The status and progress of several studies dealing with the nature of speech, instrumentation for its investigation, and instrumentation for practical applications is reported on. The period of January 1 through June 30, 1969 is covered. Extended reports and manuscripts cover the following topics: programing for the Glace-Holmes synthesizer,…

The speech perception abilities of 27 children (ages 6-8, 15 with specific language impairment (SLI)) were compared using natural and synthetic versions of speech stimuli. Previously reported findings were replicated for the synthetic speech but not natural speech. Use of inflectional morphology in obligatory contexts by children with SLI was not…

Purpose: Investigate training-related changes in acoustic-phonetic representation of consonants produced by a text-to-speech (TTS) computer speech synthesizer. Method: Forty-eight adult listeners were trained to better recognize words produced by a TTS system. Nine additional untrained participants served as controls. Before and after training,…

A computational framework is presented for the generation of elementary speech acts to establish conceptual alignment between a computer system and its user. This article clearly distinguishes between 2 phases of the alignment process: message interpretation and message generation. In the interpretation phase, presuppositions are extracted from…

Computer-generated anthropomorphic characters are a growing type of communicator that is deployed in digital communication environments. An essential theoretical question is how people identify humanlike but clearly artificial, hence humanoid, entities in comparison to natural human ones. This identity categorization inquiry was approached under…

A system for synthesizing speech from a phonetic input is described. (Author)

Differential attention of two-month-old infants to synthetically generated and naturally produced rising and falling intonation contours was studied, and it was learned that infants attended more to naturally produced rising contours and synthetically generated falling contours. Use of the infant-control auditory preference paradigm was also…

The Token Test for Children was given in both synthesized-speech and natural-speech versions to 11 language impaired children (aged 8-10 years) and to 11 control subjects. Scores of the impaired children on the synthesized version were significantly lower than the synthesized-speech scores of the control group or of their own scores on the…

This study investigated the effects of four different voice synthesizers on attitudes of nondisabled individuals (n=284) toward an augmented communicator. Attitudes were more favorable in terms of evaluation and potential interaction when the synthetic voice was "easier to listen to." Gender appropriateness of the synthetic voice was not…

Discusses the development of multiobject databases called large data constructs (LDC), which may contain images and recorded or synthesized voice as well as text. Virtual reality and cyberspace are discussed, selectivity and database content are examined, database management systems are described, and retrieval options are reviewed. (three…

In this systematic replication of a previous study (R. W. Schlosser, D. M. Blischak, P. J. Belfiore, C. Bartley, & N. Barnett, 1998), the effects of speech and print feedback on spelling performance were evaluated. Four children with autism and no functional speech were taught to spell words with a speech-generating device under 3 feedback…

The present volume reflects the proceedings of the fourth annual symposium at the Carnegie-Mellon University, which dealt with developmental linguistics in general and with child language acquisition in particular. Contents include an Introduction by John R. Hayes; "Derivational Complexity and Order of Acquisition in Child Speech," by R. Brown and…

An important development in the computerization of society is the development of the ability to communicate with a computer through human speech. Speech recognition machines with limited capabilities are available today. (BB)

The article outlines advantages and limitations of five types of access to microcomputer technology for visually impaired students: electronic braille, paper braille, Optacon, synthetic speech, and enlarged print. Additional considerations in access decisions are noted. (CL)

Three experiments involving 350 undergraduates addressed whether implicit learning is sensitive to a subject's entire range of learning or whether explicit knowledge is an important factor in the more complex learning of an artificial grammar. Results suggest that implicit learning occurs only at the simplest level of complexity. (SLD)