The Role of Instructions in Motor Learning of Oral Versus Nasalized Speech Targets

The purpose of this study was to investigate how general, implicit instructions with auditory-perceptual emphasis; specific, explicit instructions with biomechanical focus; or both affect learning of oral-nasal balance control in speech.

Thirty healthy, vocally untrained participants were assigned to one of three instructional groups (i.e., implicit, explicit, and integrated) and learned to produce oral versus nasalized vowel-, syllable-, and phrase-level targets during once-weekly sessions over 4 weeks. Learning gains and performance variability were analyzed using nasometry.

We observed a significant main effect of instruction type on learning gains at phrase level (p = .016). Specifically, the integrated group (M = 59.8%) significantly outperformed the explicit group (M = 37.9%) and numerically outperformed the implicit group (M = 45.1%). For nasalized phrase targets, results revealed a significant main effect of instruction type on performance variability (p = .042), but pairwise comparisons between instruction groups were not significant.

The integration of implicit processes via auditory-perceptual modeling and explicit processes via relevant biomechanical directives resulted in larger motor learning gains, especially at higher levels of task complexity (i.e., phrase) compared to providing implicit or explicit instruction alone. The higher performance variability (i.e., less stable productions) that was sometimes induced by explicit instruction did not negatively impact learning when integrated with implicit instruction. Clinical implications for speech/voice therapy models are discussed.