A System for Online Dynamic Perturbation of Formant Trajectories and Results from Perturbations of the Mandarin Triphthong /iau/

Abstract

Previous studies based on perturbation of formant frequencies in auditory feedback of speech (e.g., [1,2]) mainly used steady-state vowels. However, real speech is primarily time-varying. Currently little is known about the role of auditory feedback in the production of time-varying speech sounds such as diphthongs and triphthongs. We developed a system for online perturbation of such sounds. Using this system, we perturbed the formant trajectories of the triphthong /iau/ in a time-varying fashion as they were being produced by Mandarin speakers. Most subjects showed compensatory corrections to the formant trajectories in ways that reflected the time-varying nature of the perturbations. This result indicates that auditory feedback plays a role in the planning of the articulatory movements in time-varying sounds. In addition, the adaptations to these perturbations transferred to some related time-varying and steady-state vowels.