Harmony search algorithm is a meta-heuristic optimization method imitating the music improvisation process, where musicians improvise their instruments’ pitches searching for a perfect state of harmony. To solve continuous optimization problems more efficiently, this paper presents an improved harmony search algorithm using the swarm intelligence technique. Applying the proposed algorithm to se...

The present study explores the effects of non-linguistic experiences on biases for linguistic judgments, specifically consonant deletion patterns. When two adjacent consonants come into contact as a result of morphological concatenation, many languages will delete the first consonant (e.g., /bepdok/ becomes /bedok/). Speakers of these languages (as well as English speakers) prefer deletion of t...

The most common complaint of older hearing impaired (OHI) listeners is difficulty understanding speech in the presence of noise. However, tests of consonant-identification and sentence reception threshold (SeRT) provide different perspectives on the magnitude of impairment. Here we quantified speech perception difficulties in 24 OHI listeners in unaided and aided conditions by analyzing (1) con...

This paper proposes a phonological analysis for vowel devoicing in Tokyo Japanese using the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993). Generally speaking, in Japanese the high vowels /i, u/ are devoiced when they occur between two voiceless consonants. However, there are some contexts where such a simple generalization does not hold, e.g., so called “word-final devoicing” and ...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of three acoustic modifications derived from clear speech for improving consonant recognition by young and elderly normal-hearing subjects. Percent-correct nonsense syllable recognition was measured for four stimulus sets: unmodified stimuli; stimuli with consonant duration increased by 100%; stimuli with consonant-vowel ratio increased b...

This article provides an overview on a series of original studies conducted by the author. The aim here is to present the ideas that the author reconstructed, based on the dialectics of harmonization, regarding harmony and conflict embodied in traditional Chinese thought, and to describe how a formal psychological theory/model on interpersonal harmony and conflict was developed based on the Yin...

Investigation of spontaneous speech corpora has shown that vowel devoicing in Japanese is a statistical phenomena. However, factors behind vowel devoicing have not been fully studied. In addition, there have been no studies that specifically examined pre-pausal vowel devoicing. In this paper, we investigate vowel devoicing in the pre-pausal position, in particular, vowel devoicing occurring at ...

Six paralinguistic information types uttered by three subjects were examined. Considerable changes were observed in duration, pitch, vowel formant, and voice quality. These findings require some reconsideration of the problems in the phrase phonology of Japanese like mora-based timing and phrase-initial pitch movement. On the other hand, lexically specified phonological features were more robus...

The aim of the study was to investigate gender-dependent differences in the realization of German glottalized vowel onsets. Laryngographic data of semi-spontaneous speech were collected from four male and four female speakers of Standard German. Measurements of relative vocal fold contact duration were carried out including glottalized vowel onsets as well as non-glottalized controls. The resul...

We examined the glottal opening pattern during devoicing environment in Japanese, with respect to the factors that facilitate or suppress devoicing. The factors include consonantal environment, dialects, speech rate, consecutive devoicing environment and phrase final position. The results indicated that glottal opening patterns are twofold: a single phaseand a double phase opening for /CVC/. On...