Evolving theories of vowel perception

Research on the perception of vowels in the last several years has given rise to new conceptions of vowels as articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual events. Starting from a "simple" target model in which vowels were characterized articulatorily as static vocal tract shapes and acoustically as points in a first and second formant (F1/F2) vowel space, this paper briefly traces the evolution of vowel theory in the 1970s and 1980s in two directions. (1) Elaborated target models represent vowels as target zones in perceptual spaces whose dimensions are specified as formant ratios. These models have been developed primarily to account for perceivers' solution of the "speaker normalization" problem. (2) Dynamic specification models emphasize the importance of formant trajectory patterns in specifying vowel identity. These models deal primarily with the problem of "target undershoot" associated with the coarticulation of vowels with consonants in natural speech and with the issue of "vowel-inherent spectral change" or diphthongization of English vowels. Perceptual studies are summarized that motivate these theoretical developments.     

Static and dynamic properties of pseudoscalar mesons

We report the results of form factors, charge radii and decay constants of both light and heavy flavoured pseudoscalar mesons in a QCD inspired quark model. We use the quantum mechanical perturbation theory and discuss its limitations in the present problem. Several predictions are also made for bottom and top flavours.     

Age differences for stop-consonant and vowel perception in adults

The purpose of this study was to determine the role of static, dynamic, and integrated cues for perception in three adult age groups, and to determine whether age has an effect on both consonant and vowel perception, as predicted by the "age-related deficit hypothesis." Eight adult subjects in each of the age ranges of young (ages 20-26), middle aged (ages 52-59), and old (ages 70-76) listened to synthesized syllables composed of combinations of [b d g] and [i u a]. The synthesis parameters included manipulations of the following stimulus variables: formant transition (moving or straight), noise burst (present or absent), and voicing duration (10, 30, or 46 ms). Vowel perception was high across all conditions and there were no significant differences among age groups. Consonant identification showed a definite effect of age. Young and middle-aged adults were significantly better than older adults at identifying consonants from secondary cues only. Older adults relied on the integration of static and dynamic cues to a greater extent than younger and middle-aged listeners for identification of place of articulation of stop consonants. Duration facilitated correct stop-consonant identification in the young and middle-aged groups for the no-burst conditions, but not in the old group. These findings for the duration of stop-consonant transitions indicate reductions in processing speed with age. In general, the results did not support the age-related deficit hypothesis for adult identification of vowels and consonants from dynamic spectral cues.     

Auditory contrast and speaker quality variation in vowel perception

Selective adaption and anchoring effects in speech perception have generated several different hypotheses regarding the nature of contextual contrast, including auditory/phonetic feature detector fatigue, response bias, and auditory contrast. In the present study three different seven-step [hId]-[h epsilon d] continua were constructed to represent a low F0 (long vocal tract source), a high F0 (long vocal tract source), and a high F0 (short vocal tract source), respectively. Subjects identified the tokens from each of the stimulus continua under two conditions: an equiprobable control and an anchoring condition which included an endpoint stimulus from one of the three continua occurring at least three times more often than any other single stimulus. Differential contrast effects were found depending on whether the anchor differed from the test stimuli in terms of F0, absolute formant frequencies, or both. Results were inconsistent with both the feature detector fatigue and response bias hypothesis. Rather, the obtained data suggest that vowel contrast occurs on the basis of normalized formant values, thus supporting a version of the auditory-contrast theory.     

Across-talker effects on non-native listeners' vowel perception in noise

This study explored how across-talker differences influence non-native vowel perception. American English (AE) and Korean listeners were presented with recordings of 10 AE vowels in /bVd/ context. The stimuli were mixed with noise and presented for identification in a 10-alternative forced-choice task. The two listener groups heard recordings of the vowels produced by 10 talkers at three signal-to-noise ratios. Overall the AE listeners identified the vowels 22% more accurately than the Korean listeners. There was a wide range of identification accuracy scores across talkers for both AE and Korean listeners. At each signal-to-noise ratio, the across-talker intelligibility scores were highly correlated for AE and Korean listeners. Acoustic analysis was conducted for 2 vowel pairs that exhibited variable accuracy across talkers for Korean listeners but high identification accuracy for AE listeners. Results demonstrated that Korean listeners' error patterns for these four vowels were strongly influenced by variability in vowel production that was within the normal range for AE talkers. These results suggest that non-native listeners are strongly influenced by across-talker variability perhaps because of the difficulty they have forming native-like vowel categories.     

Static and dynamic properties of supercooled thin polymer films

The dynamic and static properties of a supercooled (non-entangled) polymer melt are investigated via molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations. The system is confined between two completely smooth and purely repulsive walls. The wall-to-wall separation (film thickness), D, is varied from about 3 to about 14 times the bulk radius of gyration. Despite the geometric confinement, the supercooled films exhibit many qualitative features which were also observed in the bulk and could be analyzed in terms of mode-coupling theory (MCT). Examples are the two-step relaxation of the incoherent intermediate scattering function, the time-temperature superposition property of the late time α-process and the space-time factorization of the scattering function on the intermediate time scale of the MCT β-process. An analysis of the temperature dependence of the α-relaxation time suggests that the critical temperature, T _c, of MCT decreases with D. If the confinement is not too strong ( D≥10monomer diameter), the static structure factor of the film coincides with that of the bulk when compared for the same distance, T - T _c(D), to the critical temperature. This suggests that T - T _c(D) is an important temperature scale of our model both in the bulk and in the films. Received 12 September 2001     

Static and dynamic properties of trapped fermionic Tonks-Girardeau gases

We investigate some static and dynamic properties of harmonically trapped fermionic Tonks-Girardeau gases in tight de Broglie waveguides with attractive p-wave interactions induced by a Feshbach resonance. An exact solution for the one-body density matrix is analyzed in terms of its natural orbitals, with the surprising result that for odd, but not for even, numbers of fermions the maximally occupied orbital coincides with the ground harmonic oscillator orbital. A dynamical consequence of this is that when the interactions are turned off the on-axis density remains a maximum for an odd number of fermions, whereas a minimum develops for an even number.     

Static and dynamic properties of arcs near plane surfaces

The static properties of an arc near a plane surface have been analyzed by extending Maecker's method to bi-cylindrical coordinates. A direct numerical solution was also carried out. The general method of Phillips was then used to predict the transient properties. Experimental data was taken on the static and dynamic properties of arcs burning near dry and wet surfaces. Agreement with theory was much better for dry surfaces, suggesting that humidity in the arc greatly affects the static and dynamic properties.     

A narrow band pattern-matching model of vowel perception

The purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate a new model of vowel perception which assumes that vowel identity is recognized by a template-matching process involving the comparison of narrow band input spectra with a set of smoothed spectral-shape templates that are learned through ordinary exposure to speech. In the present simulation of this process, the input spectra are computed over a sufficiently long window to resolve individual harmonics of voiced speech. Prior to template creation and pattern matching, the narrow band spectra are amplitude equalized by a spectrum-level normalization process, and the information-bearing spectral peaks are enhanced by a "flooring" procedure that zeroes out spectral values below a threshold function consisting of a center-weighted running average of spectral amplitudes. Templates for each vowel category are created simply by averaging the narrow band spectra of like vowels spoken by a panel of talkers. In the present implementation, separate templates are used for men, women, and children. The pattern matching is implemented with a simple city-block distance measure given by the sum of the channel-by-channel differences between the narrow band input spectrum (level-equalized and floored) and each vowel template. Spectral movement is taken into account by computing the distance measure at several points throughout the course of the vowel. The input spectrum is assigned to the vowel template that results in the smallest difference accumulated over the sequence of spectral slices. The model was evaluated using a large database consisting of 12 vowels in /hVd/ context spoken by 45 men, 48 women, and 46 children. The narrow band model classified vowels in this database with a degree of accuracy (91.4%) approaching that of human listeners.     

The direct and indirect roles of fundamental frequency in vowel perception

Several experiments have found that changing the intrinsic f0 of a vowel can have an effect on perceived vowel quality. It has been suggested that these shifts may occur because f0 is involved in the specification of vowel quality in the same way as the formant frequencies. Another possibility is that f0 affects vowel quality indirectly, by changing a listener's assumptions about characteristics of a speaker who is likely to have uttered the vowel. In the experiment outlined here, participants were asked to listen to vowels differing in terms of f0 and their formant frequencies and report vowel quality and the apparent speaker's gender and size on a trial-by-trial basis. The results presented here suggest that f0 affects vowel quality mainly indirectly via its effects on the apparent-speaker characteristics; however, f0 may also have some residual direct effects on vowel quality. Furthermore, the formant frequencies were also found to have significant indirect effects on vowel quality by way of their strong influence on the apparent speaker.     

Underlying dimensions and individual differences in auditory, visual, and auditory-visual vowel perception by hearing-impaired children

Vowel perception studies were conducted on a group of four adolescent children with congenital profound sensorineural hearing impairments in the three conditions of audition alone, vision alone, and audition plus vision. Data were analyzed using the ALSCAL multidimensional scaling procedure to identify the underlying dimensions and individual differences in dimension emphasis. The three dimensions obtained from the analysis of data for the audition alone condition were interpreted as the parameters of first and second formant frequencies, and vowel length. The one dimension for the vision alone condition was interpreted as the parameter of the width of the internal lip opening. The three dimensions for the audition plus vision condition were interpreted as the parameters of first formant frequency, vowel length, and the width of the internal lip opening. Subject variations in parameter preferences were observed for the audition alone and audition plus vision conditions but not for the vision alone condition.     

颗粒物质(下)

根据热力学基本原理，一个封闭体系总会趋于自由能最小的状态．例如，不同原子或分子组成的混合气体封闭系统，不管初始状态如何，或受到外界怎样的干扰，最终都会通过扩散等热运动，使系统的熵达到最大，形成均匀分布的平衡态．而对于颗粒物质，正如前面所述，相当于处在kT=0的状态，除非受到外力作用，系统的结构形态永远保持不变．     

颗粒物质(上)

颗粒物质是地球上存在最多、最为人们所熟悉的物质类型之一．大量颗粒组成的离散态物质体系具有特别的性质和运动规律．颗粒物质表现出许多不同于固、液、气物质的奇特现象和独特的运动规律．由于对颗粒物质运动规律的理解具有重要科学意义和应用背景，近十年来颗粒物质研究逐步成为物理学研究中的一个活跃领域．文章综述了颗粒物质的一些主要特性，如颗粒物质的静态性质、振动行为、流动特性等，其中也包括文章作者的一些新近研究结果．限于篇幅，文章分为上、下两部分发表．第一部分在对颗粒物质作一般介绍后讨论颗粒物质的静态特性，第二部分则主要讨论颗粒物质振动时的行为和流动性质．     

Static and dynamic properties of cavity solitons in VCSELs with optical injection

The static and dynamical properties of cavity solitons in a vertical cavity surface emitting laser with optical injection are investigated. Analytical results about the instabilities affecting the homogeneous steady state are presented. These instabilities play a key role in the determination of the necessary and favorable conditions for cavity soliton existence. Optimization of an all-optical delay line by tuning the injected field frequency leads to a five fold increase of the soliton velocity in the transverse plane. Finally, the phenomenon of cavity soliton merging is applied to combine input signals in optical information processing and to manipulate two dimensional optical memories.     

Static and dynamic properties of heavy light mesons in infinite mass limit

We summarize the consequences of the infinite limit of heavy quark mass in the results of form factors, charge radii and decay constants of heavy light mesons within a QCD inspired quark model recently reported.