This longitudinal study examines the articulatory development in two groups of subjects. The project has three main objectives: (1) to better understand the spatio-temporal relationship of articulatory gestures in complex consonant sequences in Spanish, (2) to examine the effects of articulatory training on the learning of new spatio-temporal coordination patterns, and (3) to better understand the effects of motor complexity on the learning of new spatio-temporal coordination patterns. The groups of subjects that were chosen are: (1) Spanish-speaking children with a hearing impairment who use cochlear implants, and (2) native English speakers who are learning Spanish as a foreign language .

The previously extracted kinematic data (via electromagnetic articulography) exposing the spatio-temporal coordination patterns of Spanish will serve as the baseline for the study (Gibson, researcher Principal, IP), Satiropoulou, Tobin and Gafos, 2017). The subject groups were chosen due to the nature of the physiological, cognitive, and neuroanatomical constraints affecting motor learning. In both subject groups, acoustic input is distorted, albeit in different ways, giving way to perceptual errors and non-native productions (e.g. foreign accent). And while these restrictions present certain obstacles to learning, previous research shows that, with internship and/or articulatory training, native/adult productions of spatio-temporal patterns can be obtained (Lane, Wozniak & Perkell 1994; Catford & Pisoni 1970; Adler-Bock 2004; Adler-Bock, 2007; Gick et al. 2007; Brendel & Ziegler 2008; Albert, Sparks, & Helm 1973; Sparks & Holland 1976; Wertz, Lapointe, & Rosenbek 1984; Square, Martin & Bose 2001; Rubow, Rosenbek, Collins, Longstreth 1982; Dworkin, Abkarian, & Johns 1988; Shane & Darley 1978; Wambaugh & Martinez 2000; Reid & Lin 2006).  

The body of previous research findings suggests that learners exploit a variety of alternative strategies and modalities to learn new patterns of laryngo-articulatory coordination (learning in the tradition of Adams 1971; Gentile 1972; Newell 1996; Schmidt 1975; Zanone & Kelso 1992, 1997), although no study to date has documented learning progress longitudinally with data kinematics.  

Funded by research University of Navarra Projects (PIUNA).

This acoustic perception study seeks to discover whether native speakers of a language are better able than non-native speakers to detect an imitated foreign accent when the language being imitated is the first language of the group of non-native speakers. Results from a pilot study indicate that non-native speakers were able to discern authentic and imitated stimuli better than native speakers. A preliminary hypothesis to explain these results proposes that the statistical weighting of the first language affects the way a speaker focuses perceptual attention on the different acoustic dimensions of a second language.   

Funded by MINECO.  

This study examines whether native and non-native speakers of Spanish are able to detect a subject's emotional state on the basis of voice quality and other acoustic cues. The test stimuli come from a corpus of spontaneous speech with samples drawn in a clinical context. The subjects used for the perception tests were selected from a group of native speakers of peninsular Spanish and speakers of American English with different levels of skill in Spanish, which allows us to examine how the ability to detect a speaker's emotional state grows as a function of linguistic knowledge .