ASA 129th Meeting - Washington, DC - 1995 May 30 .. Jun 06

5pSC32. Intersyllabic regulation of F0 and SPL with and without auditory feedback.

Res. Lab. of Electron., Rm. 36-511, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139

Syllable-to-syllable fluctuation of F0 and SPL were measured in readings of a passage by 4 post-lingually deafened adults, recorded before and after they received cochlear implants, and one adult with neurofibromatosis-2 (NF2), who was initially profoundly deaf in one ear and had a mild to moderate hearing loss in the other (aided). Three of the 4 cochlear implant users reliably reduced syllable-to-syllable fluctuation in F0 and SPL following the activation of their speech processors. The fourth speaker began with and maintained the regularity achieved by the others post-activation. In recordings made following the onset of bilateral profound deafness, the NF2 subject showed increased syllable-to-syllable fluctuation in F0 and SPL. Results from another experiment [M. A. Svirsky et al., 1284--1300 (1992)], in which multiple repetitions of vowels in an /hVd/ context were produced by cochlear implant users with their processors turned off and on, suggest that some subjects showed less token-to-token variability in F0 and SPL with their processors turned on. The present results indicate that auditory feedback may also constrain the syllable-to-syllable variability of F0 and SPL contours. [Work supported by NIDCD.]