Prosodic adaptations to pitch perturbation in running speech

Area of Science:

• Speech production and perception
• Auditory feedback and sensorimotor adaptation
• Prosody and linguistic stress

Background:

• Understanding how speakers produce and control prosodic cues like stress is crucial for speech science.
• Investigating the interplay between acoustic features (F0, intensity) and their role in conveying linguistic information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if prosodic cues are managed independently or cohesively during sentence generation.
• To examine the sensorimotor adaptation to altered auditory feedback of speech.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a feedback perturbation paradigm with 21 American English speakers.
• Manipulated fundamental frequency (F0) of stressed words in real-time auditory feedback.
• Employed a sensorimotor adaptation protocol involving upward or downward F0 shifts.

Main Results:

• Speakers adapted to F0 shifts by modifying the contrast between stressed and unstressed words.
• Differential adaptation observed between groups experiencing upward versus downward F0 perturbations.
• Perturbation of F0 led to compensatory adjustments in both F0 and intensity.

Conclusions:

• Fundamental frequency (F0) and intensity are controlled in an integrated manner to preserve stress contrast.
• Speakers actively compensate for altered prosodic cues and enhance others to maintain emphatic stress.
• Findings suggest a unified system for prosodic cue management in speech production.