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The Lombard sign as a function of age and task
Journal of Speech and Hearing Research
|December 1, 1982
Summary
Adults and children raise their voice in noise, but adults’ vocal intensity increase is greater when storytelling than labeling. This study explores the Lombard sign across age groups and speech tasks.
Area of Science:
- Speech and Hearing Sciences
- Developmental Psychology
- Acoustic Phonetics
Background:
- The Lombard sign, an involuntary increase in vocal intensity when speaking in the presence of noise, is a well-documented phenomenon.
- Understanding how age and task demands influence the Lombard sign is crucial for speech production research and audiological applications.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of age (adults vs. 5-year-old children) on the Lombard sign.
- To examine how different speech tasks (picture labeling vs. storytelling) modulate the Lombard sign in both age groups.
Main Methods:
- Twenty adults and twenty 5-year-old children participated in the study.
- Participants produced speech in two conditions: quiet and 90-dB SPL noise.
- Speech tasks included labeling a series of pictures and telling stories about pictures.
Main Results:
- All participants exhibited the Lombard sign, increasing vocal intensity in noise.
- Children showed a similar increase in vocal intensity across both labeling and storytelling tasks.
- Adults demonstrated a significantly greater increase in vocal intensity during the storytelling task compared to the picture labeling task.
Conclusions:
- Both children and adults activate the Lombard sign in response to noise.
- Task complexity influences the magnitude of the Lombard sign in adults, with more demanding tasks eliciting a greater vocal response.
- Age-related differences in cognitive and speech production strategies may underlie the observed variations in the Lombard sign during different tasks.