Probing Lexical Ambiguity in Chinese Characters via Their Word Formations: Convergence of Perceived and Computed Metrics.

Lexical ambiguity is pervasive in language, and the nature of the representations of an ambiguous word's multiple meanings is yet to be fully understood. With a special focus on Chinese characters, the present study first established that native speaker's perception about a character's number of meanings was heavily influenced by the availability of its distinct word formations, while whether these meanings would be perceived to be closely related was driven by further conceptual analysis. These notions were operationalized as two computed metrics, which assessed the degree of dispersion across individual word formations and the degree of propinquity across clusters of word formations, respectively, in a distributional semantic space. The observed correlations between the computed and the perceived metrics indicated that the utility of word formations to tap into meaning representations of Chinese characters was indeed cognitively plausible. The results have demonstrated the extent to which distributional semantics could inform about meaning representations of Chinese characters, which has theoretical implications for the representation of ambiguous words more generally.

Effect of Language on Voice Quality: An Acoustic Study of Bilingual Speakers of Mandarin Chinese and English.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies reported discrepant vocal qualities associated with different languages. However, possible physical differences associated with speakers of different ethnicities were not accounted for. The present study attempted to examine the effect of language on one's voice quality by eliminating the potential effects of physical differences associated with speakers of different languages. METHODS: Sixteen Chinese and fourteen Americans who were proficient in both Mandarin Chinese and English were recruited. They were instructed to read one Chinese and one English passage. Time-domain and long-term average spectral analyses were carried out, and speaking fundamental frequency (sF0), jitter, shimmer, and first spectral peak (FSP), mean spectral energy (MSE), and spectral tilt (ST) were measured using Praat. RESULTS: Acoustic measures revealed no differences in sF0, FSP, and ST between Americans and Chinese. However, jitter, shimmer, and MSE values appeared to be affected by ethnicity (Chinese vs. Americans). Jitter and shimmer tended to be greater when someone was speaking his/her mother tongue. For language effect, Chinese was found to be associated with a faster rate of vocal fold vibration than English. MSE was higher for Chinese than English produced by Chinese, but not by American speakers, despite the similar ST in both languages. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Based on speech samples obtained from the balanced groups of bilingual speakers, the findings confirmed the presence of language effect on one's voice quality. Laryngeal activity appeared to be affected by the language being spoken.

Rice congee as an alternative to thickened liquids for patients with swallowing disorders.

Seeing the popularity of rice congee consumption among Asian families, the present study examined the possibility of preparing thickened liquids from rice congee of different consistency levels that are commonly prescribed for individuals with swallowing disorders. The two most common rice varieties in Hong Kong, indica and japonica rice grains, were used to prepare rice congee from which thickened liquids were extracted. By varying the water-to-rice ratio, cooking time, optional reheating on a frying pan, and temperature, slightly thick, mildly thick, moderately thick, and extremely thick liquids were obtained. Recipes for extracting thickened liquids of different consistencies from rice congee cooked with indica and japonica rice grains were established. The consistency levels were defined with reference to although not strictly following the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative framework. Results revealed that the consistency of the product varied with water-to-rice ratio, cooking time, and temperature. Recipes were established for preparing thickened liquids using rice grains at both serving and room temperatures. Findings support that thickened liquids so obtained can be used as an alternative to thickened liquids preparing using commercial thickeners.

Swallowing-related quality of life among oral-feeding Chinese patients with Parkinson's disease - a preliminary study using Chinese SWAL-QOL.

PURPOSE: The objective of the present study is to evaluate swallowing-related quality of life in Chinese patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) using the validated Chinese version of the Swallowing Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (C-SWAL-QOL) and factors associated with swallowing-related quality of life, including age, disease duration, and severity of depression by 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale in Chinese version (GDS-C). METHODS: C-SWAL-QOL was administered to 67 Chinese patients with PD. Upon completion of C-SWAL-QOL, they completed the 15-item GDS-C. Spearman's Rho correlation analyses were performed to examine the relationship between the 10-subscale scores of C-SWAL-QOL and (1) age, (2) disease duration, and (3) depression. RESULTS: Among the subscales in C-SWAL-QOL, sleep, fatigue, eating duration, and communication were the most severely affected. Significant relationships existed between composite C-SWAL-QOL score, total C-SWAL-QOL score, Dysphagia Symptom Battery (DSB) core, and depression. Significant relationships were also observed between depression and the following subscales: communication, fear, mental health, social functioning, and fatigue. Yet, no relationships existed between score of C-SWAL-QOL and age or disease duration in PD. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the goal of dysphagia intervention is to improve swallowing safety and efficiency and ultimately enhance patients' QOL, clinicians should consider using C-SWAL-QOL in clinical practice to measure swallowing outcomes and to better understand treatment effectiveness.Implications for rehabilitationDysphagia-related patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures such as Swallowing Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (SWAL-QOL) are the cornerstone to systematically collecting patient-centered data and monitoring rehabilitation outcomes.Based on the scores of Chinese Parkinson's disease (PD) patients in an oral feeding population indicated in the current study, treatment goal and rehabilitation plan can be set.Chinese patients with Parkinson's disease might benefit from a rehabilitation program focusing on the most severely affected subscales in C-SWAL-QOL.

The Effect of Clear Speech on Cantonese Alaryngeal Speakers' Intelligibility.

BACKGROUND/AIM: The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary data concerning the effect of clear speech (CS) on Cantonese alaryngeal speakers' intelligibility. METHODS: Voice recordings of 11 sentences randomly selected from the Cantonese Sentence Intelligibility Test (CSIT) were obtained from 31 alaryngeal speakers (9 electrolarynx [EL] users, 10 esophageal speakers and 12 tracheoesophageal [TE] speakers) in habitual speech (HS) and CS. Two naïve listeners orthographically transcribed a total of 1,364 sentences. RESULTS: Significant effects of speaking condition on speaking rate and CSIT scores were observed, but no significant effect of alaryngeal communication methods was noted. CS was significantly slower than HS by 0.78 syllables/s. Esophageal speakers demonstrated the slowest speech rate when using CS, while EL users demonstrated the largest decrease in speaking rate when using CS compared to HS. TE speakers had the highest CSIT scores in HS (listener 1 = 81.4%; listener 2 = 81.3%), and esophageal speakers had the highest CSIT scores in CS (listener 1 = 87.5%; listener 2 = 89.7%). EL users experienced the largest increase in intelligibility while using CS compared to HS (9.1%) followed by esophageal speakers (8.9%) and TE speakers (1.4%). CONCLUSION: Preliminary data indicate that CS may significantly affect Cantonese alaryngeal speakers' speaking rate and intelligibility. However, intelligibility appeared to vary considerably across speakers. Further research involving larger, heterogeneous groups of speakers and listeners alongside longer and more refined CS training protocols should be conducted to confirm that CS can improve Cantonese alaryngeal speakers' intelligibility.

Identification of Mild Cognitive Impairment Among Chinese Based on Multiple Spoken Tasks.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies explored the use of noninvasive biomarkers of speech and language for the detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Yet, most of them employed single task which might not have adequately captured all aspects of their cognitive functions. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to achieve the state-of-the-art accuracy in detecting individuals with MCI using multiple spoken tasks and uncover task-specific contributions with a tentative interpretation of features. METHODS: Fifty patients clinically diagnosed with MCI and 60 healthy controls completed three spoken tasks (picture description, semantic fluency, and sentence repetition), from which multidimensional features were extracted to train machine learning classifiers. With a late-fusion configuration, predictions from multiple tasks were combined and correlated with the participants' cognitive ability assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Statistical analyses on pre-defined features were carried out to explore their association with the diagnosis. RESULTS: The late-fusion configuration could effectively boost the final classification result (SVM: F1 = 0.95; RF: F1 = 0.96; LR: F1 = 0.93), outperforming each individual task classifier. Besides, the probability estimates of MCI were strongly correlated with the MoCA scores (SVM: -0.74; RF: -0.71; LR: -0.72). CONCLUSION: Each single task tapped more dominantly to distinct cognitive processes and have specific contributions to the prediction of MCI. Specifically, picture description task characterized communications at the discourse level, while semantic fluency task was more specific to the controlled lexical retrieval processes. With greater demands on working memory load, sentence repetition task uncovered memory deficits through modified speech patterns in the reproduced sentences.

Spectral features and perceptual judgment of place of affricate in Putonghua-speaking pre-adolescents with normal and cleft palate.

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between the spectral features and perceptual judgments of places of affricate in Putonghua (standard Mandarin Chinese), and to explore the possible contribution of different spectral moments on correct perception of place of articulation information by typical pre-adolescent speakers and those with cleft palate. METHOD: A total of 139 affricates produced by 10 normal pre-adolescent speakers and 14 speakers with repaired cleft palate (distorted articulation) were presented to 12 listeners tasked with making a judgment of the accuracy of place of articulation using a visual analog scale. RESULTS: Statistical analysis showed a significant relationship between the third spectral moment (L3) and listeners' perceptual judgment of typical alveolar and retroflex affricates. For productions by pre-adolescents with cleft palate, the first spectral moment (M1) was significantly correlated with listener perceptual scaling of retroflex affricates, but not for the alveolar affricates. CONCLUSION: Spectral features were associated with the perception of place of affricate in Putonghua. Different spectral moment characteristics might be used by listeners when perceiving speech from individuals with cleft palate.