• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.181-187
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• 2003

This paper introduces a new zinc coated copper wire electrode with coiled cone shape which has low surface resistance and tolerance to the motion artifact for promontory stimulation electrically auditory brainstem responses (PSEABR). Auditory brainstem responses (ABR) can be used to predict hearing threshold level with a great deal of accuracy particularly for a young child who cannot cooperate mechanically and some hearing impaired who are exaggerating a hearing loss for economic compensation. While severe profound sensorineural hearing losses may not be implemented by auditory potentials, PSEABR is proven as a useful tool even for some sensorineural related hearing impaired. It was shown that PSEABR gives the electrical stimuli to promontory of the cochlear instead of giving acoustic stimuli. For this reason, PSEABR can be used as an alternative for cochlear implantation, and can also be used as an optimal device selection and neural information for MAP. It was found that the role of electrode is very important in PSEABR. Even though this cone-shaped electrode was applied in animal experiments, waveforms are well produced by PSEABR. Thus, it was concluded that cone-shaped electrode turned out to be a useful preoperative audiological evaluation tool in deciding time for cochlear implantation surgery.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.117-128
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• 2015

This paper investigates the acoustic-perceptual relation between Korean dent-alveolar fricatives and the English voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ in varied prosodic contexts (e.g., stress, accent, and word initial position). The denti-alveolar fricatives in Korean show a two-way distinction, which can be referred to as either plain (lenis) /s/ or fortis /$s^*$/. The English alveolar voiceless fricative /s/ that corresponds to the two Korean fricatives would be placed in a one-to-two non-native phoneme mapping situation when Korean listeners hear English /s/. This raises an interesting question of how the single fricative of English perceptually maps into the two-way distinction in Korean. This paper reports the acoustic-perceptual mapping pattern by investigating spectral properties of the English stimuli that are heard as either /s/ or /$s^*$/ by Korean listeners, in order to answer the two questions: first, how prosody influences fricatives acoustically, and second, how the resultant properties drive non-native listeners to interpret them as segmental features instead of as prosodic information. The results indicate that Korean listeners' responses change depending on the prosodic context in which the stimuli are placed. It implies that Korean speakers interpret some of the information provided by prosody as segmental one, and that the listeners take advantage of the information in their judgment of non-native phonemes.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2024

This study investigates the fixed and random factors affecting response patterns of wh-scope interpretations in Gyeongsang Korean. It employed logistic mixed-effects regression models to analyze responses from 24 participants who listened to 40 pre-recorded stimuli from 40 different speakers. The stimuli consisted of an embedded wh-phrase and an interrogative ending marker, "-nkiko," thereby forming a wh-question, specifically a matrix wh-scope. Participants repeated the test three times. The study found that the prominence level of a prosodic phrase composed of an embedded verb and a complementizer was inversely related to responses with wh-questions, as demonstrated through multiple regression analysis in Yun. The test trial significantly impacted the number of responses with wh-questions, increasing from 50.3% in the first trial to 58.8% and 61.2% in subsequent trials. Examination of random subject effects revealed two main factors influencing responses: morpho-syntactic constraints and prosodic structural integrity. These two factors demonstrated the potential to be inversely weighted. Analysis of random stimulus effects suggested that the prominence level had limited effects on response patterns with each stimulus primarily eliciting one type of responses across trials.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: The cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP) is a useful objective test for diagnosing hearing loss and auditory disorders. Prior to its clinical applications in the pediatric population, the possible influences of fundamental variables on the CAEP should be studied. The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of age and type of stimulus on the CAEP waveforms. Subjects and Methods: Thirty-five healthy Malaysian children aged 4 to 12 years participated in this repeated-measures study. The CAEP waveforms were recorded from each child using a 1 kHz tone burst and the speech syllable /ba/. Latencies and amplitudes of P1, N1, and P2 peaks were analyzed accordingly. Results: Significant negative correlations were found between age and speech-evoked CAEP latency for each peak (p<0.05). However, no significant correlations were found between age and tone-evoked CAEP amplitudes and latencies (p>0.05). The speech syllable /ba/ produced a higher mean P1 amplitude than the 1 kHz tone burst (p=0.001). Conclusions: The CAEP latencies recorded with the speech syllable became shorter with age. While both tone-burst and speech stimuli were appropriate for recording the CAEP, significantly bigger amplitudes were found in speech-evoked CAEP. The preliminary normative CAEP data provided in the present study may be beneficial for clinical and research applications in Malaysian children.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: The cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP) is a useful objective test for diagnosing hearing loss and auditory disorders. Prior to its clinical applications in the pediatric population, the possible influences of fundamental variables on the CAEP should be studied. The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of age and type of stimulus on the CAEP waveforms. Subjects and Methods: Thirty-five healthy Malaysian children aged 4 to 12 years participated in this repeated-measures study. The CAEP waveforms were recorded from each child using a 1 kHz tone burst and the speech syllable /ba/. Latencies and amplitudes of P1, N1, and P2 peaks were analyzed accordingly. Results: Significant negative correlations were found between age and speech-evoked CAEP latency for each peak (p<0.05). However, no significant correlations were found between age and tone-evoked CAEP amplitudes and latencies (p>0.05). The speech syllable /ba/ produced a higher mean P1 amplitude than the 1 kHz tone burst (p=0.001). Conclusions: The CAEP latencies recorded with the speech syllable became shorter with age. While both tone-burst and speech stimuli were appropriate for recording the CAEP, significantly bigger amplitudes were found in speech-evoked CAEP. The preliminary normative CAEP data provided in the present study may be beneficial for clinical and research applications in Malaysian children.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

This paper investigates whether listeners perceive a different level of politeness when the duration of the Korean sentence-final auxiliary particle '-yo' is varied. A total of 10 Korean sentences were manipulated by lengthening and shortening '-yo' by 10%, 20%, and 30%. The participants included native Korean speakers and Chinese and Japanese learners of Korean (n=10, respectively). They were asked to rate the level of politeness of the stimuli on a 9-point scale. It was found that Korean listeners perceived decreased politeness as the duration of '-yo' was shortened and increased politeness as it was lengthened. However, Chinese and Japanese listeners did not perceive a different level of politeness from the manipulated sentences. This finding suggests that it is important to teach L2 speakers that the duration of the auxiliary particle '-yo' plays a role in Korean listeners' perception of politeness.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2012

A lax stop in Korean, one of the three laryngeal contrastive stops, has undergone a sound change in terms of its acoustic properties. Prior production studies described this recent lax stop as being differentiated from tense and aspirated stops primarily by fundamental frequencies (f0). And, the acoustic property of voice onset time (VOT) further separates tense stops from lax and aspirated stops. The current research explores how these two major acoustic parameters of f0 and VOT cue the three stop categories in Korean adult listeners' perception. Thirty-one native speakers of Korean participated in two experimental tasks: categorization judgment and within-category goodness ratings. Two sets of audio stimuli were prepared by synthesizing English and Korean male speakers' CV productions. The findings showed that while f0 cues listeners to lax stops as production patterns would predict, VOT were closely related to listeners' categorization and goodness ratings of lax stops. This suggests that accurate characterizations of the recent lax stop category need to be based on Korean speakers' perceptual behavior as well as production patterns.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.61-71
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• 2009

This study aims to investigate whether the misalignment between syllable and word onsets due to the process of resyllabification affects Korean-English late bilinguals perceiving English continuous speech. Two word-spotting experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, misalignment conditions (resyllabified conditions) were created by adding CVC contexts at the beginning of vowel-initial words and alignment conditions (non-resyllabified conditions) were made by putting the same CVC contexts at the beginning of consonant-initial words. The results of Experiment 1 showed that detections of targets in alignment conditions were faster and more correct than in misalignment conditions. Experiment 2 was conducted in order to avoid any possibilities that the results of Experiment 1 were due to consonant-initial words being easier to recognize than vowel-initial words. For this reason, all the experimental stimuli of Experiment 2 were vowel-initial words preceded by CVC contexts or CV contexts. Experiment 2 also showed misalignment cost when recognizing words in resyllabified conditions. These results indicate that Korean listeners are influenced by misalignment between syllable and word onsets triggered by a resyllabification process when recognizing words in English connected speech.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2011

The present work is a follow-up study to that of Han, Choi, Lim and Lee (2011), where an asymmetry in the source segments eliciting the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB) was found such that the vowels which did not match any vowel of the Korean language were likely to elicit more ISIB than matched vowels. In order to identify the source of the stronger ISIB in non-matched vowels, acoustic analyses of the stimuli were performed. Two pairs of English front vowels [i] vs. [I], and $[{\varepsilon}]$ vs. $[{\ae}]$ were recorded by English native talkers and two groups of Korean learners according to their English proficiency, and then their vowel duration and the frequencies of the first two formants (F1, F2) were measured. The results demonstrated that the non-matched vowels such as [I], and $[{\ae}]$ produced by Korean talkers seemed to show more deviated acoustic characteristics from those of the natives, with longer duration and with closer formant values to the matched vowels, [i] and $[{\varepsilon}]$, than those of the English natives. Combining the results of acoustic measurements in the present study and those of word identification in Han et al. (2011), we suggest that relatively better performance in word identification by Korean talkers/listeners than the native English talkers/listeners is associated with the shared interlanguage of Korean talkers and listeners.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.57-65
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• 2017

The current study explored how Korean-speaking children processed the multiple acoustic cues (VOT and f0) for the stop laryngeal contrast (/t'/, /t/, and /$t^h$/) and examined whether individual perceptual strategies could be related to a general cognitive ability performing executive functions (EF). 15 children (aged from 7 to 8) participated in the speech perception task identifying the three Korean laryngeal stops (3AFC) on listening to the auditory stimuli of C-/a/ with synthetically varying VOT and f0. They completed a series of EF tasks to measure working memory, inhibition, and cognitive shifting ability. The findings showed that children used the two cues in a highly correlated manner. While children utilized VOT consistently for the three laryngeal categories, their use of f0 was either reduced or enhanced depending on the phonetic categories. Importantly, the children's processing strategies of a f0 suppression for a tense-aspirated contrast were meaningfully associated with children's better cognitive abilities such as working memory, inhibition, and attentional shifting. As a preliminary experimental investigation, the current research demonstrated that listeners with inefficient processing strategies were poor at the EF skills, suggesting that cognitive skills might be responsible for developmental variations of processing sub-phonemic information for the linguistic contrast.