sociolinguistics (Labov, , ). Linguistic variability has also been an area of focus in psychology and cognitive science. Work from these two fields has shown that where variation exists in language, an alternative form, once used, persists in working memory and has a greater chance of reuse (Bock, ; Bock & Loebell, ; Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, ). While there have been efforts to connect priming research with sociolinguistics at the level of grammar (Poplack, ; Travis, ), there has been less work which explicitly considers the potential role of priming as a motivating factor in accent variation and change. This paper explores the role of priming in a socially conditioned sound change. There are two main findings: (a) phonetic variants with the same voicing tend to cluster together in naturally occurring speech and (b) repetition of phonetic form interacts with widely attested sociolinguistic predictors of variation. I argue that there are benefits to both cognitive science and sociolinguistics from this synergy: Incorporating research from cognitive science into sociolinguistics provides us with a better understanding of the factors underpinning a sound change in progress; incorporating insights from sociolinguistics into cognitive science shows that priming does not always operate in the same way for all speakers. Copyright © 2018 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Electronic Properties and Device Applications of III-V Compound Semiconductor Native Oxides

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-03-02

MRD X-ray diffractometer with CuKa as the radiation source. The doping level in GaAs was meassured by electrochemical voltage (ECV) using an Accent... hard to prevent the gate metal from overlapping the mesa edge thus creating a parasitic leakage path to the channel42. To reduce the gate leakage

[Paliative managment of oesophageal carcinomas--our experience].

PubMed

Polanecký, O; Pazdro, A; Tvrdon, J; Tersíp, T; Smejkal, P; Smejkal, M; Hladík, P; Pafko, P

2006-04-01

The authors of this presentation explain their experience with methods of paliative care of oesophagus carcinoma. The indication criteria are described and compared advantages and disadvantages of those methods. There is an accent in most frequent method--oesophagus stent implementation. The results in the group of patients after the stent implementation are described, also complications and other solutions.

The Influence of Gujarati and Tamil L1s on Indian English: A Preliminary Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiltshire, Caroline R.; Harnsberger, James D.

2006-01-01

English as spoken as a second language in India has developed distinct sound patterns in terms of both segmental and prosodic characteristics. We investigate the differences between two groups varying in native language (Gujarati, Tamil) to evaluate to what extent Indian English (IE) accents are based on a single target phonological-phonetic…

Does a Rater's Familiarity with a Candidate's Pronunciation Affect the Rating in Oral Proficiency Interviews?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carey, Michael D.; Mannell, Robert H.; Dunn, Peter K.

2011-01-01

This study investigated factors that could affect inter-examiner reliability in the pronunciation assessment component of speaking tests. We hypothesized that the rating of pronunciation is susceptible to variation in assessment due to the amount of exposure examiners have to nonnative English accents. An inter-rater variability analysis was…

Administrative Barriers to Improving Undergraduate Education. Accent on Improving College Teaching and Learning, 6.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Genthon, Michele; Joscelyn, Mary K., Ed.

Chief academic officers at 1,053 institutions of higher education across the United States were surveyed about the barriers to improving teaching and learning. Using factor analysis, responses were reduced to nine general problem areas. In order of importance from most important to least important, the problems identified were: financial support,…

Raters' L2 Background as a Potential Source of Bias in Rating Oral Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winke, Paula; Gass, Susan; Myford, Carol

2013-01-01

Based on evidence that listeners may favor certain foreign accents over others (Gass & Varonis, 1984; Major, Fitzmaurice, Bunta, & Balasubramanian, 2002; Tauroza & Luk, 1997) and that language-test raters may better comprehend and/or rate the speech of test takers whose native languages (L1s) are more familiar on some level (Carey,…

Keys of Japanese Prosody and Didactical-Technical Analysis of OJAD (Online Japanese Accent Dictionary)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Delgado Algarra, Emilio José

2016-01-01

Most of the studies focus on the teaching of foreign languages indicate that little attention is paid to the prosodic features both didactic materials and teaching-learning processes (Martinsen, Avord and Tanner, 2014). In this context and throughout this article, an analysis of the didactical and technical dimensions of OJAD (Japanese Accent…

Why Not Non-Native Varieties of English as Listening Comprehension Test Input?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abeywickrama, Priyanvada

2013-01-01

The existence of different varieties of English in target language use (TLU) domains calls into question the usefulness of listening comprehension tests whose input is limited only to a native speaker variety. This study investigated the impact of non-native varieties or accented English speech on test takers from three different English use…

Effects of Instruction on L2 Pronunciation Development: A Synthesis of 15 Quasi-Experimental Intervention Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saito, Kazuya

2012-01-01

In recent years, several researchers have made strong calls for research on teaching for "intelligible" (rather than "native-like") pronunciation. Their reasoning is that, while maintaining their first language (L1)-related accents to a certain degree, students need to fulfill the minimal phonological requirements to be comprehensible in order to…

Lexical Encoding of L2 Tones: The Role of L1 Stress, Pitch Accent and Intonation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braun, Bettina; Galts, Tobias; Kabak, Baris

2014-01-01

Native language prosodic structure is known to modulate the processing of non-native suprasegmental information. It has been shown that native speakers of French, a language without lexical stress, have difficulties storing non-native stress contrasts. We investigated whether the ability to store lexical tone (as in Mandarin Chinese) also depends…

The Acquisition of English Lexical Stress by Chinese-Speaking Learners: An OT Account

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yuan, Man; Cheng, Wei

2017-01-01

Lexical stress is an important contributor to foreign accent as well as intelligibility of second language (L2) speech. The present study intends to find out to what extent Chinese-speaking learners whose native language has less evident stress can acquire English lexical stress. A production test was administered to nine advanced Chinese learners…

Acoustic Analyses and Intelligibility Assessments of Timing Patterns among Chinese English Learners with Different Dialect Backgrounds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Hsueh Chu

2015-01-01

This paper includes two interrelated studies. The first production study investigates the timing patterns of English as spoken by Chinese learners with different dialect backgrounds. The second comprehension study explores native and non-native speakers' assessments of the intelligibility of Chinese-accented English, and examines the effects of…

Interpretation of Contrastive Pitch Accent in Six- to Eleven-Year-Old English-Speaking Children (and Adults)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ito, Kiwako; Bibyk, Sarah A.; Wagner, Laura; Speer, Shari R.

2014-01-01

Both off-line and on-line comprehension studies suggest not only toddlers and preschoolers, but also older school-age children have trouble interpreting contrast-marking pitch prominence. To test whether children achieve adult-like proficiency in processing contrast-marking prosody during school years, an eye-tracking experiment examined the…

I Find You Attractive but I Don't Trust You: The Case of Language Attitudes in Iran

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mirshahidi, Shahriar

2017-01-01

Although Article 15 of the Iranian constitution endorses non-Persian Languages, speakers of these minority languages are latently obligated to speak Persian, the majority language, in most social settings. Consequently, these Iranian L2 speakers of Persian give rise to certain attitudes towards their accented speech, particularly from speakers of…

Story-Telling as a Teaching-Learning Strategy: A Nonnative Instructor's Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ma, Ringo

The challenge facing the nonnative instructor is make his or her cultural uniqueness an asset instead of a liability. If nonnative speakers can never be fully accepted by American students because of their accent and different communication styles, they can employ teaching styles and methods that showcase their strong points. One teaching method…

Thoughts on Teaching: Sometimes Apologies Are Not Enough

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Starnes, Bobby Ann

2004-01-01

This author believes the NCLB is a masterpiece of language manipulation. She feels that she can almost live with NCLB's flawed funding and unrealistic expectations. What she can't live with is its blatant failure and the hubris of those who willingly trade personal and political gain for our children's futures, regardless of skin color, accent,…

Accent, Perpetual Foreigner Stereotype, and Perceived Discrimination as Indirect Links between English Proficiency and Depressive Symptoms in Chinese American Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Su Yeong; Wang, Yijie; Deng, Shiying; Alvarez, Rocio; Li, Jing

2011-01-01

The current study uses Garcia Coll et al.'s (1996) developmental competence model of ethnic minority children and Kim's (1999) racial triangulation theory as frameworks for investigating the mechanisms whereby early adolescent English proficiency relates to perceived discriminatory experiences and adolescent depressive symptoms. Data from 444…

Skyline Gathers K-12 Together Under One Roof.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

American School Board Journal, 1968

1968-01-01

Skyline School is a flexible and economical elementary and high school design for 400 pupils. The library, a large resource center serving all ages, and the administration offices are accented by landscaped courts. There are two instructional material centers per grade grouping of K-6 and 7-12. Grades 1-6 surround the kindergarten, which has…

Prospect of Electronic Media as Curriculum in Non-Native Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dutta, Juri; Parhi, Asima Ranjan

2014-01-01

In the context of India in general, and places where English language functions as a second language in particular, the prevalent idea that our students have to support their language learning capability through the native accent (pronunciation) structures is a myth. The paper takes up the following hypotheses: 1. Listening to BBC English or…

Reading Repression: Textualizing the Linguistic Marginalization of Nonnative English-Speaking Teachers in Arizona

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blum, Avram; Johnson, Eric J.

2012-01-01

This discussion draws attention to the discriminatory efforts of policymakers in Arizona to professionally marginalize public school teachers deemed to have an accent. In addition to debunking the linguistic and pedagogic validity of this policy, we emphasize the role of the media in the (re)construction and justification of language ideologies…

American or British? L2 Speakers' Recognition and Evaluations of Accent Features in English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carrie, Erin; McKenzie, Robert M.

2018-01-01

Recent language attitude research has attended to the processes involved in identifying and evaluating spoken language varieties. This article investigates the ability of second-language learners of English in Spain (N = 71) to identify Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GenAm) speech and their perceptions of linguistic variation…

The Intelligibility of Chinese-Accented English to International and American Students at a U.S. University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hardman, Jocelyn Brooks

2010-01-01

This study investigated the intelligibility of Chinese graduate students to their Indian, Chinese, Korean, and American peers. Specifically, the researcher sought to determine the teaching priorities for English for Academic Purposes in the US, where listeners have a wide variety of native languages. Research on Second Language Acquisition…

Transportation Facilitation Education Program: A Handbook for Transportation and Distribution. Part III. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oregon Univ., Eugene. Coll. of Business Administration.

The handbook accents the nature of transportation and related domestic and international business activities. Its objective is to provide basic information for the newcomer to the field. Chapters 2 and 3 describe assistance available from public and private agencies, as well as regulatory requirements for foreign traders and a resume of the…

Extractives in eastern hardwoods : a review

Treesearch

John W. Rowe

1979-01-01

This report extensively reviews the chemistry of extractives from wood and bark of hardwoods from the eastern United States. While such extractives are not used to a great extent commercially, they may influence properties of the wood and performance of wood products. For example, extractives can protect wood from decay, add color and odor to wood, accent grain pattern...

[Occupational risk according to occupational traumatism parameters in Russia].

PubMed

Tikhonova, G I; Churanova, A N; Gorchakova, T Iu

2012-01-01

The article covers analysis of occupational traumatism in Russia over 2009 in concern with economic activity types, with small enterprises accent. Based on method adapted to national information sources and assessing statistics reliability in countries with imperfect accounting, the authors demonstrated that with various hypotheses occupational accidents risk in Russian Federation is considerably higher than the registered one.

Ueber die akzentologische Interferenz einiger Internationalismen in der russischen und deutschen Sprache (On Accent Interference of a Few Internationalisms in Russian and German)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Komlew, Wladislaw I.

1976-01-01

Common internationalisms in Russian and German are listed. In general German loan-words underwent a phonetic assimilation. Even if there are overall tonal similarities, there are differences, especially in accentuation, that result from the different structures of the languages. (Text is in German.) (MS)

Transcription and Annotation of a Japanese Accented Spoken Corpus of L2 Spanish for the Development of CAPT Applications

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carranza, Mario

2016-01-01

This paper addresses the process of transcribing and annotating spontaneous non-native speech with the aim of compiling a training corpus for the development of Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) applications, enhanced with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology. To better adapt ASR technology to CAPT tools, the recognition…

Analysis of Discourse Accent and Discursive Practices I&W

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-09-01

events in a cultural memory. Episodic discourse encompasses general principles, concepts , symbols and rituals used by actors to address problems in...COGNITIVE/INTEGRATIVE COMPLEXITY PROOF-OF- CONCEPT ............................ 51 5.1 Historical Background and Literature...formal training or expertise in critical discourse analysis. In addition, a proof-of- concept was conducted of an existing methodology for tracking

Asbestos: Securing Untrusted Software with Interposition

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-09-01

consistent intelligible interfaces to different types of resource. Message-based operating systems, such as Accent, Amoeba, Chorus, L4 , Spring...control on self-authenticating capabilities, precluding policies that restrict delegation. L4 uses a strict hierarchy of interpositions, useful for...the OS de- sign space amenable to secure application construction. Similar effects might be possible with message-passing microkernels , or unwieldy

Nurturing Young Gifted English Language Learners: A Survival Guide for Parents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smutny, Joan F.

2012-01-01

For many young gifted English Language Learners (ELLs), going to an American school is like a trip to Mars. Everything and everyone looks strange. Many ELLs feel unsure of their abilities when they discover that their proficiency in English can sometimes hinder achievement. They wonder what the other kids think of their speech, their accents,…

The Influence of Biogenic Emissions on Tropospheric Composition over Africa during 2006

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, J. E.; Scheele, R.; van Velthoven, P. F. J.; Cammas, J.-P.; Galy-Lacaux, C.; Thouret, V.

2009-04-01

Biogenic emissions of NO and Volatile Organic Compounds (BVOC's) play an important role in determining the oxidizing capacity of the troposphere near tropical regions which have sparse populations. Here we use a 3D global CTM (TM4) for the purpose of examining the effect of using a recent climatology of biogenic emissions from the ORCHIDEE model (Lathiére et al, 2006) on the distribution and concentrations of trace gas species over equatorial Africa during the AMMA measurement year of 2006. We compare the results against simulations which adopt an older biogenic inventory compiled during the POET project (Granier et al, 2005). Sensitivity studies are conducted to determine the effect of both NO emitted from soils and BVOC's emitted from vegetation (namely the cumulative effect of CO, HCHO, ethanol, acetic acid, acetone and CH3CHO) on tropospheric ozone, NOx and the nitrogen reservoir species PAN and HNO3. Comparisons with a host of measurements have been performed to assess the impact on model performance. Finally an analysis of the tropical O3 budget is performed to quantify differences introduced for the oxidizing capacity of the tropical troposphere. Granier, C., Guether, A., Lamarque, J. F., Mieville, A., Muller, J.F., Olivier, J., Orlando, J., Peters, J., Petron, G., Tyndall, G., amd Wallens, S., POET - a database of surface emissions of ozone precursors, available at: http://www.aero.jussieu.fr/project/ACCENT/POET.php, 2005. Lathiére, J., Hauglustaine, D. A., Friend, A. D., De Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Viovy, N., and Folberth, G. A., Impact of climate variability and land use changes on global biogenic volatile organic compound emissions, Atms. Chem. Phys., 6, 2129-2146, 2006.

Socialized Perception and L2 Pronunciation among Spanish-Speaking Learners of English in Puerto Rico

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perez, Marisol Santiago

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to validate the following hypothesis: First, spoken accents have a major influence and can affect listeners' personal attitudes and second, native Puerto Rican speakers will speak English as a second language without wanting to sound like a North American English speaker. This study will contribute to research on the…

"The Capitol Accent Is so Affected Almost Anything Sounds Funny in It": The "Hunger Games" Trilogy, Queerness, and Paranoid Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abate, Michelle Ann

2015-01-01

Throughout the "Hunger Games" trilogy, the residents of the Capitol are associated with an array of physical, behavioral, and sartorial traits that have stereotypically been associated with homosexuality in general and gay men in particular. Although none of these characters is explicitly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual,…

Accent on Meter: A Handbook for Readers of Poetry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Powell, Joseph; Halperin, Mark

2004-01-01

This book offers practical ways of teaching students about the close connections between the meaning, rhythm, and meter in poetry. The major assumption of the book is that a close reading of a poem--one that explores the nuances of structure--can increase one's appreciation and enjoyment of poetry. In the words of the authors, "What the poem is…

The Body Language Behaviours of the Chairs of the Disputes According to the Disputants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caliskan, Nihat

2009-01-01

The perception form of the body language behaviours of the session chairs by disputants affects the efficiency of the process. Therefore, it is important to determine the effects of the mimic, gesture, physical appearance and tonality and accent of the chairs on disputants. That research was conducted to clarify how the disputants perceive the…

The Influence of Social Cues and Cognitive Processes in Computer Mediated Second Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murakami, Janel Rachel Goodman

2017-01-01

This dissertation investigated the effects of technological mediation on second language (L2) learning, focusing, as a case study, on gains in listening perception of the subtle but important feature of pitch placement in Japanese. Pitch accent can be difficult to perceive for non-native speakers whose first language (L1) does not rely on pitch or…

He Says Potato, She Says Potahto: Young Infants Track Talker-Specific Accents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weatherhead, Drew; White, Katherine S.

2016-01-01

One of the most fundamental aspects of learning a language is determining the mappings between words and referents. An often-overlooked complication is that infants interact with multiple individuals who may not produce words in the same way. In the present study, we explored whether 10- to 12-month-olds can use talker-specific knowledge to infer…

Solutions for Coding Societal Events

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-12-01

develop a prototype system for civil unrest event extraction, and (3) engineer BBN ACCENT (ACCurate Events from Natural Text ) to support broad use by...56 iv List of Tables Table 1: Features in similarity metric. Abbreviations are as follows. TG: text graph...extraction of a stream of events (e.g. protests, attacks, etc.) from unstructured text (e.g. news, social media). This technical report presents results

Cross-Linguistic Perception and Learning of Japanese Lexical Prosody by English Listeners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shport, Irina A.

2011-01-01

The focus of this dissertation is on how language experience shapes perception of a non-native prosodic contrast. In Tokyo Japanese, fundamental frequency (F0) peak and fall are acoustic cues to lexically contrastive pitch patterns, in which a word may be accented on a particular syllable or unaccented (e.g., "tsuru" "a crane", "tsuru" "a vine",…

"I Am Not Qualified to Be a Honkongese Because of My Accented Cantonese": Mainland Chinese Immigrant Students in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gu, Mingyue Michelle

2011-01-01

This paper investigates the identity construction and language practice of a group of mainland Chinese immigrant students studying at a secondary school in Hong Kong, and explores the underlying reasons for, as well as the individual and group identities derived from, those language choices and practices. The data were collected through…

Forming the Future Lawyers' Communicative Competence: The Experience of Higher Education in Ukraine and Germany

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nasilenko, Lyudmyla

2014-01-01

In the article the state of forming of communicative competence of future lawyers in higher education of Ukraine and Germany is analyzed. There is made the comparative description of preparation of the students of law faculty with an accent on forming of communicative competence on the example of the University of modern knowledge (Ukraine) and…

The Effects of Visual Beats on Prosodic Prominence: Acoustic Analyses, Auditory Perception and Visual Perception

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Krahmer, Emiel; Swerts, Marc

2007-01-01

Speakers employ acoustic cues (pitch accents) to indicate that a word is important, but may also use visual cues (beat gestures, head nods, eyebrow movements) for this purpose. Even though these acoustic and visual cues are related, the exact nature of this relationship is far from well understood. We investigate whether producing a visual beat…

English Pronunciation and Fluency Development in Mandarin and Slavic Speakers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Derwing, Tracey M.; Thomson, Ron I.; Munro, Murray J.

2006-01-01

The development of accent and fluency are traced in the speech of 20 Mandarin and 20 Slavic adult immigrants to Canada over a period of 10 months. The participants were enrolled in an ESL program but had no special instruction in either pronunciation or fluency. The immigrants' self-reported exposure to English outside of class was used to…

From Casual Work to Economic Security; the Paradoxical Case of Self-Employment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tremblay, Diane-Gabrielle

2008-01-01

The term "casual work" is not well defined in the literature and can include a diversity of types of employment. In this paper, we first present an introduction and definition of concepts related to job security and economic insecurity. Second, a view on the main labour market transformations, their causes and impacts, with more accent on…

Characterizing Intonation Deficit in Motor Speech Disorders: An Autosegmental-Metrical Analysis of Spontaneous Speech in Hypokinetic Dysarthria, Ataxic Dysarthria, and Foreign Accent Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lowit, Anja; Kuschmann, Anja

2012-01-01

Purpose: The autosegmental-metrical (AM) framework represents an established methodology for intonational analysis in unimpaired speaker populations but has found little application in describing intonation in motor speech disorders (MSDs). This study compared the intonation patterns of unimpaired participants (CON) and those with Parkinson's…

Age as a Factor in Second Language Acquisition: A Review of Some Recent Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singleton, D. M.

The assumed connection between ease of language learning and age has been investigated in recent years by researchers from a wide range of disciplines. With the exception of the findings of research that authentic accents are more easily acquired by children, studies seem to indicate that efficiency in language learning increases with maturation.…

A Prominence Account of Syllable Reduction in Early Speech Development: The Child's Prosodic Phonology of "Tiger" and "Giraffe."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snow, David

1998-01-01

This paper tested a theory of syllable prominence with 11 children (ages 11 to 26 months). The theory proposes that syllable prominence is a product of two orthogonal suprasegmental systems: stress/accent peaks and phrase boundaries. Use of the developed prominence scale found it parsimoniously accounted for observed biases in syllable omissions…

Hemispheric Asymmetry for Linguistic Prosody: A Study of Stress Perception in Croatian

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mildner, Vesna

2004-01-01

The aim of the study was to test for possible functional cerebral asymmetry in processing one segment of linguistic prosody, namely word stress, in Croatian. The test material consisted of eight tokens of the word "pas" under a falling accent, varying only in vowel duration between 119 and 185ms, attached to the end of a frame sentence. The…

Development of Second Language French Oral Skills in an Instructed Setting: A Focus on Speech Ratings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trofimovich, Pavel; Kennedy, Sara; Blanchet, Josée

2017-01-01

This study examined the relationship between targeted pronunciation instruction in French as a second language (L2) and listener-based ratings of accent, comprehensibility, and fluency. The ratings by 20 French listeners evaluating the speech of 30 adult L2 French learners enrolled in a 15-week listening and speaking course targeting segments,…

How the wave mechanics of Schrodinger was met in the USSR?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vizgin, Vl. P.

1990-12-01

The author is giving an almost complete review of the era of quantum mechanics in the USSR during 20-th of XX-th century. The author is making accent on the vision of Soviet physicists visavi the new area of science. The most important European and Soviet physicists with major and notable contributions in quantum mechanics are cited.

Using the Radio To Teach English as a Second Language.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kitay, Julia Farthing

The short-wave radio provides an excellent and cost-effective tool for teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), especially in remote or poor areas where Internet access may not be readily available. It allows the learner to hear multiple native English speakers talk in normal speed in a variety of accents. It also allows students to encounter…

Strategic advantages of high-rise construction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yaskova, Natalya

2018-03-01

Traditional methods to assess the competitiveness of different types of real estate in the context of huge changes of new technological way of life don't provide building solutions that would be correct from a strategic perspective. There are many challenges due to changes in the consumers' behavior in the housing area. A multiplicity of life models, a variety of opportunities and priorities, traditions and new trends in construction should be assessed in terms of prospective benefits in the environment of the emerging new world order. At the same time, the mane discourse of high-rise construction mainly relates to its design features, technical innovations, and architectural accents. We need to clarify the criteria for economic evaluation of high-rise construction in order to provide decisions with clear and quantifiable contexts. The suggested approach to assessing the strategic advantage of high-rise construction and the prospects for capitalization of high-rise buildings poses new challenges for the economy to identify adequate quantitative assessment methods of the high-rise buildings economic efficiency, taking into account all stages of their life cycle.

Advantage of bimodal fitting in prosody perception for children using a cochlear implant and a hearing aid.

PubMed

Straatman, L V; Rietveld, A C M; Beijen, J; Mylanus, E A M; Mens, L H M

2010-10-01

Cochlear implants are largely unable to encode voice pitch information, which hampers the perception of some prosodic cues, such as intonation. This study investigated whether children with a cochlear implant in one ear were better able to detect differences in intonation when a hearing aid was added in the other ear ("bimodal fitting"). Fourteen children with normal hearing and 19 children with bimodal fitting participated in two experiments. The first experiment assessed the just noticeable difference in F0, by presenting listeners with a naturally produced bisyllabic utterance with an artificially manipulated pitch accent. The second experiment assessed the ability to distinguish between questions and affirmations in Dutch words, again by using artificial manipulation of F0. For the implanted group, performance significantly improved in each experiment when the hearing aid was added. However, even with a hearing aid, the implanted group required exaggerated F0 excursions to perceive a pitch accent and to identify a question. These exaggerated excursions are close to the maximum excursions typically used by Dutch speakers. Nevertheless, the results of this study showed that compared to the implant only condition, bimodal fitting improved the perception of intonation.

Quiet is the new loud: pausing and focus in child and adult Dutch.

PubMed

Romøren, Anna Sara H; Chen, Aoju

2015-03-01

In a number of languages, prosody is used to highlight new information (or focus). In Dutch, focus is marked by accentuation, whereby focal constituents are accented and post-focal constituents are de-accented. Even if pausing is not traditionally seen as a cue to focus in Dutch, several previous studies have pointed to a possible relationship between pausing and information structure. Considering that Dutch-speaking 4 to 5 year olds are not yet completely proficient in using accentuation for focus and that children generally pause more than adults, we asked whether pausing might be an available parameter for children to manipulate for focus. Sentences with varying focus structure were elicited from 10 Dutch-speaking 4 to 5 year olds and 9 Dutch-speaking adults by means of a picture-matching game. Comparing pause durations before focal and non-focal targets showed pre-target pauses to be significantly longer when the targets were focal than when they were not. Notably, the use of pausing was more robust in the children than in the adults, suggesting that children exploit pausing to mark focus more generally than adults do, at a stage where their mastery of the canonical cues to focus is still developing.

The Wildcat Corpus of Native- and Foreign-Accented English: Communicative Efficiency across Conversational Dyads with Varying Language Alignment Profiles

PubMed Central

Van Engen, Kristin J.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Baker, Rachel E.; Choi, Arim; Kim, Midam; Bradlow, Ann R.

2012-01-01

This paper describes the development of the Wildcat Corpus of native- and foreign-accented English, a corpus containing scripted and spontaneous speech recordings from 24 native speakers of American English and 52 non-native speakers of English. The core element of this corpus is a set of spontaneous speech recordings, for which a new method of eliciting dialogue-based, laboratory-quality speech recordings was developed (the Diapix task). Dialogues between two native speakers of English, between two non-native speakers of English (with either shared or different L1s), and between one native and one non-native speaker of English are included and analyzed in terms of general measures of communicative efficiency. The overall finding was that pairs of native talkers were most efficient, followed by mixed native/non-native pairs and non-native pairs with shared L1. Non-native pairs with different L1s were least efficient. These results support the hypothesis that successful speech communication depends both on the alignment of talkers to the target language and on the alignment of talkers to one another in terms of native language background. PMID:21313992

Variability in Word Duration as a Function of Probability, Speech Style, and Prosody

PubMed Central

Baker, Rachel E.; Bradlow, Ann R.

2010-01-01

This article examines how probability (lexical frequency and previous mention), speech style, and prosody affect word duration, and how these factors interact. Participants read controlled materials in clear and plain speech styles. As expected, more probable words (higher frequencies and second mentions) were significantly shorter than less probable words, and words in plain speech were significantly shorter than those in clear speech. Interestingly, we found second mention reduction effects in both clear and plain speech, indicating that while clear speech is hyper-articulated, this hyper-articulation does not override probabilistic effects on duration. We also found an interaction between mention and frequency, but only in plain speech. High frequency words allowed more second mention reduction than low frequency words in plain speech, revealing a tendency to hypo-articulate as much as possible when all factors support it. Finally, we found that first mentions were more likely to be accented than second mentions. However, when these differences in accent likelihood were controlled, a significant second mention reduction effect remained. This supports the concept of a direct link between probability and duration, rather than a relationship solely mediated by prosodic prominence. PMID:20121039

Human phoneme recognition depending on speech-intrinsic variability.

PubMed

Meyer, Bernd T; Jürgens, Tim; Wesker, Thorsten; Brand, Thomas; Kollmeier, Birger

2010-11-01

The influence of different sources of speech-intrinsic variation (speaking rate, effort, style and dialect or accent) on human speech perception was investigated. In listening experiments with 16 listeners, confusions of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) and vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) sounds in speech-weighted noise were analyzed. Experiments were based on the OLLO logatome speech database, which was designed for a man-machine comparison. It contains utterances spoken by 50 speakers from five dialect/accent regions and covers several intrinsic variations. By comparing results depending on intrinsic and extrinsic variations (i.e., different levels of masking noise), the degradation induced by variabilities can be expressed in terms of the SNR. The spectral level distance between the respective speech segment and the long-term spectrum of the masking noise was found to be a good predictor for recognition rates, while phoneme confusions were influenced by the distance to spectrally close phonemes. An analysis based on transmitted information of articulatory features showed that voicing and manner of articulation are comparatively robust cues in the presence of intrinsic variations, whereas the coding of place is more degraded. The database and detailed results have been made available for comparisons between human speech recognition (HSR) and automatic speech recognizers (ASR).

Accent, Perpetual Foreigner Stereotype, and Perceived Discrimination as Indirect Links between English Proficiency and Depressive Symptoms in Chinese American Adolescents

PubMed Central

Kim, Su Yeong; Wang, Yijie; Deng, Shiying; Alvarez, Rocio; Li, Jing

2010-01-01

The current study uses Garcia Coll et al.'s (1996) developmental competence model of ethnic minority children and Kim's (1999) Racial Triangulation Theory as frameworks for investigating the mechanisms whereby early adolescent English proficiency relates to perceived discriminatory experiences and adolescent depressive symptoms. Data from 444 adolescents (239 girls and 205 boys, with a mean age of 13.0 for Wave 1 and 17.0 for Wave 2) and their parents living in major metropolitan areas of Northern California were collected. The structural equation modeling analyses indicate that self-reported low levels of English proficiency among Chinese American adolescents in middle school are related to these same students later reporting that they speak English with an accent in high school, which in turn relates significantly to their perceiving that they have been stereotyped as perpetual foreigners. For girls, a perpetual foreigner stereotype relates to perceptions of chronic daily discrimination, increasing the risk of depressive symptoms. For boys, the path is different: a perpetual foreigner stereotype is apparently related to discriminatory victimization experiences, which increase the risk of depressive symptoms. PMID:21244164

Accent, perpetual foreigner stereotype, and perceived discrimination as indirect links between English proficiency and depressive symptoms in Chinese American adolescents.

PubMed

Kim, Su Yeong; Wang, Yijie; Deng, Shiying; Alvarez, Rocio; Li, Jing

2011-01-01

The current study uses García Coll et al.'s (1996) developmental competence model of ethnic minority children and Kim's (1999) racial triangulation theory as frameworks for investigating the mechanisms whereby early adolescent English proficiency relates to perceived discriminatory experiences and adolescent depressive symptoms. Data from 444 adolescents (239 girls and 205 boys, with a mean age of 13.0 years for Wave 1 and 17.0 years for Wave 2) and their parents living in major metropolitan areas of Northern California were collected. The structural equation modeling analyses indicate that self-reported low levels of English proficiency among Chinese American adolescents in middle school are related to these same students later reporting that they speak English with an accent in high school, which in turn relates significantly to their perceiving that they have been stereotyped as perpetual foreigners. For girls, a perpetual foreigner stereotype relates to perceptions of chronic daily discrimination, increasing the risk of depressive symptoms. For boys, the path is different: A perpetual foreigner stereotype is apparently related to discriminatory victimization experiences, which increase the risk of depressive symptoms.

Sentence durations and accentedness judgments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bond, Z. S.; Stockmal, Verna; Markus, Dace

2003-04-01

Talkers in a second language can frequently be identified as speaking with a foreign accent. It is not clear to what degree a foreign accent represents specific deviations from a target language versus more general characteristics. We examined the identifications of native and non-native talkers by listeners with various amount of knowledge of the target language. Native and non-native speakers of Latvian provided materials. All the non-native talkers spoke Russian as their first language and were long-term residents of Latvia. A listening test, containing sentences excerpted from a short recorded passage, was presented to three groups of listeners: native speakers of Latvian, Russians for whom Latvian was a second language, and Americans with no knowledge of either of the two languages. The listeners were asked to judge whether each utterance was produced by a native or non-native talker. The Latvians identified the non-native talkers very accurately, 88%. The Russians were somewhat less accurate, 83%. The American listeners were least accurate, but still identified the non-native talkers at above chance levels, 62%. Sentence durations correlated with the judgments provided by the American listeners but not with the judgments provided by native or L2 listeners.

The Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song (RAVDESS): A dynamic, multimodal set of facial and vocal expressions in North American English

PubMed Central

Russo, Frank A.

2018-01-01

The RAVDESS is a validated multimodal database of emotional speech and song. The database is gender balanced consisting of 24 professional actors, vocalizing lexically-matched statements in a neutral North American accent. Speech includes calm, happy, sad, angry, fearful, surprise, and disgust expressions, and song contains calm, happy, sad, angry, and fearful emotions. Each expression is produced at two levels of emotional intensity, with an additional neutral expression. All conditions are available in face-and-voice, face-only, and voice-only formats. The set of 7356 recordings were each rated 10 times on emotional validity, intensity, and genuineness. Ratings were provided by 247 individuals who were characteristic of untrained research participants from North America. A further set of 72 participants provided test-retest data. High levels of emotional validity and test-retest intrarater reliability were reported. Corrected accuracy and composite "goodness" measures are presented to assist researchers in the selection of stimuli. All recordings are made freely available under a Creative Commons license and can be downloaded at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1188976. PMID:29768426

Modified silicas with different structure of grafted methylphenylsiloxane layer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bolbukh, Yuliia; Terpiłowski, Konrad; Kozakevych, Roman; Sternik, Dariusz; Deryło-Marczewska, Anna; Tertykh, Valentin

2016-06-01

The method of a chemical assembly of the surface polymeric layer with high contents of the modifying agent was developed. Powders of nanodispersed silica with chemisorbed polymethylphenylsiloxane (PMPS) were synthesized by solvent-free chemical assembly technique with a dimethyl carbonate (DMC) as scission agent. Samples were characterized using FTIR spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and elemental analysis (CHN analysis). Coating microstructure, morphology, and hydrophilic-hydrophobic properties of nanoparticles were estimated. The results indicate a significant effect of the PMPS/DMC ratio at each modification stage on hydrophobic properties of modified silicas. Modification with a similar composition of the PMPS/DMC mixture, even with different polymer amount at each stage, provides the worst hydrophobicity. Results suggest that the highest hydrophobicity (contact angle θ = 135°-140°) is achieved in the case when silica modified with the PMPS/DMC mixture using multistage approach that providing a formation of the monomolecular layer of polysiloxane at the first modification step. The characteristics of surface structure were interpreted in terms of density of polymer-silica bonds at the interfaces that, usually, are reduced for modified surfaces, in a coupling with conformation model that accented the shape of chains (arch- and console-like) adsorbed on solid surfaces.

How and When Does the Second Language Influence the Production of Native Speech Sounds: A Literature Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kartushina, Natalia; Frauenfelder, Ulrich H.; Golestani, Narly

2016-01-01

In bilinguals and second language learners, the native (L1) and nonnative (L2) languages coexist and interact. The L1 influences L2 production via forward transfer, as is seen with foreign accents. However, language transfer is bidirectional: even brief experience with an L2 can affect L1 production, via backward transfer. Here, we review the…

Teaching of Psychology: Ideas and Innovations. Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Undergraduate Teaching of Psychology (4th, Springfield, Massachusetts, March 15-16, 1990).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levine, Judith R., Ed.; Feist, Stanley C., Ed.

The 17 papers in this compilation were selected from 29 presentations given at the conference. The collection includes the following papers: (1) "Does Classroom Context Affect Examination Performance?" by Debra Elliot, Toni Strand, and David Hothersall; (2) "Accent on Abilities: Empowering the Learner by Integrating Teaching, Learning, &…

The Shape of Nuclear Falls and Their Effect on the Perception of Pitch and Prominence: Peaks vs. Plateaux

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knight, Rachael-Anne

2008-01-01

This article investigates the perceptual effect of a high plateau in the intonation contour. Plateaux are flat stretches of contour and have been observed associated with high tones in Standard Southern British (SSB) English. The hypothesis that plateaux may make the accents with which they are associated sound higher in pitch than sharp peaks of…

JPRS Report, East Europe.

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-12-02

territorial units, especially m the obshtmas and municipalities. "The general meeting of the inhabi- tants , especially in the municipalities, must...missions which are traditionally collegial, this principle was widely accented m executive bodies as well. In the ministries there are collegium« that...constructive contribution, alongside the Soviet Union and m the community of the socialist states, to implementing the socialist peace strategy, as bold as it

Final Environmental Assessment for Planned Growth Hulrburd Field, Florida

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-08-01

Banana Shrub Fragrant flowers . Nerium oleander Oleander Tough evergreen, blooms all summer. Osmanthus fragrans Tea Olive Very fragrant blooms in...possible. landscaping techniques involving native or exotic species approved in the Master List of Trees, Shrubs, and Accent Flowers for Use in the... flowers for landscape use on Hurlburt Field • Vertebrate Faunal Species Possible on Hurlburt Field • Listing of the endangered fauna potentially

"Your Pronunciation and Your Accent is Very Excellent": Orientations of Identity during Compliment Sequences in English as a Lingua Franca Encounters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jenks, Christopher

2013-01-01

The widespread use of English has--for better or worse--shaped the social and communicative norms and practices of many people the world over, and the likelihood of this continuing for the foreseeable future raises questions concerning English ownership, linguistic imperialism, language attrition, and mutual intelligibility, to name a few. These…

The Interface of Global Migrations, Local English Language Learning, and Identity Transmutations of the Immigrant Academician

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hutchison, Charles B.; Quach, Lan; Wiggan, Greg

2006-01-01

As global migrations of both teachers and students have increased, so has the need to re-learn English in response to local parlances. Thus, the use of formal and informal language styles, the masking of accents, and the understanding of the differential use of certain specific words, expressions, and the like become critical for teachers and…

Publisher's Note: System of classical nonlinear oscillators as a coarse-grained quantum system [Phys. Rev. A 84, 022103 (2011)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Radonjic, Milan; Prvanovic, Slobodan; Buric, Nikola

2011-08-15

This paper was published online on 2 August 2011 with a typographical error in an author name in the author list. The first author's name should be 'Milan Radonji Acute-Accent c'. The name has been corrected as of 16 August 2011. The name is correct in the printed version of the journal.

[P.A.M. Dirac and antimatter applied to medicine].

PubMed

Kulenović, Fahrudin; Vobornik, Slavenka; Dalagija, Faruk

2003-01-01

Regarding to the hundredth anniversary of P. Dirac birth, it was made review on life and work of this genius in the history of physics and science generally. His ingenious scientific work, that significantly marked contemporary time, was presented in the simplest way with aim to approach more number of readers. Special accent was put on application of Dirac's ideas about antiparticles in medical practice.

L2 Reading Research and Pedagogical Considerations in the Teaching of French and Francophone Theater

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edwards, Carole; Taylor, Alan M.

2012-01-01

Little research on improving second language (L2) reading comprehension of French and francophone theater has been conducted. This study provides insight into enhancing L2 comprehension of drama by combining L2 research with examples from L'accent grave by Jacques Prevert, Ton beau capitaine by Simone Schwarz-Bart (1987), Un Touareg s'est marie a…

Acoustic constituents of prosodic typology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Komatsu, Masahiko

Different languages sound different, and considerable part of it derives from the typological difference of prosody. Although such difference is often referred to as lexical accent types (stress accent, pitch accent, and tone; e.g. English, Japanese, and Chinese respectively) and rhythm types (stress-, syllable-, and mora-timed rhythms; e.g. English, Spanish, and Japanese respectively), it is unclear whether these types are determined in terms of acoustic properties, The thesis intends to provide a potential basis for the description of prosody in terms of acoustics. It argues for the hypothesis that the source component of the source-filter model (acoustic features) approximately corresponds to prosody (linguistic features) through several experimental-phonetic studies. The study consists of four parts. (1) Preliminary experiment: Perceptual language identification tests were performed using English and Japanese speech samples whose frequency spectral information (i.e. non-source component) is heavily reduced. The results indicated that humans can discriminate languages with such signals. (2) Discussion on the linguistic information that the source component contains: This part constitutes the foundation of the argument of the thesis. Perception tests of consonants with the source signal indicated that the source component carries the information on broad categories of phonemes that contributes to the creation of rhythm. (3) Acoustic analysis: The speech samples of Chinese, English, Japanese, and Spanish, differing in prosodic types, were analyzed. These languages showed difference in acoustic characteristics of the source component. (4) Perceptual experiment: A language identification test for the above four languages was performed using the source signal with its acoustic features parameterized. It revealed that humans can discriminate prosodic types solely with the source features and that the discrimination is easier as acoustic information increases. The series of studies showed the correspondence of the source component to prosodic features. In linguistics, prosodic types have not been discussed purely in terms of acoustics; they are usually related to the function of prosody or phonological units such as phonemes. The present thesis focuses on acoustics and makes a contribution to establishing the crosslinguistic description system of prosody.

The Computer as a Tool for Learning through Reflection.

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-03-01

different accents and backgrounds (e.g., Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Luther King, and Ricardo Montalban). Thus students can compare how they read the...Coordinated Science Laboratory Santa Barbara, CA 93106 University of Illinois Urbana, IL 61801 Edward E. Eddowes CNATRA N301 Goery Delacote Naval Air Station...DC 20052 Dr. James G. Greeno University of California Dr Jim Hollan Berkeley. CA 94720 Intelligent Systems Group Institute for Prof Edward Haertel

English or Englishes? Outer and Expanding Circle Teachers' Awareness of and Attitudes towards Their Own Variants of English in ESL/EFL Teaching Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Monfared, Abbas; Khatib, Mohammad

2018-01-01

One of the challenging issues that has gained much attention, and has in fact sparked much debate, within the emergence and acquisition of World Englishes, is the Native- Non-native accent, especially its relationship with teachers' and learners' identity and selection of an appropriate pedagogic model. This paper investigates the attitudes of 260…

Exposure to Multiple Accents of English in the English Language Teaching Classroom: From Second Language Learners' Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sung, Chit Cheung Matthew

2016-01-01

As a result of the global presence of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), it has been argued that learners of English should be exposed to a range of varieties of English, rather than a single variety of English, so that they can be better prepared to communicate with other people in ELF communication. However, little is known about second language…

Use of Color in Child Care Environments: Application of Color for Wayfinding and Space Definition in Alabama Child Care Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Read, Marilyn A.

2003-01-01

Compared the use of color in physical design features associated with the exterior and interior designs of 101 child care centers in Alabama. Found that color was evidenced on the exterior of the centers at just over half of the sample. The interior environments had warm colors and bright accents in the setting; however, the majority of centers…

What makes listening difficult? Factors affecting second language listening comprehension

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-04-01

idioms in the passage on listening comprehension. The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) defines idiom as “an expression consisting of two or more...years of age and spoke English without a noticeable foreign accent had significantly poorer word recognition scores than monolingual listeners for...of reference: The experience of the Dutch CEFR Construct Project. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(1), 3–30. American Heritage Dictionary of the

Exploiting Pitch Accent Information in Compound Processing: A Comparison between Adults and 6- to 7-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hirose, Yuki; Mazuka, Reiko

2017-01-01

A noun can be potentially ambiguous as to whether it is a head on its own, or is a modifier of a Noun + Noun compound waiting for its head. This study investigates whether young children can exploit the prosodic information on a modifier constituent preceding the head to facilitate resolution of such ambiguity in Japanese. Evidence from English…

The Critical Period for Second Language Pronunciation: Is There Such a Thing? Ten Case Studies of Late Starters who Attained a Native-like Hebrew Accent

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu-Rabia, Salim; Kehat, Simona

2004-01-01

This paper investigates the critical period hypothesis (CPH) for the acquisition of a second language sound system (phonology) in a naturalistic setting. Ten cases of successful late-starters with a native-like Hebrew pronunciation are presented in an effort to determine possible variables that may account for their exceptional accomplishment. The…

Japanese Method Gets a Wyoming Accent: Lab School in Laramie Adapts Lesson Study Concept to Its Own Needs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trent, Allen; Blum, Timothy; McLaughlin, Meredith; Yocom, Dorothy Jean

2005-01-01

A study group from a Wyoming school and nearby university delve into the Japanese process of lesson study, learning the differences between the Japanese and U.S. education systems and how the process can work--and does not work--in an American context. The group's understandings highlight ways that lesson study can be adapted for use in the United…

On the intonation of German intonation questions: the role of the prenuclear region.

PubMed

Petrone, Caterina; Niebuhr, Oliver

2014-03-01

German questions and statements are distinguished not only by lexical and syntactic but also by intonational means. This study revisits, for Northern Standard German, how questions are signalled intonationally in utterances that have neither lexical nor syntactic cues. Starting from natural productions of such 'intonation questions', two perception experiments were run. Experiment 1 is based on a gating paradigm, which was applied to naturally produced questions and statements. Experiment 11 includes two indirect-identification tasks. Resynthesized stimuli were judged in relation to two context utterances, each of which was compatible with only one sentence mode interpretation. Results show that utterances with a finally falling nuclear pitch-accent contour can also trigger question perception. An utterance-final rise is not mandatory. Also, question and statement cues are not restricted to the intonational nucleus. Rather, listeners can refer to shape, slope, and alignment differences of the preceding prenuclear pitch accent to identify sentence mode. These findings are in line with studies suggesting that the utterance-final rise versus fall contrast is not directly related to sentence modality, but represents a separate attitudinal meaning dimension. Moreover, the findings support that both prenuclear and nuclear fundamental frequency (F0) patterns must be taken into account in the analysis of tune meaning.

Effects of obstruent consonants on the F0 contour

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hanson, Helen M.

2003-10-01

When a vowel follows an obstruent consonant, the fundamental frequency in the first few tens of milliseconds of the vowel is influenced by the voicing characteristics of the consonant. The goal of the research reported here is to model this influence, with the intention of improving generation of F0 contours in rule-based speech synthesis. Data have been recorded from 10 subjects. Stops, fricatives, and the nasal /m/ were paired with the vowels /i,opena/ to form CVm syllables. The syllables mVm served as baselines with which to compare the obstruents. The target syllables were embedded in carrier sentences. Intonation was varied so that each target syllable was produced with either a high, low, or no pitch accent. Results vary among subjects, but in general, obstruent effects on F0 primarily occur when the syllable carries a high pitch. In that case, F0 is increased relative to the baseline following voiceless obstruents, but F0 closely follows the baseline following voiced obstruents. After voiceless obstruents, F0 may be increased for up to 80 ms following voicing onset. When a syllable carries a low or no pitch accent, F0 is increased slightly following all obstruents. [Work supported by NIH Grant No. DC04331.

(De-)accentuation and the process of information status: evidence from event-related brain potentials.

PubMed

Baumann, Stefan; Schumacher, Petra B

2012-09-01

The paper reports on a perception experiment in German that investigated the neuro-cognitive processing of information structural concepts and their prosodic marking using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Experimental conditions controlled the information status (given vs. new) of referring and non-referring target expressions (nouns vs. adjectives) and were elicited via context sentences, which did not - unlike most previous ERP studies in the field--trigger an explicit focus expectation. Target utterances displayed prosodic realizations of the critical words which differed in accent position and accent type. Electrophysiological results showed an effect of information status, maximally distributed over posterior sites, displaying a biphasic N400--Late Positivity pattern for new information. We claim that this pattern reflects increased processing demands associated with new information, with the N400 indicating enhanced costs from linking information with the previous discourse and the Late Positivity indicating the listener's effort to update his/her discourse model. The prosodic manipulation registered more pronounced effects over anterior regions and revealed an enhanced negativity followed by a Late Positivity for deaccentuation, probably also reflecting costs from discourse linking and updating respectively. The data further lend indirect support for the idea that givenness applies not only to referents but also to non-referential expressions ('lexical givenness').

Characteristics of the acquisition of sonorant consonants orthography in Brazilian children from a São Paulo municipality.

PubMed

Vaz, Suellen; Pezarini, Isabela de Oliveira; Paschoal, Larissa; Chacon, Lourenço

2015-01-01

To describe the spelling performance of children with regard to the record of sonorant consonants in Brazilian Portuguese language, to verify if the errors in their records were influenced by the accent in the word, and to categorize the kinds of errors found. For this current survey, 801 text productions were selected as a result of the development of 14 different thematic proposals, prepared by 76 children from the first grade of primary school, in 2001, coming from two schools of a city from São Paulo, Brazil. Of these productions, all words with sonorant consonants in a syllabic position of simple onset were selected. They were then organized as they appeared as pre-tonic, tonic, and post-tonic syllables, unstressed and tonic monosyllables. The following was observed: the number of hits was extremely higher than that of errors; higher occurrence of errors in non-accented syllables; higher occurrence of phonological substitutions followed by omissions and, at last, orthographic substitutions; and higher number of substitutions that involved graphemes referring to the sonorant class. Considering the distribution of orthographic data between hits and errors, as well as their relationship with phonetic-phonological aspects, may contribute to the comprehension of school difficulties, which are usually found in the first years of literacy instruction.

Immediate integration of prosodic information from speech and visual information from pictures in the absence of focused attention: a mismatch negativity study.

PubMed

Li, X; Yang, Y; Ren, G

2009-06-16

Language is often perceived together with visual information. Recent experimental evidences indicated that, during spoken language comprehension, the brain can immediately integrate visual information with semantic or syntactic information from speech. Here we used the mismatch negativity to further investigate whether prosodic information from speech could be immediately integrated into a visual scene context or not, and especially the time course and automaticity of this integration process. Sixteen Chinese native speakers participated in the study. The materials included Chinese spoken sentences and picture pairs. In the audiovisual situation, relative to the concomitant pictures, the spoken sentence was appropriately accented in the standard stimuli, but inappropriately accented in the two kinds of deviant stimuli. In the purely auditory situation, the speech sentences were presented without pictures. It was found that the deviants evoked mismatch responses in both audiovisual and purely auditory situations; the mismatch negativity in the purely auditory situation peaked at the same time as, but was weaker than that evoked by the same deviant speech sounds in the audiovisual situation. This pattern of results suggested immediate integration of prosodic information from speech and visual information from pictures in the absence of focused attention.

Adaptive response to chronic mild ethanol stress involves ROS, sirtuins and changes in chromosome dosage in wine yeasts.

PubMed

Adamczyk, Jagoda; Deregowska, Anna; Skoneczny, Marek; Skoneczna, Adrianna; Kwiatkowska, Aleksandra; Potocki, Leszek; Rawska, Ewa; Pabian, Sylwia; Kaplan, Jakub; Lewinska, Anna; Wnuk, Maciej

2016-05-24

Industrial yeast strains of economic importance used in winemaking and beer production are genomically diverse and subjected to harsh environmental conditions during fermentation. In the present study, we investigated wine yeast adaptation to chronic mild alcohol stress when cells were cultured for 100 generations in the presence of non-cytotoxic ethanol concentration. Ethanol-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) and superoxide signals promoted growth rate during passages that was accompanied by increased expression of sirtuin proteins, Sir1, Sir2 and Sir3, and DNA-binding transcription regulator Rap1. Genome-wide array-CGH analysis revealed that yeast genome was shaped during passages. The gains of chromosomes I, III and VI and significant changes in the gene copy number in nine functional gene categories involved in metabolic processes and stress responses were observed. Ethanol-mediated gains of YRF1 and CUP1 genes were the most accented. Ethanol also induced nucleolus fragmentation that confirms that nucleolus is a stress sensor in yeasts. Taken together, we postulate that wine yeasts of different origin may adapt to mild alcohol stress by shifts in intracellular redox state promoting growth capacity, upregulation of key regulators of longevity, namely sirtuins and changes in the dosage of genes involved in the telomere maintenance and ion detoxification.

The Fallacy of Promoting Non Native Varieties of English in Postcolonial Multilingual Settings: The Case of Cameroon English (CamE) in Cameroon

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Essossomo, Serges Moïse

2015-01-01

This research endeavour is a major contribution to the current debate on the integration of non-native varieties into the school curriculum in non-native settings. Taking the specific case of Cameroon, this work rests on the solid assumption that the promotion of CamE to the detriment of Standard British English accent is definitely a fallacy. The…

Business Case Analysis: Reconfiguration of the Frederick Memorial Healthcare System Courier Service

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-05-13

from each specimen. This figure alone clearly supports the existence of the FMH courier service. The problem , rather, lies in the efficiency and...investigated, to include the Hyundai Accent, Chevrolet Aveo, and the Honda Fit. Each vehicle was evaluated on cost, fuel efficiency, predicted reliability...P175/65R14 Tires Temporary Spare Tire SAFETY Driver Front Airbag and Front Passenger Airbag with Advanced Airbag System 3 Point Driver & Fr Pass

View from intersection. Ninestory reinforced concrete building infilled with brick. ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View from intersection. Nine-story reinforced concrete building infilled with brick. The street facades on beaubien and east grand are faced with stone accents and elaborate brick work. Brick pilasters run the entire height of the building. Steel tiebacks are apparent running up the height of the building on the east side. The large tower appears at the northeast and southeast corners - Detroit Storage Company, 2937 East Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI

Advanced Non-Intrusive Instrumentation for Propulsion Engines

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-05-01

pratique courante dans le secteur du developpement comme dans l’industrie. L’accent a ete mis sur le souhait de maintenir cette situation, et les...differentes installations de l’Alliance et autres, en vue de leur amelioration avant de proposer des applications plus larges dans les secteurs de...dans ’ une cellule statique oil les parametres P et T sont facilement mesurables, des mesures des trois parametres ont ete realisees sur un jet

El Demostrativo en Espanol y en Frances Estudio Comparativo y Estructuracion (A Comparative and Structural Study of the Demonstrative in Spanish and French).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamiquiz, Vidal

1967-01-01

There are four demonstrative adjectives in Spanish: "este,""ese,""aquel," and "el" (which is the same as the definite article). When "este", "ese," and "aquel" do not modify a noun, they have an accent mark (except in the neuter forms) and have the function of pronouns. The singular and plural articles in Spanish are derived from the Latin…

[The low-molecular weight antioxidants of microorganisms].

PubMed

Skorokhod, I O; Kurdysh, I K

2014-01-01

Support of optimum redox-homeostasis in the cells of microorganisms plays a substantial role in the processes of DNA synthesis, respiration, providing of immune and protective reactions, activity of enzymes, etc. The changes of the redox-status can be accompanied by the increase of the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which predetermine the damage of biologically active molecules. Adjusting of ROS concentrations is a very important process in development of microorganisms. Low-molecular antioxidants are effective inhibitors of free-radical processes. The authors of the review present the description of oxidants and consider the ways of origin and consequences of their influence on the living cells. An accent is done on phenomenological description of low-molecular antioxidants. The basic mechanisms of their action are considered. Special attention is given to the question of synergism between these protectors. The detailed study of mechanisms of functioning of low-molecular antioxidants in the cells of microorganisms will allow using these living objects in different spheres of human activity.

3-D Soviet Style: A Presentation on Lessons Learned from the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-10-01

communication and to the efforts the Soviets made in building Afghan security forces. It includes information on the theory and practice of Soviet...state-building; lines of communication are a critical vulnerability to insurgent attacks; successive battlefield victories do not guarantee strategic...rouge en ce qui concerne la sécurisation de ses voies de communication . Un accent particulier est également mis sur les efforts soviétiques visant à

Strategic Forum. Number 274. January 2012. Raising Our Sights: Russian-American Strategic Restraint in an Age of Vulnerability

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-01-01

leader. Although Russians remain wary of the United States, perpetuating and accenting American- Russian dif- ferences is no longer the formula for...truly seek a nonadversarial relationship, each can agree not to be the Raising Our Sights: Russian - American Strategic Restraint in an Age of...Raising Our Sights: Russian -American Strategic Restraint in an Age of Vulnerability 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT

Measurement of ClO and CO2 for ACCENT

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Toohey, Darin

2000-01-01

Observations have shown that ozone in largely removed in rocket plumes within an hour of launch [M.N. Ross, et al., Nature 390, 62-64, 1997]. Large abundances of chlorine oxide (ClO) were first detected in the fresh plume of a Delta rocket in May of 1998 from the NASA WB-57 during the Air Force RISO campaign by the CORE instrument developed at UC Irvine. Similar abundances were detected a month later in the plume of an ATLAS II rocket. Although the maximum ClO observed in these plumes was twenty-five times larger than the highest values ever observed in the perturbed polar vortices, in a new study, [M.N. Ross, et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 2000, in press] could not account for observed ozone losses based on known chlorine photochemistry. New measurements were obtained in plumes of Delta, Atlas, and Athena rockets in 1999 during ACCENT with the CORE instrument augmented with a modified LiCor non-dispersed infrared detector for fast-response measurements of carbon-dioxide (CO2). The absolute abundance of this specie constrains the rocket emission stoichiometry, and its relative abundance serves as a tracer of dilution. The combination of ClO and CO2 will provide important new insights into the temporal and spatial evolution of reactive chlorine partitioning and its dependence on rocket motor type.

Violations of information structure: an electrophysiological study of answers to wh-questions.

PubMed

Cowles, H W; Kluender, Robert; Kutas, Marta; Polinsky, Maria

2007-09-01

This study investigates brain responses to violations of information structure in wh-question-answer pairs, with particular emphasis on violations of focus assignment in it-clefts (It was the queen that silenced the banker). Two types of ERP responses in answers to wh-questions were found. First, all words in the focus-marking (cleft) position elicited a large positivity (P3b) characteristic of sentence-final constituents, as did the final words of these sentences, which suggests that focused elements may trigger integration effects like those seen at sentence end. Second, the focusing of an inappropriate referent elicited a smaller, N400-like effect. The results show that comprehenders actively use structural focus cues and discourse-level restrictions during online sentence processing. These results, based on visual stimuli, were different from the brain response to auditory focus violations indicated by pitch-accent [Hruska, C., Steinhauer, K., Alter, K., & Steube, A. (2000). ERP effects of sentence accents and violations of the information structure. In Poster presented at the 13th annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing, San Diego, CA.], but similar to brain responses to newly introduced discourse referents [Bornkessel, I., Schlesewsky, M., & Friederici, A. (2003). Contextual information modulated initial processes of syntactic integration: the role of inter- versus intrasentential predictions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 29, 871-882.].

The challenge of regional accents for aviation English language proficiency standards: a study of difficulties in understanding in air traffic control-pilot communications.

PubMed

Tiewtrakul, T; Fletcher, S R

2010-02-01

Although English has been the international aviation language since 1951, formal language proficiency testing for key aviation personnel has only recently been implemented by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It aims to ensure minimum acceptable levels of English pronunciation and comprehension universally, but does not attend to particular regional dialect difficulties. However, evidence suggests that voice transmissions between air traffic controllers and pilots are a particular problem in international airspace and that pilots may not understand messages due to the influence of different accents when using English. This study explores the potential impact of 'non-native English' in pilot-air traffic control transmissions using a 'conversation analysis' technique to examine approach phase recordings from Bangkok International Airport. Results support that communication errors, defined by incidents of pilots not understanding, occur significantly more often when speakers are both non-native English, messages are more complex and when numerical information is involved. These results and their possible implications are discussed with reference to the development of ICAO's new language proficiency standards. Statement of Relevance: This study builds on previous work and literature, providing further evidence to show that the risks caused by language and linguistics in aviation must be explored more deeply. Findings are particularly contemporary and relevant today, indicating that recently implemented international standards would benefit from further exploratory research and development.

Adaptation to novel accents by toddlers

PubMed Central

White, Katherine S.; Aslin, Richard N.

2010-01-01

Word recognition is a balancing act: listeners must be sensitive to phonetic detail to avoid confusing similar words, yet, at the same time, be flexible enough to adapt to phonetically variable pronunciations, such as those produced by speakers of different dialects or by non-native speakers. Recent work has demonstrated that young toddlers are sensitive to phonetic detail during word recognition; pronunciations that deviate from the typical phonological form lead to a disruption of processing. However, it is not known whether young word learners show the flexibility that is characteristic of adult word recognition. The present study explores whether toddlers can adapt to artificial accents in which there is a vowel category shift with respect to the native language. 18–20-month-olds heard mispronunciations of familiar words (e.g., vowels were shifted from [a] to [æ]: “dog” pronounced as “dag”). In test, toddlers were tolerant of mispronunciations if they had recently been exposed to the same vowel shift, but not if they had been exposed to standard pronunciations or other vowel shifts. The effects extended beyond particular items heard in exposure to words sharing the same vowels. These results indicate that, like adults, toddlers show flexibility in their interpretation of phonological detail. Moreover, they suggest that effects of top-down knowledge on the reinterpretation of phonological detail generalize across the phono-lexical system. PMID:21479106

A Mozart is not a Pavarotti: singers outperform instrumentalists on foreign accent imitation

PubMed Central

Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne Maria

2015-01-01

Recent findings have shown that people with higher musical aptitude were also better in oral language imitation tasks. However, whether singing capacity and instrument playing contribute differently to the imitation of speech has been ignored so far. Research has just recently started to understand that instrumentalists develop quite distinct skills when compared to vocalists. In the same vein the role of the vocal motor system in language acquisition processes has poorly been investigated as most investigations (neurobiological and behavioral) favor to examine speech perception. We set out to test whether the vocal motor system can influence an ability to learn, produce and perceive new languages by contrasting instrumentalists and vocalists. Therefore, we investigated 96 participants, 27 instrumentalists, 33 vocalists and 36 non-musicians/non-singers. They were tested for their abilities to imitate foreign speech: unknown language (Hindi), second language (English) and their musical aptitude. Results revealed that both instrumentalists and vocalists have a higher ability to imitate unintelligible speech and foreign accents than non-musicians/non-singers. Within the musician group, vocalists outperformed instrumentalists significantly. Conclusion: First, adaptive plasticity for speech imitation is not reliant on audition alone but also on vocal-motor induced processes. Second, vocal flexibility of singers goes together with higher speech imitation aptitude. Third, vocal motor training, as of singers, may speed up foreign language acquisition processes. PMID:26379537

Culturally diverse attitudes and beliefs of students majoring in speech-language pathology.

PubMed

Franca, Maria Claudia; Smith, Linda McCabe; Nichols, Jane Luanne; Balan, Dianna Santos

Academic education in speech-language pathology should prepare students to provide professional services that mirror current knowledge, skills, and scope of practice in a pluralistic society. This study seeks to examine the impact of speech-language pathology (SLP) students prior multicultural experiences and previous formal education on attitudes and beliefs toward language diversity. A survey to investigate SLP students attitudes toward language diversity was applied. After the research study and instructions to complete the consent form questionnaire was presented by a research assistant, an announcement was given by a graduate student who speaks English as a second language with an accent. The participants then completed a questionnaire containing questions related to attitudes about the presentation of the announcement in particular and toward language diversity in general. Responses suggested a relationship between self-reported cultural bias and ability to concentrate on speech with an accent, and the extent of interaction with individuals from a cultural and linguistic diverse (CLD) background. Additional outcomes revealed that cultural bias may be predicted by factors related to amount of CLD exposure. Results of this study indicated critical areas that need to be considered when developing curricula in speech-language pathology programs. The results will be useful in determining procedures applicable in larger investigations, and encourage future research on attitudes and beliefs toward aspects of cultural diversity.

A Mozart is not a Pavarotti: singers outperform instrumentalists on foreign accent imitation.

PubMed

Christiner, Markus; Reiterer, Susanne Maria

2015-01-01

Recent findings have shown that people with higher musical aptitude were also better in oral language imitation tasks. However, whether singing capacity and instrument playing contribute differently to the imitation of speech has been ignored so far. Research has just recently started to understand that instrumentalists develop quite distinct skills when compared to vocalists. In the same vein the role of the vocal motor system in language acquisition processes has poorly been investigated as most investigations (neurobiological and behavioral) favor to examine speech perception. We set out to test whether the vocal motor system can influence an ability to learn, produce and perceive new languages by contrasting instrumentalists and vocalists. Therefore, we investigated 96 participants, 27 instrumentalists, 33 vocalists and 36 non-musicians/non-singers. They were tested for their abilities to imitate foreign speech: unknown language (Hindi), second language (English) and their musical aptitude. Results revealed that both instrumentalists and vocalists have a higher ability to imitate unintelligible speech and foreign accents than non-musicians/non-singers. Within the musician group, vocalists outperformed instrumentalists significantly. First, adaptive plasticity for speech imitation is not reliant on audition alone but also on vocal-motor induced processes. Second, vocal flexibility of singers goes together with higher speech imitation aptitude. Third, vocal motor training, as of singers, may speed up foreign language acquisition processes.

Production of lexical stress in non-native speakers of American English: Kinematic correlates of stress and transfer

PubMed Central

Chakraborty, Rahul; Goffman, Lisa

2013-01-01

Purpose To assess the influence of L2 proficiency on production characteristics of rhythmic sequences in L1 (Bengali) and L2 (English), with emphasis on linguistic transfer. One goal was to examine, using kinematic evidence, how L2- proficiency influences the production of iambic and trochaic words, focusing on temporal and spatial aspects of prosody. A second goal was to assess whether prosodic structure influences judgment of foreign accent. Method Twenty Bengali-English bilinguals, 10 with low proficiency and 10 with high proficiency in English, and 10 monolingual English speakers participated. Lip and jaw movements were recorded while the bilinguals produced Bengali and English words embedded in sentences. Lower lip movement amplitude and duration were measured in trochaic and iambic words. Six native English listeners judged the nativeness of the bilingual speakers. Results Evidence of L1 to L2 transfer was observed through duration but not amplitude cues. More proficient L2 speakers varied duration to mark iambic stress. Perceptually, the high proficiency group received relatively higher native-like accent ratings. Trochees were judged as more native than iambs. Interpretation Even in the face of L1-L2 lexical stress transfer, non-native speakers demonstrated knowledge of prosodic contrasts. Movement duration appears to be more amenable to modifications than amplitude. PMID:21106699

Political skill: explaining the effects of nonnative accent on managerial hiring and entrepreneurial investment decisions.

PubMed

Huang, Laura; Frideger, Marcia; Pearce, Jone L

2013-11-01

We propose and test a new theory explaining glass-ceiling bias against nonnative speakers as driven by perceptions that nonnative speakers have weak political skill. Although nonnative accent is a complex signal, its effects on assessments of the speakers' political skill are something that speakers can actively mitigate; this makes it an important bias to understand. In Study 1, White and Asian nonnative speakers using the same scripted responses as native speakers were found to be significantly less likely to be recommended for a middle-management position, and this bias was fully mediated by assessments of their political skill. The alternative explanations of race, communication skill, and collaborative skill were nonsignificant. In Study 2, entrepreneurial start-up pitches from national high-technology, new-venture funding competitions were shown to experienced executive MBA students. Nonnative speakers were found to have a significantly lower likelihood of receiving new-venture funding, and this was fully mediated by the coders' assessments of their political skill. The entrepreneurs' race, communication skill, and collaborative skill had no effect. We discuss the value of empirically testing various posited reasons for glass-ceiling biases, how the importance and ambiguity of political skill for executive success serve as an ostensibly meritocratic cover for nonnative speaker bias, and other theoretical and practical implications of this work. (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Cardiovascular function and basics of physiology in microgravity.

PubMed

Aubert, André E; Beckers, Frank; Verheyden, Bart

2005-04-01

Space exploration is a dream of mankind. However, this intriguing environment is not without risks. Life, and the human body, has developed all over evolution in the constant presence of gravity, especially from the moment on when living creatures left the ocean. When this gravitational force is no longer acting on the body, drastic changes occur. Some of these changes occur immediately, others progress only slowly. In the past 40 years of human space flight (first orbital flight by Yuri Gagarin on 12 April, 1961) several hazards for the human body have been identified. Bone mineral density is lost, muscle atrophy and cardiovascular deconditioning occur; pulmonary function, fluid regulating systems of the body, the sensory and the balance system are all disturbed by the lack of gravity. These changes in human physiology have to be reversed again when astronauts return to earth. This can cause adaptation problems, especially after long-duration space flights. Also the reaction of human physiology to radiation in space poses a huge risk at this moment. In this review the accent will be on cardiovascular function in space: how normal function is modified to reach a new equilibrium in space after short- and long-duration exposure to microgravity. In order to make long-duration space flight possible the mechanisms of this physiological adaptation must be understood to full extent. Only with this knowledge, effective countermeasures can be developed.

Constraints on the H˜ generalized parton distribution from deep virtual Compton scattering measured at HERMES

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guidal, M.

2010-09-01

We have analyzed the longitudinally polarized proton target asymmetry data of the Deep Virtual Compton process recently published by the HERMES Collaboration in terms of Generalized Parton Distributions. We have fitted these new data in a largely model-independent fashion and the procedure results in numerical constraints on the accent="true">H˜Im Compton Form Factor. We present its t- and ξ-dependencies. We also find improvement on the determination of two other Compton Form Factors, HRe and HIm.

Preliminary Analysis of Automatic Speech Recognition and Synthesis Technology.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-05-01

16.311 % a. Seale In/Se"l tAL4 lrs e y i s 2 I ROM men "Ig eddiei, m releerla ons leveltc. Ŗ dots ghoeea INDtISTRtAIJ%6LITARY SPEECH SYNTHESIS PRODUCTS...saquence The SC-01 Suech Syntheszer conftains 64 cf, arent poneme~hs which are accessed try A 6-tht code. 1 - the proper sequ.enti omthnatiors of thoe...connected speech input with widely differing emotional states, diverse accents, and substantial nonperiodic background noise input. As noted previously

Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German

PubMed Central

Kügler, Frank; Gollrad, Anja

2015-01-01

This study investigates the phonetics of German nuclear rise-fall contours in relation to contexts that trigger either a contrastive or a non-contrastive interpretation in the answer. A rise-fall contour can be conceived of a tonal sequence of L-H-L. A production study elicited target sentences in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts. The majority of cases realized showed a nuclear rise-fall contour. The acoustic analysis of these contours revealed a significant effect of contrastiveness on the height/alignment of the accent peak as a function of focus context. On the other hand, the height/alignment of the low turning point at the beginning of the rise did not show an effect of contrastiveness. In a series of semantic congruency perception tests participants judged the congruency of congruent and incongruent context-stimulus pairs based on three different sets of stimuli: (i) original data, (ii) manipulation of accent peak, and (iii) manipulation of the leading low. Listeners distinguished nuclear rise-fall contours as a function of focus context (Experiment 1 and 2), however not based on manipulations of the leading low (Experiment 3). The results suggest that the alignment and scaling of the accentual peak are sufficient to license a contrastive interpretation of a nuclear rise-fall contour, leaving the rising part as a phonetic onglide, or as a low tone that does not interact with the contrastivity of the context. PMID:26388795

Methodological Aspects Regarding The Organizational Stress Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Irimie, Sabina; Pricope (Muntean), Luminiţa Doina; Pricope, Sorin; Irimie, Sabin Ioan

2015-07-01

This work presents a research of methodology in occupational stress analyse in the educational field, as a part of a larger study. The objectives of the work are in finding accents in existence of significant relations between stressors and effects, meaning the differences between the indicators of occupational stress to teaching staff in primary and gymnasium school, taking notice of each specific condition: the institution as an entity, the working community, the discipline he/she is teaching others, the geographic and administrative district (urban/rural) and the quantification of stress level.

[The Chemnitz Pathologic-Hygienic Institute and its leader from 1898 to 1998].

PubMed

Künzel, W

1999-05-01

The 100-year-history of Pathological Anatomy in Chemnitz is described by edification and fall of its buildings as well as the main dates of its leaders. From these the founder of the institute Coelestin Nauwerck, his most important disciple Martin Staemmler and the newfounder after the 2nd world war Walther Panofsky are especially mentioned. The article also refers to the involvement of Staemmler in Nazism and the injury done to Panofsky by it. The importance of the microbiological-hygienical departure during a long period is accented.

Etude des sequences de type consonne constrictive plus voyelle en francais, a l'aide de la radiocinematographie et de l'oscillographie (A Study of the Constrictive Consonant Plus Vowel Sequences in French, Using X-Ray Filming and Oscillography). Publication B-148.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rochette, Claude; Simard, Claude

A study of the phonetic combination of a constrictive consonant (specifically, [f], [v], and [r]) and a vowel in French using x-ray and oscillograph technology focused on the speed and process of articulation between the consonant and the vowel. The study considered aperture size, nasality, labiality, and accent. Articulation of a total of 407…

Verification of the quantum dimension effects in electricsl condactivity with different topology of laser-induced thin-film structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arakelian, S.; Kucherik, A.; Kutrovskaya, S.; Osipov, A.; Istratov, A.; Skryabin, I.

2018-01-01

A clear physical model for the quantum states verification in nanocluster structures with jump/tunneling electroconductivity are under study in both theory and experiment. The accent is made on consideration of low-dimensional structures when the structural phase transitions occur and the tendency to high enhancement electroconductivity obtained. The results give us an opportunity to establish a basis for new physical principles to create the functional elements for the optoelectronics and photonics in hybrid set-up (optics + electrophysics) by the nanocluster technology approach.

Contemporary Perspectives on Spirituality and Mental Health

PubMed Central

Sharma, Pulkit; Charak, Ruby; Sharma, Vibha

2009-01-01

The paper strives to elucidate the complex yet intimate relation between spirituality and mental health from contemporary perspectives. The diverse and constantly evolving views that spiritualists and mental health professionals have held toward each other over last century are discussed with special accent on the transpersonal spiritual framework within psychology. The role of spirituality in promoting mental health and alleviating mental illness is highlighted. The paper is concluded with an increasing need to integrate spirituality within the mental health field albeit there are several impediments in achieving the same, which need to be worked through circumspectly. PMID:21938086

[Christian Wolff (1679-1754) and the medical concept of his time].

PubMed

Kaiser, W

1979-06-01

The 300th anniversary of the birthday of Christian Wolff gave the occasion to set his multilateral work in relation to the medical currents of his time and to analyse it from the standpoint of modern medicine. Especially in his early period at Halle University Christian Wolff develops a new research programme with essential accents for the future physician. His philosophical literature with the postulates containing in this are conformable to the aim of the predecessors of the French revolution and on the sector of the art of therapeutic forms the basis decisive improvements in organised public health.

Developmental Foreign Accent Syndrome: Report of a New Case

PubMed Central

Keulen, Stefanie; Mariën, Peter; Wackenier, Peggy; Jonkers, Roel; Bastiaanse, Roelien; Verhoeven, Jo

2016-01-01

This paper presents the case of a 17-year-old right-handed Belgian boy with developmental FAS and comorbid developmental apraxia of speech (DAS). Extensive neuropsychological and neurolinguistic investigations demonstrated a normal IQ but impaired planning (visuo-constructional dyspraxia). A Tc-99m-ECD SPECT revealed a significant hypoperfusion in the prefrontal and medial frontal regions, as well as in the lateral temporal regions. Hypoperfusion in the right cerebellum almost reached significance. It is hypothesized that these clinical findings support the view that FAS and DAS are related phenomena following impairment of the cerebro-cerebellar network. PMID:27014011

Lectins of beneficial microbes: system organisation, functioning and functional superfamily.

PubMed

Lakhtin, M; Lakhtin, V; Alyoshkin, V; Afanasyev, S

2011-06-01

In this review our last results and proposals with respect to general aspects of lectin studies are summarised and compared. System presence, organisation and functioning of lectins are proposed, and accents on beneficial symbiotic microbial lectins studies are presented. The proposed general principles of lectin functioning allows for a comparison of lectins with other carbohydrate-recognition systems. A new structure-functional superfamily of symbiotic microbial lectins is proposed and its main properties are described. The proposed superfamily allows for extended searches of the biological activities of any microbial member. Prospects of lectins of beneficial symbiotic microorganisms are discussed.

Achieving high CRI from warm to super white

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bailey, Edward; Tormey, Ellen S.

2007-09-01

Light sources which produce a high color rendering index (CRI) have many applications in the lighting industry today. High color rendering accents the rich color which abounds in nature, interior design, theatrical costumes and props, clothing and fabric, jewelry, and machine vision applications. Multi-wavelength LED sources can pump phosphors at multiple stokes shift emission regimes and when combined with selected direct emission sources can allow for greater flexibility in the production of warm-white and cool white light of specialty interest. Unique solutions to R8 and R14 CRI >95 at 2850K, 4750K, 5250K, and 6750K presented.

Thrombolysis research--new objectives after a shift of accent.

PubMed

Maksimenko, Alexander V

2002-01-01

The methods of increasing the efficacy of thrombolysis under clinical and experimental conditions are have been discussed in the light of analysis of current tendencies in the investigation and development of thrombolytic and adjunctive therapy. Analysis of the data obtained in the search for novel plasminogen activators for thrombolytic enzyme therapy has shown a decrease and depletion of this search. The reserves for further increase in thrombolysis efficiency have been notified. Special attention is paid to the purposes, realms and problems of adjunctive therapy, which is a promising breakthrough area in the effort of increasing the efficacy of thrombolysis.

Assessing Musical Abilities Objectively: Construction and Validation of the Profile of Music Perception Skills

PubMed Central

Law, Lily N. C.; Zentner, Marcel

2012-01-01

A common approach for determining musical competence is to rely on information about individuals’ extent of musical training, but relying on musicianship status fails to identify musically untrained individuals with musical skill, as well as those who, despite extensive musical training, may not be as skilled. To counteract this limitation, we developed a new test battery (Profile of Music Perception Skills; PROMS) that measures perceptual musical skills across multiple domains: tonal (melody, pitch), qualitative (timbre, tuning), temporal (rhythm, rhythm-to-melody, accent, tempo), and dynamic (loudness). The PROMS has satisfactory psychometric properties for the composite score (internal consistency and test-retest r>.85) and fair to good coefficients for the individual subtests (.56 to.85). Convergent validity was established with the relevant dimensions of Gordon’s Advanced Measures of Music Audiation and Musical Aptitude Profile (melody, rhythm, tempo), the Musical Ear Test (rhythm), and sample instrumental sounds (timbre). Criterion validity was evidenced by consistently sizeable and significant relationships between test performance and external musical proficiency indicators in all three studies (.38 to.62, p<.05 to p<.01). An absence of correlations between test scores and a nonmusical auditory discrimination task supports the battery’s discriminant validity (−.05, ns). The interrelationships among the various subtests could be accounted for by two higher order factors, sequential and sensory music processing. A brief version of the full PROMS is introduced as a time-efficient approximation of the full version of the battery. PMID:23285071

Optimization of spectral bands for hyperspectral remote sensing of forest vegetation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dmitriev, Egor V.; Kozoderov, Vladimir V.

2013-10-01

Optimization principles of accounting for the most informative spectral channels in hyperspectral remote sensing data processing serve to enhance the efficiency of the employed high-productive computers. The problem of pattern recognition of the remotely sensed land surface objects with the accent on the forests is outlined from the point of view of the spectral channels optimization on the processed hyperspectral images. The relevant computational procedures are tested using the images obtained by the produced in Russia hyperspectral camera that was installed on a gyro-stabilized platform to conduct the airborne flight campaigns. The Bayesian classifier is used for the pattern recognition of the forests with different tree species and age. The probabilistically optimal algorithm constructed on the basis of the maximum likelihood principle is described to minimize the probability of misclassification given by this classifier. The classification error is the major category to estimate the accuracy of the applied algorithm by the known holdout cross-validation method. Details of the related techniques are presented. Results are shown of selecting the spectral channels of the camera while processing the images having in mind radiometric distortions that diminish the classification accuracy. The spectral channels are selected of the obtained subclasses extracted from the proposed validation techniques and the confusion matrices are constructed that characterize the age composition of the classified pine species as well as the broad age-class recognition for the pine and birch species with the fully illuminated parts of their crowns.

[Child protection measures in other countries].

PubMed

Hurni, L

1980-06-01

The goal of measures for the protection of children is to help parents to behave toward their children in physically and psychologically nonviolent ways. In this article, a distinction is made between organisations devoted to field work and those devoted to public education. Examples are given from the Netherlands, England, the United States, and the Federal Republic of Germany. The care of families at risk is often in the hands of persons having already friendly contacts with the family. This type of lay helpers receive special training, and it seems that they gain more easily access to the parents than public agencies. In several countries there are interdisciplinary therapeutic centres where children, youth, or entire families find temporary acceptance. Therapy of this type aims primarily at providing an experience of nonviolent human interaction. In public education, the accent is on information of the public. A predominant aim is a change of attitude toward violent parents, in the sense of help being more important than punishment. In most instances, there is also a need to better make known the helping organizations. Finally, some postulates for primary prevention of cruelty to children are summarized, and reference is made to the "Fourth World Movement".

Neutrino-Induced Nucleosynthesis in Helium Shells of Early Core-Collapse Supernovae

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banerjee, Projjwal; Qian, Yong-Zhong; Heger, Alexander; Haxton, Wick

2016-02-01

We summarize our studies on neutrino-driven nucleosynthesis in He shells of early core-collapse supernovae with metallicities of Z ≲ 10-3 Z⊙. We find that for progenitors of ˜ 11-15 M⊙, the neutrons released by 4He(ν¯ee, e+n)3H in He shells can be captured to produce nuclei with mass numbers up to A ˜ 200. This mechanism is sensitive to neutrino emission spectra and flavor oscillations. In addition, we find two new primary mechanisms for neutrino-induced production of 9Be in He shells. The first mechanism produces 9Be via 7Li(n,γ)8Li(n,γ)9Li(e- ν¯ee)9Be and relies on a low explosion energy for its survival. The second mechanism operates in progenitors of ˜ 8 M⊙, where 9Be can be produced directly via 7Li(3H, n0)9Be during the rapid expansion of the shocked Heshell material. The light nuclei 7Li and 3H involved in these mechanisms are produced by neutrino interactions with 4He. We discuss the implications of neutrino-induced nucleosynthesis in He shells for interpreting the elemental abundances in metal-poor stars.

Gender differences among treatment-seeking adults with cannabis use disorder: Clinical profiles of women and men enrolled in the achieving cannabis cessation-evaluating N-acetylcysteine treatment (ACCENT) study.

PubMed

Sherman, Brian J; McRae-Clark, Aimee L; Baker, Nathaniel L; Sonne, Susan C; Killeen, Therese K; Cloud, Kasie; Gray, Kevin M

2017-03-01

Recent evidence suggests that women may fare worse than men in cannabis trials with pharmacologic interventions. Identifying baseline clinical profiles of treatment-seeking cannabis-dependent adults could inform gender-specific treatment planning and development. The current study compared baseline demographic, cannabis use, and psychiatric factors between women (n = 86) and men (n = 216) entering the Achieving Cannabis Cessation-Evaluating N-acetylcysteine Treatment (ACCENT) study, a multi-site, randomized controlled trial conducted within the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network. Women reported greater withdrawal intensity (p = .001) and negative impact of withdrawal (p = .001), predominantly due to physiological and mood symptoms. Women were more likely to have lifetime panic disorder (p = .038) and current agoraphobia (p = .022), and reported more days of poor physical health (p = .006) and cannabis-related medical problems (p = .023). Women reporting chronic pain had greater mean pain scores than men with chronic pain (p = .006). Men and women did not differ on any measures of baseline cannabis use. Cannabis-dependent women may present for treatment with more severe and impairing withdrawal symptoms and psychiatric conditions compared to cannabis-dependent men. This might help explain recent evidence suggesting that women fare worse than men in cannabis treatment trials of pharmacologic interventions. Baseline clinical profiles of treatment-seeking adults can inform gender-specific treatment planning and development. Cannabis-dependent women may benefit from integrated treatment focusing on co-occurring psychiatric disorders and targeted treatment of cannabis withdrawal syndrome.(Am J Addict 2017;26:136-144). © 2017 American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.

Gender differences among treatment-seeking adults with cannabis use disorder: Clinical profiles of women and men enrolled in the Achieving Cannabis Cessation – Evaluating N-acetylcysteine Treatment (ACCENT) study

PubMed Central

Sherman, Brian J.; McRae-Clark, Aimee L.; Baker, Nathaniel L.; Sonne, Susan C.; Killeen, Therese K.; Cloud, Kasie; Gray, Kevin M.

2017-01-01

Background and Objectives Recent evidence suggests that women may fare worse than men in cannabis trials with pharmacologic interventions. Identifying baseline clinical profiles of treatment-seeking cannabis-dependent adults could inform gender-specific treatment planning and development. Methods The current study compared baseline demographic, cannabis use, and psychiatric factors between women (n = 86) and men (n = 216) entering the Achieving Cannabis Cessation – Evaluating N-acetylcysteine Treatment (ACCENT) study, a multi-site, randomized controlled trial conducted within the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network. Results Women reported greater withdrawal intensity (p = 0.001) and negative impact of withdrawal (p = 0.001), predominantly due to physiological and mood symptoms. Women were more likely to have lifetime panic disorder (p = 0.038) and current agoraphobia (p = 0.022), and reported more days of poor physical health (p = 0.006) and cannabis-related medical problems (p = 0.023). Women reporting chronic pain had greater mean pain scores than men with chronic pain (p = 0.006). Men and women did not differ on any measures of baseline cannabis use. Discussion and Conclusion Cannabis-dependent women may present for treatment with more severe and impairing withdrawal symptoms and psychiatric conditions compared to cannabis-dependent men. This might help explain recent evidence suggesting that women fare worse than men in cannabis treatment trials of pharmacologic interventions. Baseline clinical profiles of treatment-seeking adults can inform gender-specific treatment planning and development. Scientific Significance Cannabis-dependent women may benefit from integrated treatment focusing on co-occurring psychiatric disorders and targeted treatment of cannabis withdrawal syndrome. PMID:28152236

A survey of the economics of materials processing in space. [accenting biomedical materials

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miller, B. P.

1975-01-01

A survey of the economics of space materials processing has been performed with the objectives of identifying those areas of space materials processing that give preliminary indication of significant economic potential, and to identify possible approaches to quantify the economic potential. It is concluded that limited economic studies have been performed to date, primarily in the area of the processing of inorganic materials, but that the economics of space processing of biological material has not received adequate attention. Specific studies are recommended to evaluate the economic impact of human lymphocyte subgroup separation on organ transplantation, and on the separation and concentration of urokinase producing cells.

Time evolution of Wikipedia network ranking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eom, Young-Ho; Frahm, Klaus M.; Benczúr, András; Shepelyansky, Dima L.

2013-12-01

We study the time evolution of ranking and spectral properties of the Google matrix of English Wikipedia hyperlink network during years 2003-2011. The statistical properties of ranking of Wikipedia articles via PageRank and CheiRank probabilities, as well as the matrix spectrum, are shown to be stabilized for 2007-2011. A special emphasis is done on ranking of Wikipedia personalities and universities. We show that PageRank selection is dominated by politicians while 2DRank, which combines PageRank and CheiRank, gives more accent on personalities of arts. The Wikipedia PageRank of universities recovers 80% of top universities of Shanghai ranking during the considered time period.

[History of medicine and military health service in doctorate's and habilitation theses written in Military Medicine Academy in Lodz-retrospective bibliography against the background of medicine and military medicine bibliographies].

PubMed

Walczewski, K; Jesman, C; Kocur, J

2000-01-01

The work introduces the subject of medicine history, military health service history and medicine bibliographies with particular attention to Polish accents. It remembers the beginnings of medicine history education in Poland in the 19th century, in the II Polish Republic and after 1945. It discusses widely the achievements of Military Medicine Academy in the range of medicine history military health service together with bibliography. It points out the necessity of dealing with this subject in didactic and scientific activity of the Academy.

Urban Operations in the Year 2020 (Operations en zone urbaine en l’an 2020)

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-04-01

d’un ennemi, l’accent étant alors mis sur la phase correspondante du concept. C’est ainsi que , pour mettre l’ennemi en échec, on a généralement...recommande que l’OTAN développe des capacités à utiliser dans des zones urbaines en se concentrant sur les besoins essentiels mis en évidence dans la... on peut citer les véhicules sans pilote et les armes non létales, qui permettent de réduire les pertes, ainsi que les dispositifs de largage de

Satellite auxiliary-propulsion selection techniques. Addendum: A survey of auxiliary electric propulsion systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holcomb, L. B.

1971-01-01

A review of electric thrusters for satellite auxiliary propulsion was conducted at JPL during the past year. Comparisons of the various thrusters for attitude propulsion and east-west and north-south stationkeeping were made based upon performance, mass, power, and demonstrated life. Reliability and cost are also discussed. The method of electrical acceleration of propellant served to divide the thruster systems into two groups: electrostatic and electromagnetic. Ion and colloid thrusters fall within the electrostatically accelerated group while MPD and pulsed plasma thrusters comprise the electromagnetically accelerated group. The survey was confined to research in the United States with accent on flight and flight prototype systems.

Fabrication and thermal properties of tetradecanol/graphene aerogel form-stable composite phase change materials.

PubMed

Mu, Boyuan; Li, Min

2018-06-11

In this study, tetradecanol/graphene aerogel form-stable composite phase change materials were prepared by physical absorption. Two kinds of graphene aerogels were prepared using vitamin C and ethylenediamine to enhance the thermal conductivity of tetradecanol and prevent its leakage during phase transition. The form-stable composite phase change material exhibited excellent thermal energy storage capacity. The latent heat of the tetradecanol/graphene aerogel composite phase change materials with 5 wt.% graphene aerogel was similar to the theoretical latent heat of pure tetradecanol. The thermal conductivity of the tetradecanol/graphene aerogel composite phase change material improved gradually as the graphene aerogel content increased. The prepared tetradecanol/graphene aerogel composite phase change materials exhibited good thermal reliability and thermal stability, and no chemical reaction occurred between tetradecanol and the graphene aerogel. In addition, the latent heat and thermal conductivity of the tetradecanol/ethylenediamine-graphene aerogel composites were higher than those of tetradecanol/vitamin C-graphene aerogel composites, and the flexible shape of the ethylenediamine-graphene aerogel is suitable for application of the tetradecanol/ethylenediamine-graphene aerogel composite.