This experiment investigated the effectiveness of lexical training to improve the ability of 32 normally-hearing subjects to understand speech that had been processed by a simulation of a cochlear-implant system. Signals were vocoded and spectrally shifted to simulate the consequences of a 3mm tonotopic misalignment between frequency and place of stimulation in the cochlea. The training task wa...

The ability to recognize and categorize things is fundamental to human cognition; a large part of our ability to understand and deal with the world around us is a result of our ability to classify things. This task, which is generally known as classification, is important enough that we often want to design systems that are capable of recognition and categorization. We want vending machines to ...

Preemphasis of the speech signal at higher frequencies is a preprocessing step employed in various speech processing applications. In the present paper, the effect of preemphasis on vowel recognition performance is studied. Preemphasis of the speech signal is achieved hy the r;-~.-'-"der ,4:rr . . . . . :,~ ~r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,,. the speech signal. Ceostral coeffic...

The ability to recognize and categorize things is fundamental to human cognition. A large part of our ability to understand and deal with the world around us is a result of our ability to classify things. This task, which is generally known as classification, is important enough that we often want to design systems that are capable of recognition and categorization. For instance, we want vendin...

This study investigated the effects of High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) in training both the perception and production of English highfront vowels /ɪ/-/iː/ and high-back vowels /ʊ/-/uː/ by Cantonese ESL learners. Results showed that the HVPT was generally effective in improving the subjects’ perception of the two vowel pairs and perceptual learning could generalize to new words and new...

Four normally-hearing subjects were trained and tested with all combinations of a highly-degraded auditory input, a visual input via lipreading, and a tactile input using a multichannel electrotactile speech processor. The speech perception of the subjects was assessed with closed sets of vowels, consonants, and multisyllabic words; with open sets of words and sentences, and with speech trackin...

Earlier work [Nittrouer et al., J. Speech Hear. Res. 32, 120-132 (1989)] demonstrated greater evidence of coarticulation in the fricative-vowel syllables of children than in those of adults when measured by anticipatory vowel effects on the resonant frequency of the fricative back cavity. In the present study, three experiments showed that this increased coarticulation led to improved vowel rec...

An innovative method for speech recognition of tone languages is reported. By definition, the tone of a syllable is determined by the pitch contour of the entire syllable. We propose that the pitch information on the main vowel of a syllable is sufficient to determine the tone of that syllable. Therefore, to recognize tone languages, only main vowels are needed to associate with tones. The numb...

Studies involving human infants and monkeys suggest that experience plays a critical role in modifying how subjects respond to vowel sounds between and within phonemic classes. Experiments with human listeners were conducted to establish appropriate stimulus materials. Then, eight European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were trained to respond differentially to vowel tokens drawn from stylized di...