Acoustic Phonetics

physiological phonetics

involves the study of the function of the speech anatomy during the process of speaking

perceptual phonetics

study of a listener’s psychoacoustic response (perception) of speech sounds in terms of loudness, pitch, perceived length and quality

acoustic phonetics

focuses on the differences in the frequency, intensity, and duration of the various consonants and vowels

duration

length of time a speech sound or phoneme is held

recorded in milliseconds

frequency

number of cycles the vocal folds complete in 1 seconds

measured in hertz

perceived as pitch

intensity

amplitude

recorded in decibles

perceived in terms of loudness

stress

stressed syllables have longer duration than unstressed syllables

vowel length

vowels have different durations; in general, high vowels are shorter in duration than low vowels

position within a word or phrase

speech sounds tend to be longer at the end of a word or phrase than in the middle

frequency

crucial acoustic parameter used to analyze and differentiate speech sounds

fundamental frequency

lowest frequency component of a sound wave

• F0

• determined by the rate at which the vocal folds vibrate

spectrogram

graphic representation of a sound that displays time (x-axis) and intensity (y-axis)

demonstrates the disturbance in the air causing a movement of particles when sound occurs

the louder the sound the darker it appears