Papers by Anneke Slis
Rhythmic tapping difficulties in adults who stutter: A deficit in beat perception, motor execution, or sensorimotor integration?
PLOS ONE, 2023
Abstract
Objectives
The study aims to better understand the rhythmic abilities of people who stut... more Abstract
Objectives
The study aims to better understand the rhythmic abilities of people who stutter and to identify which processes potentially are impaired in this population: (1) beat perception and reproduction; (2) the execution of movements, in particular their initiation; (3) sensorimotor integration.
Material and method
Finger tapping behavior of 16 adults who stutter (PWS) was compared with that of 16 matching controls (PNS) in five rhythmic tasks of various complexity: three synchronization tasks ― a simple 1:1 isochronous pattern, a complex non-isochronous pattern, and a 4 tap:1 beat isochronous pattern ―, a reaction task to an aperiodic and unpredictable pattern, and a reproduction task of an isochronous pattern after passively listening.
Results
PWS were able to reproduce an isochronous pattern on their own, without external auditory stimuli, with similar accuracy as PNS, but with increased variability. This group difference in variability was observed immediately after passive listening, without prior motor engagement, and was not enhanced or reduced after several seconds of tapping. Although PWS showed increased tapping variability in the reproduction task as well as in synchronization tasks, this timing variability did not correlate significantly with the variability in reaction times or tapping force.
Compared to PNS, PWS exhibited larger negative mean asynchronies, and increased synchronization variability in synchronization tasks. These group differences were not affected by beat hierarchy (i.e., “strong” vs. “weak” beats), pattern complexity (non-isochronous vs. isochronous) or presence versus absence of external auditory stimulus (1:1 vs. 1:4 isochronous pattern). Differences between PWS and PNS were not enhanced or reduced with sensorimotor learning, over the first taps of a synchronization task.
Conclusion
Our observations support the hypothesis of a deficit in neuronal oscillators coupling in production, but not in perception, of rhythmic patterns, and a larger delay in multi-modal feedback processing for PWS.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2023
Purpose: This study aims to investigate acoustic change over time as biomarkers to differentiate ... more Purpose: This study aims to investigate acoustic change over time as biomarkers to differentiate among spastic–flaccid dysarthria associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spastic dysarthria associated with primary lateral sclerosis (PLS), flaccid dysarthria associated with spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA), and to explore how these acoustic parameters are affected by dysarthria severity. Method: Thirty-three ALS patients with mixed flaccid–spastic dysarthria, 17 PLS patients with pure spastic dysarthria, 18 SBMA patients with pure flaccid dysarthria, and 70 controls, all French speakers, were included in the study. Speakers produced vowel–glide sequences targeting different vocal tract shape changes. The mean and coefficient of variation of the total squared change of mel frequency cepstral coefficients were used to capture the degree and variability of acoustic changes linked to vocal tract modifications over time. Differences in duration of acoustic events were...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2021
Identifying characteristics of articulatory impairment in speech motor disorders is complicated d... more Identifying characteristics of articulatory impairment in speech motor disorders is complicated due to the timeconsuming nature of kinematic measures. The goal is to explore whether analysing the acoustic signal in terms of total squared changes of Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (TSC_MFCC) and its pattern over time provides sufficient spectral information to distinguish mild and moderate dysarthric French speakers with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's Disease (PD) from each other and from healthy speakers. Participants produced the vowel-glide sequences /ajajaj/, /ujujuj/, and /wiwiwi/. From the time course of TSC_MFCCs, event-related and global measures were extracted to capture the degree of acoustic change and its variability. In addition, durational measures were obtained. For both mild and moderately impaired PD and ALS speakers, the degree of acoustic change and its variability, averaged over the complete contour, separated PD and ALS speakers from each other and from healthy speakers, especially when producing the sequences /ujujuj/ and /wiwiwi/. Durational measures separated the moderate ALS from healthy and moderate PD speakers. Using the approach on repetitive sequences targeting the lingual and labial articulators to characterize articulatory impairment in speech motor disorders is promising. Findings are discussed against prior findings of articulatory impairment in the populations studied.
Lingual Behavior in Clarinet Articulation: A Multiple-Case Study Into Single and Double Tonguing
Music & Science, 2021
Articulating notes on the clarinet requires the control of many factors, one of which is the beha... more Articulating notes on the clarinet requires the control of many factors, one of which is the behavior of the tongue. It is hypothesized that one of the mechanisms to produce notes in the altissimo (highest) register involves the lowering of the tongue dorsum. The study sought to answer the question of whether different tonguing techniques interfered with the required lowering of the tongue dorsum in this register, making adequate note production difficult. Four professional clarinet players performed diatonic scales across the chalumeau, clarion, and altissimo registers using two techniques—single and double tonguing. Movements of the tongue dorsum and tongue blade were recorded with 3D Electromagnetic Articulography. The movement data revealed that, for all players, a low position of the tongue dorsum was indeed associated with a higher success rate of producing adequate notes in the altissimo register. Single tonguing was the most effective technique due to ability of the tongue d...
The Effect of Auditory Information on Patterns of Intrusions and Reductions
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2016
PurposeThe study investigates whether auditory information affects the nature of intrusion and re... more PurposeThe study investigates whether auditory information affects the nature of intrusion and reduction errors in reiterated speech. These errors are hypothesized to arise as a consequence of autonomous mechanisms to stabilize movement coordination. The specific question addressed is whether this process is affected by auditory information so that it will influence the occurrence of intrusions and reductions.MethodsFifteen speakers produced word pairs with alternating onset consonants and identical rhymes repetitively at a normal and fast speaking rate, in masked and unmasked speech. Movement ranges of the tongue tip, tongue dorsum, and lower lip during onset consonants were retrieved from kinematic data collected with electromagnetic articulography. Reductions and intrusions were defined as statistical outliers from movement range distributions of target and nontarget articulators, respectively.ResultsRegardless of masking condition, the number of intrusions and reductions increas...
Journal of Phonetics, 2016
Recent studies have described speech errors as articulatory movements intruding during target con... more Recent studies have described speech errors as articulatory movements intruding during target constrictions as well as reduced movements of these target constrictions. These errors were hypothesized to originate from self-organizing mechanisms underlying context-free gestural coordination. The current study investigates whether such self-organizing mechanisms and resulting speech errors are influenced by coproduction constraints, which are introduced by phonetic context. Speakers repeated CVC-CVC word pairs, differing in onsets and sharing their rhymes. “Phonetic context” was manipulated by changing the rhyme across different word pairs using specific vowel- and consonant-combinations. Vertical movements of tongue tip, tongue dorsum, and lower lip were recorded with Electro-Magnetic Articulography. The results revealed that the tongue dorsum as an intruding articulator showed more intrusions in front vowel context than in low back vowel context. In addition, this articulator showed more intrusions than the tongue tip in /æ/ context, and more intrusions than the lower lip in /ɪ/ context. Reductions did not demonstrate this effect of vowel context. However, both tongue dorsum and tongue tip reduced more than the lower lip. The findings are explained in terms of the amount of spatial overlap of gestures and intruding articulatory movements, as defined in Articulatory Phonology.
Dit artikel beschrijft de ontwikkelingen die het versprekingen-onderzoek de laatste decennia heef... more Dit artikel beschrijft de ontwikkelingen die het versprekingen-onderzoek de laatste decennia heeft doorgemaakt en de gevolgen die deze ontwikkelingen hebben gehad voor het begrijpen van de onderliggende mechanismen die kunnen leiden tot versprekingen. Deze nieuwe inzichten kunnen gebruikt worden om spraakproblemen bij kinderen en volwassenen beter te diagnostiseren. De mechanismen die in dit artikel besproken worden, zijn afgeleid van theoretische concepten zoals verwoord binnen het raamwerk van “Articulatory Phonology” en “Task Dynamics”. In dit raamwerk staat de coordinatie van spraakbewegingen centraal. Na een meer algemene inleiding van deze theoretische begrippen en samenvatting van huidig gerelateerd experimenteel onderzoek in normale spraakproductie zal worden ingegaan op toepassingen op het gebied van gestoorde spraakproductie.
Toronto working papers in linguistics (TWPL) 40, 2018
This paper presents an overview of a series of studies exploring the link between articulatory va... more This paper presents an overview of a series of studies exploring the link between articulatory variability and speech errors in repetitive speech. The results from these articulatory speech error studies challenged the existence of phonemic speech errors and the findings necessitated a different approach of how errors should be interpreted. The objective of the paper is to evaluate how several researchers analyzed and interpreted the error data and summarizes several important findings with respect to the behavior and appearance of errors. Several psycholinguistic models are discussed that have been used to explain patterns of errors, including the cascading activation model and Articulatory Phonology.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2013
This study examined how, in repetitive speech, articulatory movements differ in degree of variabi... more This study examined how, in repetitive speech, articulatory movements differ in degree of variability and movement range depending on articulatory constraints manipulated by phonetic context and type of CVC-CVC word pair. These pairs consisted of words that either differed in onset consonants but shared rhymes, or were identical. Articulatory constraints were manipulated by employing different combinations of vowels and consonants. The word pairs were produced in a repetitive speech task at a normal and fast speaking rate. Articulatory movements were measured with 3D electro-magnetic articulography. As measures of variability, median movement ranges and the coefficient of variation of target and non-target articulators were determined. To assess possible biomechanical constraints, correlation values between target and simultaneous non-target articulators were calculated as well. The results revealed that word pairs with different onsets had larger movement ranges than word pairs with identical onsets. In identical word pairs, the coefficient of variation showed higher values in the second than in the first word. This difference was not present in the alternating onset word pairs. For both types of word pairs, higher speaking rates showed higher correlations between target and non-target articulators than lower speaking rates, suggesting stronger biomechanical constraints for the former condition.
Thesis Chapters by Anneke Slis
Dissertation, 2014
This dissertation seeks to answer the question whether articulatory constraints and auditory info... more This dissertation seeks to answer the question whether articulatory constraints and auditory information affect intrusion and reduction errors. These intrusions and reductions of articulatory movement result from a general tendency to stabilize movement coordination. Stabilisation of speech movement coordination is an autonomous self-organizing process. This process, however, can be affected by factors related to articulatory properties and auditory information.
Drafts by Anneke Slis
Rhythmic tapping difficulties in adults who stutter: a deficit in Central Clock and/or Motor Implementation?
The study aims to better understand the origin of increased tapping variability and inaccuracy in... more The study aims to better understand the origin of increased tapping variability and inaccuracy in people who stutter during paced and un-paced tapping. The overall question is to what extent these timing difficulties are related to a central clock deficit, a deficit in motor execution, or both.Finger tapping behavior of 16 adults who stutter (PWS) with different levels of musical training was compared with performance of 16 matching controls (PNS) in three finger tapping synchronization tasks ― a simple 1:1 isochronous pattern, a complex non-isochronous pattern, and a 4 tap:1 beat isochronous pattern ―, a continuation task (without external stimulation), and a reaction task involving aperiodic and unpredictable patterns. The results show that PWS exhibited larger negative asynchrony (expressed as phase angles), and increased synchronization variability (expressed as phase locking values) in paced tapping tasks, and that these differences from the PNS group were modulated by rhythmic...
AN EXPLORATORY STUDY INTO DIFFERENT TYPES OF ARTICULATION IN CLARINET PLAYING
Conference Presentations by Anneke Slis
Cerebellar degeneration impairs adaptation to pitch perturbations in sustained vocalization.
ISSP, 2024
Cerebellar degeneration impairs adaptation to pitch perturbations in both sustained vocalization and spoken words
MADONNA Motor speech conference, 2024
Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 2019
Stuttering is characterized by respiratory, laryngeal and articulatory peculiarities, especially ... more Stuttering is characterized by respiratory, laryngeal and articulatory peculiarities, especially when the to-be-produced speech is complex. This study examined the glottal behaviour in people who stutter (PWS) during production of simple bilabial (/p/, /b/, /m/) and complex (/pR/, /bR/) onsets. It was hypothesized that the glottal behavior of PWS presented idiosyncrasies, compared to people who do not stutter (PNS) and that these were modulated by the complexity of the onset. Producing semi-spontaneous speech with embedded target words, acoustic and EGG data were collected from 4 PWS and 4 PNS. From the perceptually fluent productions, duration of bilabial occlusion, intensity, open quotient (OQ), difference in intensity, pitch and laryngeal OQ between occlusion-phase and following vowel were measured. No significant differences in glottal behavior were found between PWS and PNS. However, compared to PNS, PWS devoiced voiced consonants significantly more, which motivates a larger-scale investigation with more participants.
Unsupervised clustering reveals several subtypes in speakers with ataxia. Oral presentation and publication,
ICPhS, 2023
Using spectral features to distinguish speakers with Parkinson’s disease from typical speakers
12th International Seminar on Speech Production, Dec 14, 2020
The study investigated whether people who stutter (PWS) differed in rhythmic tapping behavior com... more The study investigated whether people who stutter (PWS) differed in rhythmic tapping behavior compared to people who do not stutter (PNS). 16 PWS and 16 PNS, matched in age and gender, were instructed to synchronize with a metronome beat, to continue this pattern once the beat stopped, or to fill in the time between two metronome beats with several taps. Tapping measures on variability, mean inter response intervals, and the number of missed taps were retrieved. The results showed that, compared to PNS, PWS differed in tapping behavior. Tapping variability was higher in PWS than PNS on all the tasks. In addition, PWS missed more taps then PNS, especially in the condition in which they had to fill in the time with extra taps. Finally, musical experience affected tapping variability: the most experienced participants showed the lowest degree of variability. These findings lay the groundwork for our larger study that includes more complex tapping patterns and speech production data.
12 th Oxford Dysfluency Conference , 2021
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Papers by Anneke Slis
Objectives
The study aims to better understand the rhythmic abilities of people who stutter and to identify which processes potentially are impaired in this population: (1) beat perception and reproduction; (2) the execution of movements, in particular their initiation; (3) sensorimotor integration.
Material and method
Finger tapping behavior of 16 adults who stutter (PWS) was compared with that of 16 matching controls (PNS) in five rhythmic tasks of various complexity: three synchronization tasks ― a simple 1:1 isochronous pattern, a complex non-isochronous pattern, and a 4 tap:1 beat isochronous pattern ―, a reaction task to an aperiodic and unpredictable pattern, and a reproduction task of an isochronous pattern after passively listening.
Results
PWS were able to reproduce an isochronous pattern on their own, without external auditory stimuli, with similar accuracy as PNS, but with increased variability. This group difference in variability was observed immediately after passive listening, without prior motor engagement, and was not enhanced or reduced after several seconds of tapping. Although PWS showed increased tapping variability in the reproduction task as well as in synchronization tasks, this timing variability did not correlate significantly with the variability in reaction times or tapping force.
Compared to PNS, PWS exhibited larger negative mean asynchronies, and increased synchronization variability in synchronization tasks. These group differences were not affected by beat hierarchy (i.e., “strong” vs. “weak” beats), pattern complexity (non-isochronous vs. isochronous) or presence versus absence of external auditory stimulus (1:1 vs. 1:4 isochronous pattern). Differences between PWS and PNS were not enhanced or reduced with sensorimotor learning, over the first taps of a synchronization task.
Conclusion
Our observations support the hypothesis of a deficit in neuronal oscillators coupling in production, but not in perception, of rhythmic patterns, and a larger delay in multi-modal feedback processing for PWS.
Thesis Chapters by Anneke Slis
Drafts by Anneke Slis
Conference Presentations by Anneke Slis