@article{WilliamsEscudero2014, author = {Williams, Daniel and Escudero, Paola}, title = {A cross-dialectal acoustic comparison of vowels in Northern and Southern British English}, series = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America}, volume = {136}, journal = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America}, number = {5}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, address = {Melville}, issn = {0001-4966}, doi = {10.1121/1.4896471}, pages = {2751 -- 2761}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This study compares the duration and first two formants (F1 and F2) of 11 nominal monophthongs and five nominal diphthongs in Standard Southern British English (SSBE) and a Northern English dialect. F1 and F2 trajectories were fitted with parametric curves using the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the zeroth DCT coefficient represented formant trajectory means and the first DCT coefficient represented the magnitude and direction of formant trajectory change to characterize vowel inherent spectral change (VISC). Cross-dialectal comparisons involving these measures revealed significant differences for the phonologically back monophthongs /D, , , u:/ and also /3z:/ and the diphthongs /eI, e, aI, I/. Most cross-dialectal differences are in zeroth DCT coefficients, suggesting formant trajectory means tend to characterize such differences, while first DCT coefficient differences were more numerous for diphthongs. With respect to VISC, the most striking differences are that /u:/is considerably more diphthongized in the Northern dialect and that the F2 trajectory of /e/proceeds in opposite directions in the two dialects. Cross-dialectal differences were found to be largely unaffected by the consonantal context in which the vowels were produced. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to VISC, consonantal context effects and speech perception. (c) 2014 Acoustical Society of America.}, language = {en} } @article{WilliamsEscudero2014, author = {Williams, Daniel and Escudero, Paola}, title = {Influences of listeners' native and other dialects on cross-language vowel perception}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {5}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01065}, pages = {10}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @article{MokariGafosWilliams2021, author = {Mokari, Payam Ghaffarvand and Gafos, Adamantios I. and Williams, Daniel}, title = {Perceptuomotor compatibility effects in vowels}, series = {JASA Express Letters}, volume = {1}, journal = {JASA Express Letters}, number = {1}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, address = {Melville}, issn = {2691-1191}, doi = {10.1121/10.0003039}, pages = {8}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In a cue-distractor task, speakers' response times (RTs) were found to speed up when they perceived a distractor syllable whose vowel was identical to the vowel in the syllable they were preparing to utter. At a more fine-grained level, subphonemic congruency between response and distractor-defined by higher number of shared phonological features or higher acoustic proximity-was also found to be predictive of RT modulations. Furthermore, the findings indicate that perception of vowel stimuli embedded in syllables gives rise to robust and more consistent perceptuomotor compatibility effects (compared to isolated vowels) across different response-distractor vowel pairs.}, language = {en} } @article{MayrMorrisMennenetal.2017, author = {Mayr, Robert and Morris, Jonathan and Mennen, Ineke and Williams, Daniel}, title = {Disentangling the effects of long-term language contact and individual bilingualism: The case of monophthongs in Welsh and English}, series = {International journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior}, volume = {21}, journal = {International journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {1367-0069}, doi = {10.1177/1367006915614921}, pages = {245 -- 267}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Aims and objectives: This study investigates the effects of individual bilingualism and long-term language contact on monophthongal vowel productions in English and Welsh. Design: To this end, we recorded the Welsh and English vowel productions of two sets of Welsh-English bilinguals differing in home language use, as well as the English vowel productions of English monolinguals. Data and analysis: The data were analysed acoustically, with a focus on spectral and temporal properties. Comparisons were then made within each language and cross-linguistically. Findings: The results of a cross-linguistic acoustic comparison revealed a high degree of convergence in the monophthong systems of Welsh and English, but also some language-specific categories. Interestingly, at the individual level we found no effect of linguistic experience on vowel production: the two sets of bilinguals and the English monolinguals did not differ in their realisation of English vowels, and the two sets of bilinguals did not differ in their realisation of Welsh vowels. Implications: The findings demonstrate pervasive phonetic convergence in a language contact situation with a historical substrate. They also indicate that a homogeneous peer group with shared values can override the effects of individual linguistic experience.}, language = {en} } @article{KashimaWilliamsEllisonetal.2016, author = {Kashima, Eri and Williams, Daniel and Ellison, T. Mark and Schokkin, Dineke and Escudero, Paola}, title = {Uncovering the acoustic vowel space of a previously undescribed language: The vowels of Nambo}, series = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America}, volume = {139}, journal = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, address = {Melville}, issn = {0001-4966}, doi = {10.1121/1.4954395}, pages = {EL252 -- EL256}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This study presents the first acoustic description of the vowel space of a Papuan language—Nambo, spoken in southern Papua New Guinea—based on duration and first and second formant measurements from 19 adult male and female speakers across three age groups (young, middle-aged, senior). Phonemically, Nambo has six full vowels /i, e, {\ae}, \&\#593;, o, u/ and a reduced vowel tentatively labeled /\&\#601;/. Unlike the full vowels, the quality of /\&\#601;/ showed great variation: seniors' and young females' realizations tended to be more open and retracted than those by young males, while middle-aged speakers' productions fell between these two variants.}, language = {en} } @article{GhaffarvandMokariGafosWilliams2020, author = {Ghaffarvand-Mokari, Payam and Gafos, Adamantios I. and Williams, Daniel}, title = {Perceptuomotor compatibility effects in vowels}, series = {Attention, perception, \& psychophysics}, volume = {82}, journal = {Attention, perception, \& psychophysics}, number = {5}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {1943-3921}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-020-02014-1}, pages = {2751 -- 2764}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Perceptuomotor compatibility between phonemically identical spoken and perceived syllables has been found to speed up response times (RTs) in speech production tasks. However, research on compatibility effects between perceived and produced stimuli at the subphonemic level is limited. Using a cue-distractor task, we investigated the effects of phonemic and subphonemic congruency in pairs of vowels. On each trial, a visual cue prompted individuals to produce a response vowel, and after the visual cue appeared a distractor vowel was auditorily presented while speakers were planning to produce the response vowel. The results revealed effects on RTs due to phonemic congruency (same vs. different vowels) between the response and distractor vowels, which resemble effects previously seen for consonants. Beyond phonemic congruency, we assessed how RTs are modulated as a function of the degree of subphonemic similarity between the response and distractor vowels. Higher similarity between the response and distractor in terms of phonological distance-defined by number of mismatching phonological features-resulted in faster RTs. However, the exact patterns of RTs varied across response-distractor vowel pairs. We discuss how different assumptions about phonological feature representations may account for the different patterns observed in RTs across response-distractor pairs. Our findings on the effects of perceived stimuli on produced speech at a more detailed level of representation than phonemic identity necessitate a more direct and specific formulation of the perception-production link. Additionally, these results extend previously reported perceptuomotor interactions mainly involving consonants to vowels.}, language = {en} } @article{ElvinWilliamsEscudero2016, author = {Elvin, Jaydene and Williams, Daniel and Escudero, Paola}, title = {Dynamic acoustic properties of monophthongs and diphthongs in Western Sydney Australian English}, series = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America}, volume = {140}, journal = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, address = {Melville}, issn = {0001-4966}, doi = {10.1121/1.4952387}, pages = {576 -- 581}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This study provides a thorough acoustic analysis of the 18 Australian English monophthongs and diphthongs produced in a variety of phonetic contexts by young adult speakers from Western Sydney. The 18 vowels are well separated by duration and dynamic formant trajectory information. Vowel durations and formant trajectories were affected by the consonantal context in which the vowels were produced, particularly those produced in the /hVd/ context. Finally, the results indicate that capturing aspects of vowel inherent spectral change may be useful in future cross-dialectal and cross-linguistic studies. (C) 2016 Acoustical Society of America.}, language = {en} } @article{ChladkovaHamannWilliamsetal.2017, author = {Chladkova, Katerina and Hamann, Silke and Williams, Daniel and Hellmuth, Sam}, title = {F2 slope as a Perceptual Cue for the Front-Back Contrast in Standard Southern British English}, series = {Language and speech}, volume = {60}, journal = {Language and speech}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {0023-8309}, doi = {10.1177/0023830916650991}, pages = {377 -- 398}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Acoustic studies of several languages indicate that second-formant (F2) slopes in high vowels have opposing directions (independent of consonantal context): front [i.]-like vowels are produced with a rising F2 slope, whereas back [u.]-like vowels are produced with a falling F2 slope. The present study first reports acoustic measurements that confirm this pattern for the English variety of Standard Southern British English (SSBE), where /u./ has shifted from the back to the front area of the vowel space and is now realized with higher midpoint F2 values than several decades ago. Subsequently, we test whether the direction of F2 slope also serves as a reliable cue to the /i.// u./ contrast in perception. The findings show that F2 slope direction is used as a cue (additional to midpoint formant values) to distinguish /i./ from /u./by both young and older Standard Southern British English listeners: an otherwise ambiguous token is identified as /i./if it has a rising F2 slope and as /u./if it has a falling F2 slope. Furthermore, our results indicate that listeners generalize their reliance on F2 slope to other contrasts, namely /epsilon/-/./and /ae/-/./, even though F2 slope is not employed to differentiate these vowels in production. This suggests that in Standard Southern British English, a rising F2 seems to be perceptually associated with an abstract feature such as [+ front], whereas a falling F2 with an abstract feature such as [-front].}, language = {en} }