Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study
For aging speech, there is limited knowledge regarding the articulatory adjustments underlying the acoustic findings observed in previous studies. In order to investigate the age-related articulatory differences in European Portuguese (EP) vowels, the present study analyzes the tongue configuration...
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MDPI AG
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/3/1396 |
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| author | Luciana Albuquerque Ana Rita Valente Fábio Barros António Teixeira Samuel Silva Paula Martins Catarina Oliveira |
| author_facet | Luciana Albuquerque Ana Rita Valente Fábio Barros António Teixeira Samuel Silva Paula Martins Catarina Oliveira |
| author_sort | Luciana Albuquerque |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | For aging speech, there is limited knowledge regarding the articulatory adjustments underlying the acoustic findings observed in previous studies. In order to investigate the age-related articulatory differences in European Portuguese (EP) vowels, the present study analyzes the tongue configuration of the nine EP oral vowels (isolated context and pseudoword context) produced by 10 female speakers of two different age groups (young and old). From the tongue contours automatically segmented from the US images and manually revised, the parameters (tongue height and tongue advancement) were extracted. The results suggest that the tongue tends to be higher and more advanced for the older females compared to the younger ones for almost all vowels. Thus, the vowel articulatory space tends to be higher, advanced, and bigger with age. For older females, unlike younger females that presented a sharp reduction in the articulatory vowel space in disyllabic sequences, the vowel space tends to be more advanced for isolated vowels compared with vowels produced in disyllabic sequences. This study extends our pilot research by reporting articulatory data from more speakers based on an improved automatic method of tongue contours tracing, and it performs an inter-speaker comparison through the application of a novel normalization procedure. |
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-df97c0744ddb49ee9d9c70c9d1440179 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T00:13:30Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-df97c0744ddb49ee9d9c70c9d14401792023-11-23T15:56:57ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172022-01-01123139610.3390/app12031396Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound StudyLuciana Albuquerque0Ana Rita Valente1Fábio Barros2António Teixeira3Samuel Silva4Paula Martins5Catarina Oliveira6Institute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), CINTESIS.UA, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalInstitute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), Department Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalInstitute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), Department Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalInstitute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), Department Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalInstitute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), Department Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalInstitute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), Institute of Biomedicine, School of Health Sciences (ESSUA), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalInstitute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), School of Health Sciences (ESSUA), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, PortugalFor aging speech, there is limited knowledge regarding the articulatory adjustments underlying the acoustic findings observed in previous studies. In order to investigate the age-related articulatory differences in European Portuguese (EP) vowels, the present study analyzes the tongue configuration of the nine EP oral vowels (isolated context and pseudoword context) produced by 10 female speakers of two different age groups (young and old). From the tongue contours automatically segmented from the US images and manually revised, the parameters (tongue height and tongue advancement) were extracted. The results suggest that the tongue tends to be higher and more advanced for the older females compared to the younger ones for almost all vowels. Thus, the vowel articulatory space tends to be higher, advanced, and bigger with age. For older females, unlike younger females that presented a sharp reduction in the articulatory vowel space in disyllabic sequences, the vowel space tends to be more advanced for isolated vowels compared with vowels produced in disyllabic sequences. This study extends our pilot research by reporting articulatory data from more speakers based on an improved automatic method of tongue contours tracing, and it performs an inter-speaker comparison through the application of a novel normalization procedure.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/3/13962D-ultrasound tongue imagingEuropean Portuguese vowelsspeech productionaging speech |
| spellingShingle | Luciana Albuquerque Ana Rita Valente Fábio Barros António Teixeira Samuel Silva Paula Martins Catarina Oliveira Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study Applied Sciences 2D-ultrasound tongue imaging European Portuguese vowels speech production aging speech |
| title | Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study |
| title_full | Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study |
| title_fullStr | Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study |
| title_short | Exploring the Age Effects on European Portuguese Vowel Production: An Ultrasound Study |
| title_sort | exploring the age effects on european portuguese vowel production an ultrasound study |
| topic | 2D-ultrasound tongue imaging European Portuguese vowels speech production aging speech |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/3/1396 |
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