Browsing by Person "Whitehill, Tara L."

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Cross-language studies of articulatory error patterns in cleft palate speech using EPG
(1998) Gibbon, Fiona; Hardcastle, William J.; Whitehill, Tara L.; Stokes, Stephanie F.
Dysprosody and stimulus effects in Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease
(Taylor & Francis (Informa Healthcare), 2010) Ma, Joan K-Y; Whitehill, Tara L.; Cheung, Katherine S-K
Background: Dysprosody is a common feature in speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria. However, speech prosody varies across different types of speech materials. This raises the question of what is the most appropriate speech material for the evaluation of dysprosody. Aims: To characterize the prosodic impairment in Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson's disease, and to determine the effect of different types of speech stimuli on the perceptual rating of prosody. Methods & Procedures: Speech data in the form of sentence reading, passage reading, and monologue were collected from ten Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease. Perceptual analysis was conducted on ten prosodic parameters to evaluate five dimensions of prosody, based on a theoretical framework: pitch, loudness, duration, voice quality, and degree of reduction. Outcomes & Results: The results showed that the most severely affected prosodic parameters were monopitch, harsh voice, and monoloudness, followed by breathy voice and prolonged interval. Differences were noted between speakers with mild and moderate dysprosody. No statistically significant differences were found between the three types of stimuli. However, qualitative analysis revealed noticeable differences between the three stimuli in two speakers. Conclusions& Implications: The prosodic profile of Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria is similar to those of other languages (for example, English). The involvement of two new dimensions in the definition of prosody (voice quality and degree of reduction) provides additional insight in differentiating patients with mild and moderate dysarthria. Further investigation on the use of speech materials in the clinical evaluation of speech prosody in speakers with dysarthria is needed, as no single task was found to represent a patient's performance under all circumstances.
Effect of intonation on Cantonese lexical tones
(2006) Ma, Joan K-Y; Ciocca, Valter; Whitehill, Tara L.
In tonal languages, there are potential conflicts between the F0-based changes due to the coexistence of intonation and lexical tones. In the present study, the interaction of tone and intonation in Cantonese was examined using acoustic and perceptual analyses. The acoustic patterns of tones at the initial, medial, and final positions of questions and statements were measured. Results showed that intonation affects both the F0 level and contour, while the duration of the six tones varied as a function of positions within intonation contexts. All six tones at the final position of questions showed rising F0 contour, regardless of their canonical form. Listeners were overall more accurate in the identification of tones presented within the original carrier than of the same tones in isolation. However, a large proportion of tones 33, 21, 23, and 22 at the final position of questions were misperceived as tone 25 both within the original carrier and as isolated words. These results suggest that although the intonation context provided cues for correct tone identification, the intonation-induced changes in F0 contour cannot always be perceptually compensated for, resulting in some erroneous perception of the identity of Cantonese tone.
EPG in the Description of Normal and Disordered Speech Production Electropalatographic and perceptual analysis of the speech of Cantonese children with cleft palate
(1995-04) Whitehill, Tara L.; Stokes, Stephanie F.; Hardcastle, William J.; Gibbon, Fiona
Intonation Contrast in Cantonese Speakers With Hypokinetic Dysarthria Associated With Parkinson's Disease
(2010) Ma, Joan K-Y; Whitehill, Tara L.; So, Susanne Y-S
Purpose: Speech produced by individuals with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by a number of features including impaired speech prosody. The purpose of this study was to investigate intonation contrasts produced by this group of speakers. Method: Speech materials with a question-statement contrast were collected from 14 Cantonese speakers with PD. Twenty listeners then classified the productions as either questions or statements. Acoustic analyses of F0, duration, and intensity were conducted to determine which acoustic cues distinguished the production of questions from statements, and which cues appeared to be exploited by listeners in identifying intonational contrasts. Results: The results show that listeners identified statements with a high degree of accuracy, but the accuracy of question identification ranged from 0.56% to 96% across the 14 speakers. The speakers with PD used similar acoustic cues as nondysarthric Cantonese speakers to mark the question-statement contrast, although the contrasts were not observed in all speakers. Listeners mainly used F0 cues at the final syllable for intonation identification. Conclusion: These data contribute to the researchers' understanding of intonation marking in speakers with PD, with specific application to the production and perception of intonation in a lexical tone language.
Motor speech disorders in Chinese
(Multilingual Matters, 2014-07-21) Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y; Lowit, Anja; Miller, Nick
Chinese, spoken by approximately 20% of the world’s population, is the most commonly spoken language in the world (Fung, 1990). There is some debate regarding whether varieties of spoken Chinese should be considered dialects or separate language. Here, we regard them as separate languages. The various languages of Chinese are considered united by a common written system, although this characterization is problematic for Cantonese, which has many colloquial expressions with no written form (Bauer & Benedict, 1997). In this chapter, we focus on two of the most common Chinese languages, Cantonese and Mandarin (Putonghua). Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, Southern China and many overseas Chinese communities. Mandarin, also known as Standard Chinese, is the official national language of China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore.
Perceptual characteristics of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria
(2003) Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y; Lee, Alice
The aims of this study were to provide a perceptual speech 'profile' for Cantonese speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria, to examine the reliability of non-expert listeners in perceptual judgements of dysarthric speech, and to investigate cross-language differences in profiles of hypokinetic dysarthria. Participants included 19 speakers with Parkinson's disease and 10 speechlanguage pathologists who served as listeners. Listeners rated 21 speech dimensions, using seven-point interval scales. Mean intralistener agreement was 94.52% and mean interlistener reliability was 0.88 (Cronbach's alpha). Mean scale values (MSV) for each dimension ranged from 3.37 to 1.36. The perceptual profile of Cantonese hypokinetic dysarthria was largely similar to profiles for English and Japanese speakers; notable differences are discussed. Possible reasons for the relatively high reliability obtained are presented.
The Impact of Cerebral Palsy on the Intelligibility of Pitch-based Linguistic Contrasts
(2004) Ciocca, Valter; Whitehill, Tara L.; Ma, Joan K-Y
This study investigated the perception of three Cantonese level tones produced by speakers with dysarthria associated with cerebral palsy. Four speakers with dysarthria were selected on the basis of their distinctive patterns of fundamental frequency (F0) values observed in the level tones they produced, which showed errors in either F0 level or, F0 contour, or both. Monosyllabic words which contrasted in tone level were used as stimuli in an identification task. Five expert listeners identified the tones among the six Cantonese contrastive tones. Results showed that the tones produced by the dysarthric speakers were predominantly perceived as level tones; although a majority was perceived as the wrong level tone. The most important finding is that only the level tones produced by dysarthric speakers could be identified as rising or falling contour tones. The frequent perceptual confusion among the level tones, and the perception of contour tones, shows that a disorder in the production of pitch-based linguistic contrasts can have a substantial impact on the communication abilities of individuals with cerebral palsy.
The perception of intonation questions and statements in Cantonese
(2011) Ma, Joan K-Y; Ciocca, Valter; Whitehill, Tara L.
In tone languages there are potential conflicts in the perception of lexical tone and intonation, as both depend mainly on the differences in fundamental frequency (F0) patterns. The present study investigated the acoustic cues associated with the perception of sentences as questions or statements in Cantonese, as a function of the lexical tone in sentence final position. Cantonese listeners performed intonation identification tasks involving complete sentences, isolated final syllables, and sentences without the final syllable (carriers). Sensitivity (d0 scores) were similar for complete sentences and final syllables but were significantly lower for carriers. Sensitivity was also affected by tone identity. These findings show that the perception of questions and statements relies primarily on the F0 characteristics of the final syllables (local F0 cues). A measure of response bias (c) provided evidence for a general bias toward the perception of statements. Logistic regression analyses showed that utterances were accurately classified as questions or statements by using average F0 and F0 interval. Average F0 of carriers (global F0 cue) was also found to be a reliable secondary cue. These findings suggest that the use of F0 cues for the perception of intonation question in tonal languages is likely to be language-specific.