Adaptation strategies in perturbed /s/

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to investigate the role of three articulatory parameters (tongue position, jaw position and tongue grooving) in the production of /s/. Six normal speakers' speech was perturbed by a palatal prosthesis. The fricative was recorded acoustically and through electromagnetic articulography in four conditions: (1) unperturbed, (2) perturbed with auditory feedback masked, (3) perturbed with auditory feedback available and (4) perturbed after a 2-week adaptation period. At the end of the adaptation, speakers produced more high-frequency noise while either having a higher jaw position or more grooving of the tongue or both. We discuss the potential clinical implications of the results with regard to the role of jaw height and tongue grooving in the treatment of impaired /s/.

• sibilant
• fricative
• perturbation
• prosthesis
• tongue grooving
• jaw

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Olessia Panzyga, Susanne Waltl and Vivien Hein for acoustic segmentation, to Mark Tiede for a script for calculating average spectra and to our subjects.

Declaration of interest: This work was funded by the German Research Council (PO 334/4-1 and HO 327/1-1), the Ministère délégué à l'Enseignement Supérieur et à la Recherche of France and the POPAART P2R programme from the CNRS, the French Foreign Office and the German Research Council.

Notes

1.  Under perturbation, speakers will never have the same sensations as in the unperturbed session simply because they are lacking sensory information from the palate.

2.  The location of the end of the hard palate relative to the tongue surface was determined by marking the posterior end of the hard palate with an oral disinfectant containing a strong purple colouring agent. The speaker was then asked to close the mouth and push the tongue gently against the hard palate, keeping as neutral a position of the tongue as possible. This resulted in the colour mark being transferred to the tongue surface.