Research has shown that when a person who stutters self-discloses to a listener that he or she is a stutterer, this self-disclosure may positively impact the listeners' perceptions of the stuttering speaker. However, findings from previous studies have been limited in several ways. The purpose of this study was to further examine if listeners' perceptions of a stuttering speaker vary depending on whether or not the speaker self-discloses that they stutter, and if listener perceptions are subject to gender bias. We addressed limitations of prior studies by utilizing both male and female stuttering speakers who spoke directly to the viewer of the video, by balancing combinations of video viewings to account for potential effects of order, and by attempting to recruit a larger number of subjects. Participants (n =27) were randomly assigned to view two of the four possible videos (male self-disclosure, male no self-disclosure, female self-disclosure, and female no self-disclosure). After viewing both videos, participants immediately filled out a survey assessing their perceptions of the speakers' personality traits. Results for effects of self-disclosure achieved significance for "no difference" for traits of more intelligent, more unintelligent, and more unfriendly. These non-significant trends suggest self-disclosure might positively affect listener perceptions of a stuttering speaker, Results for effects of gender achieved significance for "no difference" for traits of more intelligent, more unintelligent, and more confident. In summary, results from this study show potential emerging trends that self-disclosure positively affects listeners' perceptions of stuttering speakers. / text

Improving discourse is often targeted in aphasia treatment because it is an important skill for meaningful conversation and interaction. The aphasia literature offers a variety of methods to analyze and treat discourse impairments in aphasia, however, there is no true consensus on what the best method is for discourse analysis. Very few studies have utilized listener perception as a method to capture discourse-related changes in aphasia. However, many researchers in other areas of speech-language pathology (e.g. dysarthria, fluency) use listener perceptions and rating scales as a valid measure to assess connected speech. The overarching goal of this study is to determine whether people with aphasia (PWA) and naïve listeners perceive changes in discourse associated with conversational treatment. A questionnaire, the Discourse Rating Scale for Aphasia, was created based on three constructs of discourse analysis in aphasia: macrolinguistic, microlinguistic, and functional features. Six PWA and nine naïve listeners listened to 30-35 second speech samples obtained before and after conversational treatment and rated their judgments on the questionnaire. We examined the relationship between the ratings on the Discourse Rating Scale for Aphasia (DRSA) and standardized language tests to validate the items and rating scale. Additionally, we looked for descriptive pre and post differences within the data to determine whether the DRSA was sensitive to treatment. It was found that each item and total DRSA score correlated highly with standardized tests of language in aphasia. We did not find strong evidence for the DRSA’s sensitivity to treatment; however, we discuss the clinical implications of utilizing listener perception in the assessment of discourse in aphasia. / Communication Sciences

Vad kännetecknar en bra röst? Denna studie syftar till att utröna huruvida det finns något i den akustiska talsignalen som kan säga något om vilken uppfattning lyssnaren bildar sig om talaren. I kommersiella sammanhang är sättet att förmedla viktigt för att ge lyssnaren rätt budskap och i detta är rösten ett viktigt redskap. Grunden till föreliggande studie var att låta en grupp lyssnare bedöma några olika röster samt att analysera rösterna akustiskt, varefter en jämförelse mellan resultat från lyssnarbedömning och akustisk analys gjordes. En kvinna och en man i grupperna professionella samt icke-professionella röstanvändare läste in en standardtext. Inspelningarna analyserades akustiskt och bedömdes perceptuellt av en lyssnargrupp, omfattande 10 individer utan röstprofessionell kompetens. En intervju genomfördes även med de två professionella röstanvändarna. Resultaten visar att olika akustiska parametrar hos de studerade kvinnornas respektive männens röster hade samband med lyssnarnas uppfattning om rösterna. Männens röster med ett lågt F0 skattades som intresseväckande och förtroendeingivande. Samma egenskaper hos kvinnorna samförekom med en stor variabilitet i F0. På grund av det begränsade urvalet kunde inga generella slutsatser om vad som kännetecknar en bra röst dras.  Intervjun gav att det i radioreklamsammanhang inte finns en ofelbar röst som kan anlitas till alla uppdrag, utan att olika rösttyper passar till olika sammanhang. / What makes a good voice? The present study seeks to determine whether there is something in the acoustic speech signal that may tell us something about how the listener perceives the speaker. In a commercial context, the way in which the message is constructed is important so the listener receives the message in the way the producer of the commercial intended. In this process the voice is an important tool. In the present study audio recordings were made of two professional and two non-professional voice users, one man and one woman in each group, reading a standard text. The recordings were analyzed acoustically and evaluated by a group of listeners. The results were summarized and compared. In addition, an interview was conducted with two professional speakers. Results of the analysis show that women's and men's voices differ in which acoustic parameters affect the listener's perception of the voice. A low mean F0 among men co-occured with the estimation of an interesting and trustful voice by the group of listeners. Among women, a high standard deviation of F0 was the parameter that co-occured with an estimate of an interesting and trustful voice. Due to the limited sample size, no general conclusions could be made. The answers from the interview indicated that there is no such thing as an infallible voice that can be hired for any assignment, but that different types of voices are suitable for different contexts.

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Individuals with laryngectomy must find a new way of generating voice after the larynx has been removed. In Sweden, the two most common options for this new form of alaryngeal voicing are electrolaryngeal (EL) speech and tracheoesophageal (TE) speech. Only a small amount of research has been conducted on how listeners perceive the speech of individuals with laryngectomy depending on the mode of speech (i.e., EL or TE) and the mode of presentation (i.e., audio only or audiovisual). The current study is one of few examples that aim to fill this gap in the literature. The study aims to examine how Swedish listeners perceive different alaryngeal speech modes (i.e., EL and TE) in both audio only and audiovisual conditions regarding the attributes intelligibility, prosody, speech rate, and listener effort, which were used as dependent variables. The design used for this study was 2´2 repeated measures MANOVA. The data was collected through an online survey, which was answered by 64 individuals. Four different surveys were created to present a randomized order between mode of presentation and mode of speech. One speaker per speech mode was included. The surveys were evenly distributed to the listeners through four links which consisted of 23 questions. Overall, results suggest that TE-speech was rated more favorably than EL-speech in both audio only and audiovisual presentation (mode of speech: p = .000, partial eta squared = .62). The difference between audio only and audiovisual presentation was not as distinct although a preference for the audiovisual presentation could be seen (mode of presentation: p = .00, partial eta squared = .25). Furthermore, no interaction effect between mode of presentation and mode of speech was observed, F(4) = 2.138, p = .09. The effect of mode of speech was statistically significant on all the individual dependent variables whereas the effect of mode of presentation only was statistically significant for intelligibility and listener effort. For those variables, the effect size for mode of presentation was larger than the effect size for mode of speech. However, the results should not be generalized to the larger population due to limitations that are described in the discussion. In addition, the current study provides suggestions for future studies. / Individer med laryngektomi behöver finna ett alternativt sätt att producera röst på efter att larynx har avlägsnats. Två alternativ som finns för att forma den nya rösten är de alaryngeala talsätten elektrolaryngealt tal och trakeoesofagealt tal. Nuvarande forskning är sparsam gällande hur lyssnare uppfattar individers tal efter laryngektomi beroende på talsätt (elektrolaryngealt eller trakeoesofagealt) och presentationssätt (audio eller audiovisuellt). Studien är ett av få exempel som syftar till att fylla denna lucka i litteraturen. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur svenska lyssnare uppfattar olika alaryngeala talsätt gällande presentationssätten, i avseende på de beroende variablerna förståelighet, prosodi, talhastighet och lyssnaransträngning. Studien använde en MANOVA med 2´2 upprepade mätningar. Data samlades in via enkäter som besvarades av 64 personer. Fyra enkäter skapades för att presentera en randomiserad ordning mellan presentationssätt och talsätt, där en talare per talsätt inkluderades. Enkäterna delades ut till lyssnarna genom fyra länkar som vardera bestod av 23 frågor. Resultaten tyder på att trakeoesofagealt tal totalt sett skattades högre än elektrolaryngealt tal i båda presentationssätten (p = .000, partial eta squared = .62). Skillnaden mellan audio- och audiovisuellt presentationssätt var inte lika tydlig även om en preferens för det audiovisuella presentationssättet fanns, (p = .00, partial eta squared = .25). Vidare observerades ingen interaktion mellan presentationssätt och talsätt, (F (4) = 2.138, p =.09). Talsätt gav en statistiskt signifikant effekt på alla beroende variabler, medan presentationssätt enbart gav en statistiskt signifikant effekt på variablerna förståelighet och lyssnaransträngning. Resultaten bör dock inte generaliseras till hela populationen på grund av studiens begränsningar som beskrivs i diskussionen. Vidare bidrar uppsatsen även till förslag inom ämnet för framtida studier.