No access
Research Article
7 March 2023

Interarticulator Speech Coordination: Timing Is of the Essence

Publication: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 66, Number 3
Pages 901-915

Abstract

Purpose:

In skilled speech production, sets of articulators, such as the jaw, tongue, and lips, work cooperatively to achieve task-specific movement goals, despite rampant contextual variation. Efforts to understand these functional units, termed coordinative structures, have focused on identifying the essential control parameters responsible for allowing articulators to achieve these goals, with some research focusing on temporal parameters (relative timing of movements) and other research focusing on spatiotemporal parameters (phase angle of movement onset for one articulator, relative to another). Here, both types of parameters were investigated and compared in detail.

Method:

Ten talkers recorded nonsense, disyllabic /tV#Cat/ utterances using electromagnetic articulography, with alternative V (/ɑ/−/ɛ/) and C (/t/−/d/), across variation in rate (fast–slow) and stress (first syllable stressed–unstressed). Two measures were obtained: (a) the timing of tongue-tip raising onset for medial C, relative to jaw opening–closing cycles and (b) the angle of tongue-tip raising onset, relative to the jaw phase plane.

Results:

Results showed that any manipulation that shortened the jaw opening-closing cycle reduced both the relative timing and phase angle of the tongue-tip movement onset, but relative timing of tongue-tip movement onset scaled more consistently with jaw opening-closing across rate and stress variation.

Conclusion:

These findings suggest the existence of an intrinsic timing mechanism (or “central clock”) that is the primary control parameter for coordinative structures, with online compensation then allowing these structures to achieve their goals spatially.

Supplemental Material:

Get full access to this article

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

References

Abbs, J. H., & Gracco, V. L. (1984). Control of complex motor gestures: Orofacial muscle responses to load perturbations of lip during speech. Journal of Neurophysiology, 51(4), 705–723.
Alm, P. A. (2004). Stuttering and the basal ganglia circuits: A critical review of possible relations. Journal of Communication Disorders, 37(4), 325–369.
Browman, C. P., & Goldstein, L. (1992). Articulatory phonology: An overview. Phonetica, 49(3–4), 155–180.
Dromey, C., Hunter, E., & Nissen, S. L. (2018). Speech adaptation to kinematic recording sensors: Perceptual and acoustic findings. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(3), 593–603.
Folkins, J. W., & Abbs, J. H. (1975). Lip and jaw motor control during speech: Responses to resistive loading of the jaw. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 18(1), 207–220.
Fowler, C. A. (1980). Coarticulation and theories of extrinsic timing. Journal of Phonetics, 8(1), 113–133.
Galantucci, B., Fowler, C. A., & Turvey, M. T. (2006). The motor theory of speech perception reviewed. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 13(3), 361–377.
Goldstein, L., Byrd, D., & Saltzman, E. (2006). The role of vocal tract gestural action units in understanding the evolution of phonology. In M. A. Arbib (Ed.), Action to language via the Mirror neuron system (pp. 215–249). Cambridge University Press.
Goldstein, L., & Fowler, C. A. (2003). Articulatory phonology: A phonology for public language use. In N. O. Schiller & A. S. Meyer (Eds.), Phonetics and phonology in language comprehension and production (pp. 159–207). de Gruyter.
Gracco, V. L. (1988). Timing factors in the coordination of speech movements. Journal of Neuroscience, 8(12), 4628–4639.
Gracco, V. L., & Lofqvist, A. (1994). Speech motor coordination and control: Evidence from lip, jaw, and laryngeal movements. Journal of Neuroscience, 14(11), 6585–6597.
Guenther, F. H. (2016). Neural control of speech. MIT Press.
Guenther, F. H., Hampson, M., & Johnson, D. (1998). A theoretical investigation of reference frames for the planning of speech movements. Psychological Review, 105(4), 611–633.
Harris, K. S., Tuller, B., & Kelso, J. A. S. (1986). Temporal invariance in the production of speech. In J. S. Perkell & D. H. Klatt (Eds.), Invariance and variability in speech processes (pp. 243–267). Erlbaum.
Herbst, C. T. (2020). Electroglottography - An update. Journal of Voice, 34(4), 503–526.
Holt, L. L., & Lotto, A. J. (2008). Speech perception within an auditory cognitive science framework. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(1), 42–46.
Hoole, P. (1996). Issues in the acquisition, processing, reduction, and parameterization of articulographic data. Instituts für Phonetik und Sprachliche Kommunikation, München (FIPKM), 34, 158–173.
Kelso, J. A. S. (1986). Pattern formation in speech and limb movements involving many degrees of freedom. Experimental Brain Research, 105–128.
Kelso, J. A. S., Saltzman, E. L., & Tuller, B. (1986). The dynamical perspective on speech production: Data and theory. Journal of Phonetics, 14(1), 29–59.
Kelso, J. A. S., & Tuller, B. (1987). Intrinsic timing in speech production: Theory, methodology, and preliminary observations. In E. Keller & M. Gopnik (Eds.), Motor and sensory processes of language (pp. 203–222). Earlbaum.
Kelso, J. A. S., Tuller, B., Vatikiotis-Bateson, E., & Fowler, C. A. (1984). Functionally specific articulatory cooperation following jaw perturbations during speech: Evidence for coordinative structures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10(6), 812–832.
Klatt, D. H. (1976). Linguistic uses of segmental duration in English: Acoustic and perceptual evidence. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 59(5), 1208–1221.
Lalain, M., Joly-Pottuz, N., Nguyen, N., & Habib, M. (2003). Dyslexia: The articulatory hypothesis revisited. Brain and Cognition, 53(2), 253–256.
Lane, H., & Perkell, J. S. (2005). Control of voice-onset time in the absence of hearing: A review. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 48(6), 1334–1343.
Liberman, A. M., & Mattingly, I. G. (1985). The motor theory of speech perception revised. Cognition, 21(1), 1–36.
Masapollo, M., & Nittrouer, S. (2021). MIPA: A theory of phonological acquisition and speech motor control. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 150(4), A111.
Masapollo, M., Segawa, J. A., Beal, D., Tourville, J., Nieto-Castañón, A., Heyne, M., Frankford, S., & Guenther, F. H. (2021). Behavioral and neural correlates of speech motor sequence learning in stuttering and neurotypical speakers: An fMRI investigation. Neurobiology of Language, 2(1), 106–137.
Max, L., Caruso, A. J., & Gracco, V. L. (2003). Kinematic analyses of speech, orofacial nonspeech, and finger movements in stuttering and nonstuttering adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46(1), 215–232.
Narayanan, S., Toutios, A., Ramanarayanan, V., Lammert, A., Kim, J., Lee, S., Nayak, K., Kim, Y. C., Zhu, Y., Goldstein, L., Byrd, D., Bresch, E., Ghosh, P., Katsamanis, A., & Proctor, M. (2014). Real-time magnetic resonance imaging and electromagnetic articulography database for speech production research (TC). The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 136(3), 1307–1311.
Nittrouer, S. (1991). Phase relations of jaw and tongue tip movements in the production of VCV utterances. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 90(4), 1806–1815.
Nittrouer, S., Munhall, K., Kelso, A. S., Tuller, B., & Harris, K. S. (1988). Patterns of inter-articulator phasing and their relation to linguistic structure. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 84(5), 1653–1661.
Peirce, J. W. (2007). PsychoPy - psychophysics software in python. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 162(1–2), 8–13.
Perkell, J. S., Cohen, M. H., Svirsky, M. A., Matthies, M. L., Garabieta, I., & Jackson, M. T. T. (1992). Electromagnetic midsagittal articulometer systems for transducing speech articulatory movements. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 92(6), 3078–3096.
Rebernik, T., Jacobi, J., Jonkers, R., Noiray, A., & Wieling, M. (2021). A review of data collection practices using electromagnetic articulography. Laboratory Phonology, 12(1), 6.
Saltzman, E. L., & Munhall, K. G. (1989). A dynamical approach to gestural patterning in speech production. Ecological Psychology, 1(4), 333–382.
Smith, A., Goffman, L., Zelaznik, H., Ying, S., & McGillem, C. (1995). Spatiotemporal stability and patterning of speech movement sequences. Experimental Brain Research, 104(3), 493–501.
Sorensen, T., Toutios, A., Goldstein, L., & Narayanan, S. S. (2016). Characterizing vocal tract dynamics across speakers using real-time MRI. Interspeech, 465–469.
Stevens, K. N. (1998). Acoustic phonetics. MIT Press.
Tiede, M. (2005). MVIEW: Software for visualization and analysis of concurrently recorded movement data. Haskins Laboratory.
Tiede, M. (2010). MVIEW: Multi-channel visualization application for displaying dynamic sensor movement. Haskins Laboratory.
Tremblay, S., Shiller, D. M., & Ostry, D. J. (2003). Somatosensory basis of speech production. Nature, 423(6942), 866–869.
Tuller, B., & Kelso, J. A. (1984). The timing of articulatory gestures: Evidence for relational invariants. The Journal of the Acoustical Society America, 76(4), 1030–1036.
Tuller, B., Kelso, J. A., & Harris, K. S. (1982). Inter-articulator phasing as an index of temporal regularity in speech. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 8, 460–472.
Tuller, B., Kelso, J. A., & Harris, K. S. (1983). Converging evidence for the role of relative timing in speech. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 9(5), 829–833.
Turvey, M. T., Shaw, R., & Mace, W. (1978). Issues in the theory of action: Degrees of freedom, coordinative structures and coalitions. In J. Requin (Ed.), Attention and performance (Vol. 7). Erlbaum.
Weismer, G., & Bunton, K. (1999). Influences of pellet markers on speech production behavior: Acoustical and perceptual measures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105(5), 2882–2894.
Westbury, J. R. (1994). X-ray microbeam speech production database user's handbook. University of Wisconsin Press.
Whalen, D. H., Iskarous, K., Tiede, M. K., Ostry, D. J., Lehnert-LeHouillier, H., Vatikiotis-Bateson, E., & Hailey, D. S. (2005). The Haskins Optically Corrected Ultrasound System (HOCUS). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 48(3), 543–553.
Ziegler, W., & von Cramon, D. (1986). Timing deficits in apraxia of speech. European Archives of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences, 236(1), 44–49.

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Volume 66Number 37 March 2023
Pages: 901-915
PubMed: 36827516

History

  • Received: Oct 15, 2022
  • Revised: Dec 1, 2022
  • Accepted: Dec 3, 2022
  • Published online: Feb 24, 2023
  • Published in issue: Mar 7, 2023

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Authors

Affiliations

Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville
Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville

Notes

Disclosure: The authors have declared that no competing financial or nonfinancial interests existed at the time of publication.
Correspondence to Matthew Masapollo: [email protected]
Editor-in-Chief: Cara E. Stepp
Editor: Raymond D. Kent

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

Article Metrics
View all metrics



Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.

View Options

Sign In Options

ASHA member? If so, log in with your ASHA website credentials for full access.

Member Login

View options

PDF

View PDF

Full Text

View Full Text

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Copy the content Link

Share