Temporal patterns in articulation underlying repetitions, prolongations and blocks

Area of Science:

• Speech production and acoustics
• Linguistics and phonetics
• Neurology of speech disorders

Background:

• Stuttering disfluencies (repetitions, prolongations, blocks) are well-defined perceptually.
• The underlying articulatory mechanisms of stuttering remain poorly understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate the articulatory basis of stuttering disfluencies.
• Relate articulatory patterns to perceptual disfluency types and phonological features.

Main Methods:

• Real-time MRI recorded speech from seven adults who stutter.
• Extracted oral articulator and velic constriction trajectories for consonants.
• Utilized k-medoids clustering with dynamic time warping to identify patterns.

Main Results:

• Identified two primary oral articulator patterns: fixation (extended constriction) and oscillation (repeated cycles).
• Velic patterns reflected nasality, not stuttering.
• Articulatory-perceptual mapping was many-to-one/one-to-many, influenced by consonant manner.

Conclusions:

• Stuttering is characterized by stable articulatory fixation and oscillation patterns.
• The relationship between articulation and perception is complex and context-dependent.
• Findings reveal an organized articulatory basis for stuttering beyond surface-level disfluencies.