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JASA Express Letters May 2024Adding to limited research on clear speech in tone languages, productions of Mandarin lexical tones were examined in pentasyllabic sentences. Fourteen participants read...
Adding to limited research on clear speech in tone languages, productions of Mandarin lexical tones were examined in pentasyllabic sentences. Fourteen participants read sentences imagining a hard-of-hearing addressee or a friend in a casual social setting. Tones produced in clear speech had longer duration, higher intensity, and larger F0 values. This style effect was rarely modulated by tone, preceding tonal context, or syllable position, consistent with an overall signal enhancement strategy. Possible evidence for tone enhancement was observed only in one set of analysis for F0 minimum and F0 range, contrasting tones with low targets and tones with high targets.
Topics: Humans; Female; Language; Male; Speech Acoustics; Adult; Young Adult; Speech; Speech Perception; Phonetics
PubMed: 38804812
DOI: 10.1121/10.0025991 -
Scientific Reports May 2024Recent research has focused extensively on employing Deep Learning (DL) techniques, particularly Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), for Speech Emotion Recognition...
Recent research has focused extensively on employing Deep Learning (DL) techniques, particularly Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), for Speech Emotion Recognition (SER). This study addresses the burgeoning interest in leveraging DL for SER, specifically focusing on Punjabi language speakers. The paper presents a novel approach to constructing and preprocessing a labeled speech corpus using diverse social media sources. By utilizing spectrograms as the primary feature representation, the proposed algorithm effectively learns discriminative patterns for emotion recognition. The method is evaluated on a custom dataset derived from various Punjabi media sources, including films and web series. Results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves an accuracy of 69%, surpassing traditional methods like decision trees, Naïve Bayes, and random forests, which achieved accuracies of 49%, 52%, and 61% respectively. Thus, the proposed method improves accuracy in recognizing emotions from Punjabi speech signals.
Topics: Humans; Emotions; Deep Learning; Algorithms; Neural Networks, Computer; Speech; Bayes Theorem; Social Media; Language
PubMed: 38802373
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59294-y -
Narra J Apr 2024Stunting, a persistent nutritional issue arising from prolonged inadequate nutrient intake, poses substantial risks such as heightened morbidity, mortality, and...
Stunting, a persistent nutritional issue arising from prolonged inadequate nutrient intake, poses substantial risks such as heightened morbidity, mortality, and compromised cognitive, psychomotor, and verbal development. In Indonesia, addressing stunting in children under two necessitates urgent community empowerment, given its multifaceted nature. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of an intervention targeting mothers of toddlers, called (ERKADUTA) model, a local community-based assistance for babies under two years old. A quasi-experiment using pre-test and post-test with a control group design was conducted. Employing a quantitative analytic approach with 112 respondents, the effectiveness of ERKADUTA model to improve the knowledge, attitude, and practice of stunting prevention among mothers with child under two years old was assessed. ERKADUTA program was run for three months. The Wilcoxon test was used to determine score changes before and after program in both groups, while the Mann-Whitney test was used to analyze the score differences of knowledge, attitude and practice between intervention and control groups. Our data indicated that there were changes in knowledge, attitudes, and practices in preventing stunting in both the intervention and control groups. There are significant differences in knowledge (<0.001, effect size=-0.855), attitude (<0.001, effect size=-0.864), and practice score (<0.001, effect size=-0.924) between the intervention and control groups after the intervention. This study highlights that the ERKADUTA model emerged as a potent catalyst in improving stunting prevention behaviors among mothers with toddlers and this model holds promise for addressing the complexities of stunting in Indonesia.
Topics: Humans; Indonesia; Growth Disorders; Female; Mothers; Infant; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Adult; Male; Child, Preschool
PubMed: 38798829
DOI: 10.52225/narra.v4i1.688 -
Human Brain Mapping Jun 2024Aphasia is a communication disorder that affects processing of language at different levels (e.g., acoustic, phonological, semantic). Recording brain activity via...
Aphasia is a communication disorder that affects processing of language at different levels (e.g., acoustic, phonological, semantic). Recording brain activity via Electroencephalography while people listen to a continuous story allows to analyze brain responses to acoustic and linguistic properties of speech. When the neural activity aligns with these speech properties, it is referred to as neural tracking. Even though measuring neural tracking of speech may present an interesting approach to studying aphasia in an ecologically valid way, it has not yet been investigated in individuals with stroke-induced aphasia. Here, we explored processing of acoustic and linguistic speech representations in individuals with aphasia in the chronic phase after stroke and age-matched healthy controls. We found decreased neural tracking of acoustic speech representations (envelope and envelope onsets) in individuals with aphasia. In addition, word surprisal displayed decreased amplitudes in individuals with aphasia around 195 ms over frontal electrodes, although this effect was not corrected for multiple comparisons. These results show that there is potential to capture language processing impairments in individuals with aphasia by measuring neural tracking of continuous speech. However, more research is needed to validate these results. Nonetheless, this exploratory study shows that neural tracking of naturalistic, continuous speech presents a powerful approach to studying aphasia.
Topics: Humans; Aphasia; Male; Female; Middle Aged; Stroke; Aged; Electroencephalography; Speech Perception; Adult; Speech
PubMed: 38798131
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26676 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Jul 2024Huntington's Disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by the mutation of the Htt gene, impacting all aspects of living and functioning. Among...
OBJECTIVE
Huntington's Disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by the mutation of the Htt gene, impacting all aspects of living and functioning. Among cognitive disabilities, spatial capacities are impaired, but their monitoring remains scarce as limited by lengthy experts' assessments. Language offers an alternative medium to evaluate patients' performance in HD. Yet, its capacities to assess HD's spatial abilities are unknown. Here, we aimed to bring proof-of-concept that HD's spatial deficits can be assessed through speech.
METHODS
We developed the Spatial Description Model to graphically represent spatial relations described during the Cookie Theft Picture (CTP) task. We increased the sensitivity of our model by using only sentences with spatial terms, unlike previous studies in Alzheimer's disease. 78 carriers of the mutant Htt, including 56 manifest and 22 premanifest individuals, as well as 25 healthy controls were included from the BIOHD & (NCT01412125) & Repair-HD (NCT03119246) cohorts. The convergence and divergence of the model were validated using the SelfCog battery.
RESULTS
Our Spatial Description Model was the only one among the four assessed approaches, revealing that individuals with manifest HD expressed fewer spatial relations and engaged in less spatial exploration compared to healthy controls. Their graphs correlated with both visuospatial and language SelfCog performances, but not with motor, executive nor memory functions.
CONCLUSIONS
We provide the proof-of-concept using our Spatial Description Model that language can grasp HD patient's spatial disturbances. By adding spatial capabilities to the panel of functions tested by the language, it paves the way for eventual remote clinical application.
Topics: Humans; Huntington Disease; Male; Female; Middle Aged; Adult; Speech; Neuropsychological Tests; Space Perception; Aged
PubMed: 38795650
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2024.04.014 -
Brain Structure & Function Jul 2024It is well-established that brain size is associated with intelligence. But the relationship between cortical morphometric measures and intelligence is unclear. Studies...
It is well-established that brain size is associated with intelligence. But the relationship between cortical morphometric measures and intelligence is unclear. Studies have produced conflicting results or no significant relations between intelligence and cortical morphometric measures such as cortical thickness and peri-cortical contrast. This discrepancy may be due to multicollinearity amongst the independent variables in a multivariate regression analysis, or a failure to fully account for the relationship between brain size and intelligence in some other way. Our study shows that neither cortical thickness nor peri-cortical contrast reliably improves IQ prediction accuracy beyond what is achieved with brain volume alone. We show this in multiple datasets, with child data, developmental data, and with adult data; we show this with data acquired either at multiple sites, or at a single site; we show this with data acquired with different MRI scanner manufacturers, or with all data acquired on a single scanner; and we show this with fluid intelligence, full-scale IQ, performance IQ, and verbal IQ. But our point is not really even about IQ; rather we proffer a methodological caveat and potential explanation of the discrepancies in previous results, and which applies broadly.
Topics: Humans; Intelligence; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Cerebral Cortex; Female; Male; Adult; Child; Intelligence Tests; Adolescent; Young Adult; Brain
PubMed: 38795129
DOI: 10.1007/s00429-024-02792-6 -
Scientific Reports May 2024Several attempts for speech brain-computer interfacing (BCI) have been made to decode phonemes, sub-words, words, or sentences using invasive measurements, such as the...
Several attempts for speech brain-computer interfacing (BCI) have been made to decode phonemes, sub-words, words, or sentences using invasive measurements, such as the electrocorticogram (ECoG), during auditory speech perception, overt speech, or imagined (covert) speech. Decoding sentences from covert speech is a challenging task. Sixteen epilepsy patients with intracranially implanted electrodes participated in this study, and ECoGs were recorded during overt speech and covert speech of eight Japanese sentences, each consisting of three tokens. In particular, Transformer neural network model was applied to decode text sentences from covert speech, which was trained using ECoGs obtained during overt speech. We first examined the proposed Transformer model using the same task for training and testing, and then evaluated the model's performance when trained with overt task for decoding covert speech. The Transformer model trained on covert speech achieved an average token error rate (TER) of 46.6% for decoding covert speech, whereas the model trained on overt speech achieved a TER of 46.3% . Therefore, the challenge of collecting training data for covert speech can be addressed using overt speech. The performance of covert speech can improve by employing several overt speeches.
Topics: Humans; Female; Male; Adult; Brain-Computer Interfaces; Speech; Electrocorticography; Speech Perception; Young Adult; Feasibility Studies; Epilepsy; Neural Networks, Computer; Middle Aged; Adolescent
PubMed: 38769115
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-62230-9 -
Cureus Apr 2024Background Workplace bullying is persistent aggressive behavior, including verbal or physical abuse, exhibited in a working environment. The impact of workplace bullying...
Background Workplace bullying is persistent aggressive behavior, including verbal or physical abuse, exhibited in a working environment. The impact of workplace bullying in any industry leads to negative outcomes in multiple dimensions, such as issues with mental health, problems with physical health, and a reduction in productivity in the workplace. This study aims to measure the relationship between personality traits and workplace bullying victims. Moreover, it explores how personality traits predict being a victim of workplace bullying. Methodology A cross-sectional study was conducted among 625 participants from various regions of Saudi Arabia. Data was collected using a self-administered survey, which included sociodemographic questions, the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) for bullying assessment, and the Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI-10) for personality trait assessment. The statistical analysis encompassed descriptive statistics and inferential tests such as the correlation test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. These analyses were conducted using the SPSS software version 27.0.1 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results Personal-related bullying was more prevalent compared to work-related bullying, particularly "facing disregard of opinion" was the most frequent type of bullying. Moreover, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience were demonstrated as major self-perceived personality traits among participants. Some sociodemographic factors were reported to be significantly associated with both bullying and personality trait scores. Personality traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion were adversely correlated while openness to experience and neuroticism were positively correlated with bullying. Conclusions Our study illustrates the current prevalence of workplace bullying in Saudi Arabia and its impact on participants' mental health and productivity. We identified a significant correlation between self-perceived personality traits and the risk of experiencing workplace bullying. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, enabling them to develop targeted interventions to reduce bullying within work settings in Saudi Arabia.
PubMed: 38765390
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.58474 -
Schizophrenia Research Jul 2024The jumping to conclusions (JTC) bias has been linked to the formation and maintenance of delusions across the psychosis spectrum. However, it remains unclear whether...
The jumping to conclusions (JTC) bias has been linked to the formation and maintenance of delusions across the psychosis spectrum. However, it remains unclear whether this bias reflects a primary cognitive deviation or is secondary to other cognitive processes. To this end, we investigated the relationship between JTC, risk-taking, impulsivity, and sensation seeking in individuals with psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and controls. A large online community sample (N = 1151) completed the Fish Task as a measure for the JTC bias, as well as the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and the Brief Risk-Taking Propensity Scale (R-1) as measures of the propensity to take risks. Measures assessing impulsivity (Impulsive Behavior Scale-8, I-8), sensation seeking (Brief Sensation Seeking Scale, BSSS-4), and verbal intelligence (12-item Wordsum test) were also administered. We dichotomized the sample into extreme groups based on the positive subscale of the Community Assessment of Psychotic Experiences (CAPE). The present study confirms the existence of a JTC bias in psychosis-prone individuals. Of note, PLE-high individuals self-reported higher risk-taking propensity in the R-1 while at the same time displaying higher objective risk aversion in the BART relative to controls, speaking for a dissociation of subjective versus objective risk-taking behavior. PLE-high individuals showed deviances in other psychological traits (impulsivity, sensation seeking), but these were not associated with hasty decision-making as measured by JTC or risk-taking propensity. The results speak against impulsivity, sensation seeking, or verbal intelligence as driving mechanisms of JTC and risky decision-making.
Topics: Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Psychotic Disorders; Male; Female; Risk-Taking; Adult; Young Adult; Adolescent; Delusions; Middle Aged; Decision Making; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 38763091
DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2024.04.025 -
Hearing Research Jul 2024In recent studies, psychophysiological measures have been used as markers of listening effort, but there is limited research on the effect of hearing loss on such...
In recent studies, psychophysiological measures have been used as markers of listening effort, but there is limited research on the effect of hearing loss on such measures. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of hearing acuity on physiological responses and subjective measures acquired during different levels of listening demand, and to investigate the relationship between these measures. A total of 125 participants (37 males and 88 females, age range 37-72 years, pure-tone average hearing thresholds at the best ear between -5.0 to 68.8 dB HL and asymmetry between ears between 0.0 and 87.5 dB) completed a listening task. A speech reception threshold (SRT) test was used with target sentences spoken by a female voice masked by male speech. Listening demand was manipulated using three levels of intelligibility: 20 % correct speech recognition, 50 %, and 80 % (IL20 %/IL50 %/IL80 %, respectively). During the task, peak pupil dilation (PPD), heart rate (HR), pre-ejection period (PEP), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and skin conductance level (SCL) were measured. For each condition, subjective ratings of effort, performance, difficulty, and tendency to give up were also collected. Linear mixed effects models tested the effect of intelligibility level, hearing acuity, hearing asymmetry, and tinnitus complaints on the physiological reactivity (compared to baseline) and subjective measures. PPD and PEP reactivity showed a non-monotonic relationship with intelligibility level, but no such effects were found for HR, RSA, or SCL reactivity. Participants with worse hearing acuity had lower PPD at all intelligibility levels and showed lower PEP baseline levels. Additionally, PPD and SCL reactivity were lower for participants who reported suffering from tinnitus complaints. For IL80 %, but not IL50 % or IL20 %, participants with worse hearing acuity rated their listening effort to be relatively high compared to participants with better hearing. The reactivity of the different physiological measures were not or only weakly correlated with each other. Together, the results suggest that hearing acuity may be associated with altered sympathetic nervous system (re)activity. Research using psychophysiological measures as markers of listening effort to study the effect of hearing acuity on such measures are best served by the use of the PPD and PEP.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Middle Aged; Adult; Speech Perception; Aged; Heart Rate; Hearing; Auditory Threshold; Speech Intelligibility; Speech Reception Threshold Test; Audiometry, Pure-Tone; Acoustic Stimulation; Perceptual Masking; Galvanic Skin Response; Pupil; Persons With Hearing Impairments
PubMed: 38761554
DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2024.109031