Quantal regions were described by Stevens [e.g., 1989, J. Phon. 17, 3–45] to identify nonlinear stabilities in the relationship between articulation and acoustics. Classic cases of quantal effects show how tongue posture may vary within one region of the vocal tract with little acoustic change, while in other regions very small movements can have large effects on acoustic output. Such effects can be thought of as attractors to speech behavior in those regions of the phonetic space that allow greater noise. Quantal-like stabilities have been suggested to operate not just in articulatory-acoustic space, but in biomechanical-articulatory space as well [e.g., Schwartz et al., 1997, J. Phon. 25, 255–286]. It is argued here that such quantal-like stabilities are a hallmark of speech modules [Gick & Stavness, 2013, Front. Psych. 4, 977], providing the basis for robust, feed-forward control. Computer simulations in the ArtiSynth platform (www.artisynth.org) are used to demonstrate quantal effects in speech biomechanics at multiple vocal tract loci, including the lips, oropharyngeal isthmus, and larynx. Moving into the future, quantal work will integrate observations about nonlinear stabilities cutting across the many physical and sensory domains that figure in speech. [Research funded by NSERC.]
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April 2015
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April 01 2015
Quantal biomechanics in an embodied phonetics
Bryan Gick;
Bryan Gick
Linguist, Univ. of Br. Columbia, 2613 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T1Z4, Canada, [email protected]
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Scott R. Moisik
Scott R. Moisik
The Max Planck Inst. for PsychoLinguist, Nijmegen, Netherlands
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Bryan Gick
Scott R. Moisik
Linguist, Univ. of Br. Columbia, 2613 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T1Z4, Canada, [email protected]
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 137, 2301 (2015)
Citation
Bryan Gick, Scott R. Moisik; Quantal biomechanics in an embodied phonetics. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 April 2015; 137 (4_Supplement): 2301. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4920399
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