Kinematic Analysis of Speech Sound Sequencing Errors Induced by Delayed Auditory Feedback

Purpose

Delayed auditory feedback (DAF) causes speakers to become disfluent and make phonological errors. Methods for assessing the kinematics of speech errors are lacking, with most DAF studies relying on auditory perceptual analyses, which may be problematic, as errors judged to be categorical may actually represent blends of sounds or articulatory errors.

Method

Eight typical speakers produced nonsense syllable sequences under normal and DAF (200 ms). Lip and tongue kinematics were captured with electromagnetic articulography. Time-locked acoustic recordings were transcribed, and the kinematics of utterances with and without perceived errors were analyzed with existing and novel quantitative methods.

Results

New multivariate measures showed that for 5 participants, kinematic variability for productions perceived to be error free was significantly increased under delay; these results were validated by using the spatiotemporal index measure. Analysis of error trials revealed both typical productions of a nontarget syllable and productions with articulatory kinematics that incorporated aspects of both the target and the perceived utterance.

Conclusions

This study is among the first to characterize articulatory changes under DAF and provides evidence for different classes of speech errors, which may not be perceptually salient. New methods were developed that may aid visualization and analysis of large kinematic data sets.

Supplemental Material

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