A study of F1 coarticulation in VCV sequences.

This study investigates F1 coarticulatory patterns in a large sample of VCV sequences with 7 consonants and 2 vowels uttered by 5 Catalan speakers. Measures of the size and the temporal extent of anticipatory and carryover coarticulation were obtained for the consonantal effects during the adjacent vowels, for the vocalic effects at the consonantal period, and during each transconsonantal vowel; F1 coarticulatory patterns are interpreted in the light of coarticulation data for the jaw and for dorsopalatal contact and F2 reported in the literature. Results show that consonantal effects reflect trends in lingual and jaw coarticulation, whereas vocalic effects are mostly in agreement with jaw coarticulatory trends. This finding is consistent with the view that consonantal and vocalic gestures overlap in VCV sequences and are ruled by relatively independent articulatory subsystems.

An electropalatographic study of alveolar and palatal consonants in Catalan and Italian.

Electropalatographic data for Catalan and Italian reported in this paper reveal the existence of two categories of palatal consonants, namely, alveolopalatals ([n], [lambda]) and palatals proper ([j]). All these consonants are produced with a single place of articulation and thus are not good candidates for complex segments involving a tongue front articulator and a tongue dorsum articulator. A higher degree of coupling between the primary articulator and other tongue regions for alveolopalatals and palatals than for alveolar [n] accounts for a reduced sensitivity to coarticulatory effects for the former vs. the latter. Alveolar-palatal correlations reported in this study support the notion of relative independence between different tongue articulators for non-dorsal vs. dorsal consonants. Differences in articulation and coarticulation were found for Italian vs. Catalan. In comparison with their Catalan counterparts, Italian shows the following properties: Consonants are more anterior, [n] allows less coarticulation at the alveolar zone (in line with the laminal nature of the consonant), and long alveolopalatals exhibit more contact and less coarticulation at the front palatal zone.

[Diagnostic imaging studies: do they create anxiety?]. / Pruebas de diagnóstico por la imagen: ¿generan ansiedad?

UNLABELLED: Cancer is one of the main health problems in western countries. In 2008, it represented the first cause of death in men and the second one in women. When there is a diagnosis or suspicion of cancer, performing diagnostic imaging studies has an important role in the clinical activity and may have an elevated psychological impact. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of anxiety in oncology patients during the performance of a nuclear medicine study (PET-CT) in a Nuclear Medicine Service, by means of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 200 cancer patients who underwent a PET-CT study in a Nuclear Medicine Service were administered the STAI to evaluate the level of anxiety generated during this test. The STAI is a validated questionnaire developed as a research tool on anxiety in healthy adults. RESULTS: Of the 200 patients, two thirds (n=135) (67%) of the patients evaluated had anxiety. Of the 133, 93 (70%) of the patients who underwent PET-CT study for the first time were anxious whereas 42 (62.7%) of the patients who had undergone the study on previous occasions were anxious. Those patients with the greatest anxiety were those in whom the study was performed to initially stage the disease. CONCLUSION: Performing the PET-CT study as an initial staging method and/or to evaluate tumor recurrence is an important and statistically significant generator of anxiety. There is a high emotional and cognitive impact associated to the participation of the diagnostic tests.

Electropalatographic data collected with and without a face mask.

This study investigates the extent to which the use of a face mask conveys linguopalatal contact changes during speech production. Electropalatographic data from five Catalan speakers were collected for different consonants, i.e., the alveolar stop [n], the alveolopalatal stop [n] and the palatal approximant [j], in the sequences [iCi] and [aCe]. Results for [n] indicate more closure retraction in the mask versus nonmask condition occurring presumably when the mask is pressed forcefully against the face in front of the mouth. The use of the mask for [n] and [j] causes an increase in dorsopalatal contact, which reflects most likely a strategy of articulatory and/or perceptual compensation.

Co-articulatory variability and articulatory-acoustic correlations for consonants.

This paper is an investigation of articulatory-acoustic correlations differing in degree of articulatory constraint. Data on F2 and on dorsopalatal contact (electropalatographic, EPG) were collected for the sequences /iCi/ and /aC./ with seven Catalan consonants differing in place and manner of articulation (velarised /l/, /n/, /n/, /s/, /f/, /l/, /p/). These consonants are characterised by different degrees of tongue dorsum constraint depending on their production requirements (dorsals > non-dorsals, fricatives > non-fricatives, etc.). The results showed an inverse relationship between vowel-dependent coarticulation and the degree of consonant-dependent articulatory constraint. F2 and dorsopalatal contact size were found to be positively correlated across consonants and speakers, and across consonants for each individual speaker. Correlation values were much lower for each consonant across speakers. These findings are discussed in the light of the acoustic theory of speech production and possible clinical applications are suggested.

An electropalatographic and acoustic study of temporal coarticulation for Catalan dark/l/ and German clear/l/.

Electropalatographic and F2 frequency data in /VlV/ sequences reveal more prominent C-to-V effects for Catalan dark /l/ than for German clear /l/, more so in the /i/ context than in the /a/ context, which is in agreement with the existence of high lingual requirements on the formation of two constriction places for dark /l/. German clear /l/ exerts a similar amount of F2 displacement on both vowels which may be indicative of the tongue dorsum being directed towards a target position; this is also suggested by dorsopalatal contact and formant frequency data showing less vowel-dependent variability than clear /l/ in other languages though more so than Catalan dark /l/. Salient anticipatory requirements for the implementation of /l/ in the two languages block V1-dependent carryover effects to a large extent which results in more prominent vocalic anticipation than vocalic carryover. This directionality trend in vocalic coarticulation is more obvious for Catalan dark /l/ than for German clear /l/ (in agreement with the former consonantal variety requiring more anticipation than the latter) and opposes German /l/ to clear /l/ in other languages (i.e., the less constrained /l/ variety of Spanish may favor vocalic carryover over vocalic anticipation in VCV sequences).