# Links Between Production and Perception in Speech

> **NIH NIH R01** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $135,762

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
This project addresses ways in which speakers use the vocal tract to create speech (production) and listeners
extract the underlying meaningful parts of the signal (perception). Speech is an essential part of human society,
and great effort is put into learning to talk, speaking with others, and repairing difficulties in speech when
necessary. Speech is also quite variable, and the variability is due to both structured and random factors. The
structured variability provides information about, for example, the size of the speaker’s vocal tract, where the
speaker comes from, and what speech segments are adjacent to the one being produced. The random variability
is often seen as unhelpful, but recent work indicates that it can provide flexibility that is beneficial. In the current
proposal, measurements of speech articulation and acoustics will be combined with mathematical modeling to
distinguish flexibility from diminished control. Flexibility is also essential in perception, so that the wide range of
speakers one encounters, with their individual speech characteristics, can still be understood. Flexibility around
baseline control is important in production so that communication can be tuned to specific situations, such as
speaking more clearly to someone who does not speak the language natively. The sources of variability in
speech will be examined in production experiments where the tongue, lips and other articulators are measured
with such approaches as ultrasound and electromagnetic articulometry, and in perception experiments, where
the output of the vocal tract variability can be measured for its ability to convey a message. Mathematical
methods that use nonlinear dynamics will separate the controlled and random variability present in the production
signals. The results will provide a better foundation for assessing speech difficulties, such as second language
accent or stuttering, and should suggest new means of remediation. In these studies, biofeedback will be used
to show the speaker what their tongue is doing and what it should be doing. The topics explored—articulator
movement, articulatory settings, and variability—are globally applicable to speech in any language. They are
foundational issues and thus not likely to be fully understood from any one set of studies, but the current studies
will considerably advance our knowledge and our ability to model that knowledge.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10822762
- **Project number:** 7R01DC002717-24
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Douglas H Whalen
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $135,762
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 1996-05-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10822762

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10822762, Links Between Production and Perception in Speech (7R01DC002717-24). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10822762. Licensed CC0.

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