PROSEM
Friday, April 15, 2016
WJSHC
NOON – 1:00 PM Room 308 WJSHC
Title: The Influence of Motor Production Experience on Voice Perception
Presenters: A. Louise Pinkerton, M.M. Vocal Performance, MA-SLP Candidate
Eileen Finnegan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Iowa Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
ABSTRACT:
Introduction: Perceptual speech and voice analysis is an essential skill for all speech-language pathologists, but it is a difficult skill to teach. Even the reliability for experienced raters is variable.
Some training literature in speech-language pathology suggests that imitation of disordered speech or voice quality could be useful for developing perceptual judgment. Evidence in other fields suggests that motor experience influences perception, and several theories of speech production make a connection between motor production and comprehension of speech. Until now the link between production and perception in voice quality has not been addressed. This pilot study hypothesized that imitating pathological voice samples would improve the perceptual discrimination abilities of naïve listeners.
Methods/Design:Three expert listeners rated twenty-five voice samples with a perceptual voice evaluation scale, the GIRBAS (Dejonckere et al., 1996), and identified anchor samples for the training protocol. These expert ratings were used to develop consensus GIRBAS ratings for the voice samples used in the study. Two groups of inexperienced undergraduate listeners received training in evaluating voice quality and in administering the GIRBAS. Participants completed a pretest, a training session, a homework session, and a post-test. In each activity participantsrated six voice samples and provided a confidence rating for their scores. The experimental group was instructed to imitate the voice samples during the study to activate implicit learning, and the control group completed the training without supplemental motor experience.
Results:We hypothesized that individuals in both listener groups will have improved confidence ratings between the pretest and post-test, with a larger improvement for the experimental group. It was anticipated that individuals in the experimental group would be more accurate in the post-test GIRBAS perceptual voice ratings than members of the control group when compared to consensus ratings of the experts. Preliminary results will be presented.
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