Compensation strategies for a lip-tube perturbation of French [u]: an acoustic and perceptual study of 4-year-old children

TL;DR

This study investigates how 4-year-old French children adapt their production and perception of the vowel [u] when a lip-tube perturbation is introduced, revealing individual differences and the effects of articulatory instructions.

Contribution

It provides new insights into children's compensatory strategies for speech perturbations using acoustic and perceptual analyses, comparing them to adult responses.

Findings

Children show speaker-dependent alterations in F1, F2, and F0 during perturbation.

Articulatory instructions did not improve acoustic target achievement.

Perceptual analysis identified optimal F0, F1, F2 combinations related to compensation patterns.

Abstract

The relations between production and perception in 4-year-old children were examined in a study of compensation strategies for a lip-tube perturbation. Acoustic and perceptual analyses of the rounded vowel [u] produced by twelve 4-year-old French speakers were conducted under two conditions: normal and with a 15-mm-diameter tube inserted between the lips. Recordings of isolated vowels were made in the normal condition before any perturbation (N1), immediately upon insertion of the tube and for the next 19 trials in this perturbed condition, with (P2) or without articulatory instructions (P1), and in the normal condition after the perturbed trials (N2). The results of the acoustic analyses reveal speaker-dependent alterations of F1, F2, and/or F0 in the perturbed conditions and after the removal of the tube. For some subjects, the presence of the tube resulted in very little change; for others, an increase in F2 was observed in P1, which was generally reduced in some of the 20 repetitions, but not systematically and not continuously. The use of articulatory instructions provided in the P2 condition was detrimental to the achievement of a good acoustic target. Perceptual data are used to determine optimal combinations of F0, F1, and F2 (in Bark) related to these patterns. The data are compared to a previous study conducted with adults [Savariaux et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 106, 381-393 (1999)].