Body position relative to gravity limits or changes the speech sounds humans can produce
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Peer-reviewed studies demonstrate that body position and orientation relative to gravity affect vocal tract dimensions, alter acoustic variables such as vowel formants, and cause the jaw and tongue to shift under gravitational load during speech production.
The anatomic basis and articulatory features of speech production are often studied with imaging studies that are typically acquired in the supine body position. It is important to determine if changes in body orientation to the gravitational field alter vocal tract dimensions and speech acoustics. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of body position (upright versus supine) on (1) oral and pharyngeal measurements derived from acoustic pharyngometry and (2) acoustic measurements of fundamental frequency (F0) and the first four formant frequencies (F1-F4) for the quadrilateral point vowels. Data were obtained for 27 male and female participants, aged 17 to 35 yrs. Acoustic pharyngometry showed a statistically significant effect of body position on volumetric measurements, with smaller values in the supine than upright position, but no changes in length measurements. Acoustic analyses of vowels showed significantly larger values in the supine than upright position for the variables of F0, F3, and the Euclidean distance from the centroid to each corner vowel in the F1-F2-F3 space. Changes in body position affected measurements of vocal tract volume but not length. Body position also affected the aforementioned acoustic variables, but the main vowel formants were preserved.
Postural adaptation to microgravity underlies fine motor impairment in astronauts’ speech | Scientific Reports
### Subjects
- Motor control
- Sensorimotor processing
## Abstract
Understanding the role of anti-gravity behaviour in fine motor control is crucial to achieving a unified theory of motor control. We compare speech from astronauts before and immediately after microgravity exposure to evaluate the role of anti-gravity posture during fine motor skills. Here we show a generalized lowering of vowel space after space travel, which suggests a generalized postural shift of the articulators. Biomechanical modelling of gravitational effects on the vocal tract supports this analysis—the jaw and tongue are pulled down in 1g, but movement trajectories of the tongue are otherwise unaffected. These results demonstrate the role of anti-gravity posture in fine motor behaviour and provide a basis for the unification of motor control models across domains.
### Stressors affect human motor timing during spaceflight
### The MyoGravity project to study real microgravity effects on human muscle precursor cells and tissue
### Neurophysiological effects of partial gravity on bimanual contr
Frontiers | Tongue Postures and Tongue Centers: A Study of Acoustic-Articulatory Correspondences Across Different Head Angles
#### Psychology of Language
Published inFrontiers in Psychology 3.8 impact factor7 citescore
## BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol., 17 January 2022
Sec. Psychology of Language
Volume 12 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.768754
# Tongue Postures and Tongue Centers: A Study of Acoustic-Articulatory Correspondences Across Different Head Angles
- CCChenhao Chiu *
- YWYining Weng
- BCBo-wei Chen
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
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## Abstract
Recent research on body and head positions has shown that postural changes may induce varying degrees of changes on acoustic speech signals and articulatory gestures. While the preservation of formant profiles across different postures is suitably accounted for by the two-tube model and perturbation theory, it remains unclear whether it is resulted from the accommodation of tongue postures. Specifically, whether the tongue accommodates the changes in head angle to maintain the target acoustics is yet to be determined. The present study examines vowel acous
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