Articulatory compensation in the production of vowels with bite blocks
James T. Wright, Carol J. Riordan · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1980
Studies of vowels produced using bite blocks have shown that speakers compensate for unusual degrees of jaw opening thereby preserving acoustic vowel targets. Lindblom and Sundberg [B. Lindblom and J. Sundberg, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 50, 1166–1179 (1971)] suggest that articulatory compensation is accomplished by preserving the relevant aspects of a vowel's area function with tongue “supershapes.” We investigated this hypothesis by measuring sagittal tongue-palate distances with an infrared sensing system during the production of the vowels in “hid,” “head,” and “had” with and without bite blocks. Simultaneous audio signals were recorded and analyzed for formant frequencies. Possible articulatory strategies for compensation were investigated using a vocal tract simulation model defined by articulatory parameters [P. Ladefoged and J. T. Wright, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 66, S12 (1979)]. Our data suggest that speakers invoke a set of strategies, more complex than simply attempting to maintain the area function, in order to achieve an acoustic target. [Work supported by NIH.]