Republic of lraq

Ministry of Higher Education& Scientific Research

Al-Mustansiriya University

College of arts

Phonetics and phonology

Auditory phonetics
Report by
MA. Candidate
Zahraa Salim Hamid
Supervised by
Asst. Prof Rafida Alhilou

2023-2024
1_Carr (2008:17) defines auditory phonetics as “the [branch of phonetics] which
deals with the way that the human ear and perceptual system receive speech
sounds.

2_ However, Crystal (2003:42) defines auditory phonetics as “the branch of

phonetics which studies the perceptual response to speech sounds, as mediated by
ear, auditory nerve and brain.

3_Auditory phonetics is the field engaged with deciding how speech sounds are
perceived by the human ear. The sense of hearing is accomplished by a process
known as auditory transduction. The ear converts sound waves in the air into
electrical impulses which can be interpreted by the brain.

Speech reception:

1- It is done via the ear (outer, middle, inner) as the air pressure pushes its parts.
The ability to suitable hearing composes of:

A- Perceiving the full range of frequencies contained within various speech sound.

B- Filtering out the irrelevant backgrounds.

2- It interprets neural impulses as hearing sensation.

The organs of speech perception are divided into two systems namely the
peripheral auditory system _the ear and the internal auditory system _the brain.
Three components of peripheral auditory system are (outer, middle and inner ear )

The outer ear

The outer ear consists of the Auricle or the Pinna (the visible part of the ear)
and Ear Canal which is an air-filled passage way about 2cm from the Auricle to the
Eardrum. This passage protects the structure of the Middle ear. It functions when
the acoustic waves fall on the external ear going through the ear canal setting the
eardrum into vibration.
The middle ear consists of :

A. Tympanic( Eardrum): it is a membrane at the inner end of the ear canal.

B. Middle ear cavity: air-filled cavity in the bones of the skull.

C. Auditory Ossicles (Mallet, Anvil, Stirrup): they are small bones forming a
mechanical linkage between Eardrum and Inner Ear.

D. Eustachian Tube: it is the link to the pharynx.

The middle ear Tympanic membrane vibrates in which vibrate the three little bones
(malleus, incus, and stapes).These three little bones are called the ossicles which
vibrate into the oval window which amplify the waves about 15 times from the
tympanic membrane.

The inner ear

The inner ear It is a complex structure encased within the skull. The main part
of the inner ear is the cochlea ,the cochlea is responsible for transforming the
mechanical movement into neural signals. The mechanical movement conveyed to
the oval window is converted into neural signals that are transmitted to the central
nervous sysrem. There are two openings from the middle ear into the cochlea. The
first one is called the oval window in which the vibrations are transferred to the
fluid of the cochlea. The second opening is the round window. It is covered with
elastic membrane which takes up the pressure changes in the fluid.

The cochlea is divided into semicircular canals that are filled with fluid. The
vestibular canal, the cochlear canal and the tympanic canal. The partition between
the cochlear canal and the tympanic canal is called the basilar membrane. The
organ of Corti lies inside the membrane. The sensory cells in the organ of Corti
have thousands of hair like projection that receive sound vibrations from the
middle ear and send them to the brain by the auditory nerve. Inside the brain, they
are recognized and interpreted as specific sounds.

A brief conclusion of the process of external auditory system:

The external auditory system (that part which is not in the brain) translates
acoustic signals into neural signals , and in the course of translation, it also
performs amplitude compression and a kind of Fourier analysis of the signal.
Sound waves reach the outer ear and travel down the ear canal to the ear drum. The
ear drum is a thin membrane of skin which is stretched like the head of a drum at
the end of the ear canal. This ear drum moves in response to air pressure
fluctuations. These movements are conducted by a chain of three tiny bones in the
middle ear to the fluid –filled inner ear There is a membrane( basilar membrane)
that runs down the middle of the conch shaped inner ear(the cochlea). This
membrane is thicker at one end than the other. The thin end, which is closest to the
bone chain, responds to high frequency components in the acoustic signal, while
the thick end responds to low frequency component in the acoustic signal. Each
auditory nerve fiber innervate a particular section of the basilar membrane, and
thus carries information about a specific fluency component in the acoustic signal.

Characteristics of Sounds Detected by Human Ear:

Loudness

Human ears are capable of perceiving an extraordinarily wide range of changes

in loudness, the tiniest audible sound being about one trillion times less intense
than a sound loud enough to cause the ear pain. The loudness or intensity of a noise
is measured in a unit called the decibel. The softest audible sound to humans is 0
decibels, while painful sounds are those that rise above 140 decibels. The decibel is
a unit of measure (abbreviated dB) originally used to compare sound intensities
and subsequently electrical or electronic power outputs. A whisper has an intensity
of 20 dB. A jet aircraft taking off nearby (140 dB) is the threshold of pain.

Pitch

Besides loudness, the human ear can detect a sound’s pitch, which is related to a
sound’s vibration frequency, or the number of sound waves passing into the ear in
a given period. The greater the frequency, the higher the pitch. The maximum
range of human hearing includes sound frequencies from about 20 to about 20,000
waves, or cycles, per second (i.e., 20 Hz to 20000 Hz). Because the human ear
cannot hear very low frequencies, the sound of one’s own heartbeat is inaudible. At
the other end of the scale, a highly pitched whistle producing 30,000 cycles per
second is not audible to the human ear, but a dog can hear it.
Tone

The third characteristic of sound detected by the human ear is tone. The ability to
recognize tone enables humans to distinguish a violin from a clarinet when both
instruments are playing the same note. The least noticeable change in tone that can
be picked up by the ear varies with pitch and loudness.

Motor Theory of speech perception:

Beginning in the early 1950s, Alvin Liberman, Franklin Cooper, Pierre Delattre,
and other researchers at the Haskins Laboratories carried out a series of landmark
studies on the perception of synthetic speech sounds (Delattre et al. 1951, 1952,
1955, 1964; Liberman 1957; Liberman et al. 1952, 1954, 1956) Liberman and his
colleagues became convinced that perceived phonemes and features have a simpler
(i.e., more nearly one-to-one) relationship to articulation than to acoustics, and this
gave rise to the motor theory of speech perception.

A second important claim of MT is that the human ability to perceive speech

sounds cannot be ascribed to general mechanisms of audition and perceptual
learning but instead depends on a specialized decoder or module that is speech-
specific, unique to humans, and, in later versions of the theory (Liberman 1996,
Liberman & Mattingly 1985), innately organized and part of the larger biological
specialization for language.

Direct Realist Theory:

Starting in the 1980s, an alternative to MT—referred to as the direct realist

theory (DRT) of speech perception—was developed by Carol Fowler, also working
at the Haskins Laboratories (Fowler 1981, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1994, 1996). Like
MT, DRT claims that the objects of speech perception are articulatory rather than
acoustic events. However, unlike MT, DRT asserts that the articulatory objects of
perception are actual, phonetically structured, vocal tract movements, or gestures,
and not events that are causally antecedent to these movements, such as neuro-
motor commands or intended gestures.
Reference

Carr, Philip. (2013). English Phonetics and Phonology. Sussex: Blackwell

Publishing Ltd.

Crytal, D. (2003). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell

Publishing.

Delattre PC, Liberman AM, Cooper FS. 1951. Voyelles synth´etiques `a deux
formants et voyelles cardinales. Le Maitre Phon. 96:30– 37

Delattre, P., Liberman, A., Cooper, F. (1955). Acoustic loci and transitional cues
for consonants. J. Acoust. Soc. Am.27:769–73

Delattre, P., Liberman, A., Cooper, F. (1964). Formant transitions and loci as
acoustic correlates of place of articulation in American fricatives. Stud. Linguist.
18:104–21