The production of bite block vowels: Acoustic equivalence by selective compensation
Thomas Gay, Björn E. F. Lindblom, JAMES F. LUBKER · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1980
Acoustic and articulatory data are reported for steady state vowels produced both normally and with a bite block. The formant patterns of the bite block vowels were found to approximate those of the naturally spoken vowels. Measurements derived from lateral view still x-ray films showed that the bite blocks induce drastic articulatory reorganization. Using a mandibular frame of reference, we found that speakers compensated for a large bite block by using supershapes of the tongue and the lips (for /u/ and /o/). Comparing the two productions using a maxillary frame of reference, we noted that compensation was maximum at the points of maximum constriction and incomplete or partial at points of vocal tract expansion. A computer simulation of our speakers compensatory strategy revealed that they behaved optimally according to acoustic theory. These findings suggest that a vowel target is coded neurophysiologically in terms of acoustically significant area function information, specifically, by information related to cavity configuration at points of maximum constriction. [Work supported in part by NIH Research Grant, NS-10424.]