Methodologies

This part of our research is centered around the conceptualization of data collection and analysis from sources. To this end, we use different methodologies:

Eye-movement tracking to assess infants, children or adults’ attention, perception, recognition, anticipation in various language-related tasks.
Ultrasound imaging to track the movement of participants’ tongue during speech related tasks.
Measures of respiration with a RespTrack system to assess breathing control during adult’s speech or its development in infants and children.
Audiovisual recordings.

SOLLAR platform : Sonographic & Optical Linguo-Labial Articulation Recording system

While remarkable methodological progress has been made in the last decade to investigate the development of speech perception (e.g., eye-tracking, McMurray & Aslin, 2004; EEG, fNIRS, see Gemignani & Gervain, 2021’s review), a main limitation for deciphering and predicting children’s spoken language (dis)fluency stems from a lack of equivalently sophisticated methods for measuring young children’s articulation. This issue pertains most significantly to the tongue articulator whose movement contributes to the distinctiveness of all vowels and most consonants across languages. Yet, tongue motion in children cannot be investigated with kinematic methods commonly employed in adults because the methods are invasive and/or not suitable to young children. Taking this empirical limitation at heart, we have developed a child-friendly platform to record the activity of the main speech articulators in young children as well as in adults (SOLLAR, Sonographic and Optical Linguo-Labial Articulatory Recording system). This platform combines simultaneous recording of: acoustic recording of speech, ultrasound imaging of the tongue, video-shape tracking of the lips and jaw underpinnings.

Multimodal recordings in infants

In our new VOC2SPEAK project, we record infants’ vocalisations together with their breathing patterns. Infant’s breathing is recorded with two small breathing belts placed over the thorax and abdomen (RespTrack 16 AD system), while vocalizations are recorded with a microphone attached to the infant’s clothing, as well as with ultrasound imaging.

Publications

Peer-reviewed publications :

Noiray, A. Ries, J., Tiede, M., Rubertus, E., Laporte, C, & Ménard, L. (2020). Recording and analyzing kinematic data in children and adults with SOLLAR: Sonographic & Optical Linguo-Labial Articulation Recording system (SOLLAR). Laboratory Phonology: special collection: Techniques and Methods for Investigating Speech Articulation, 11(1): 14, 1-25 paper.

Rebernik*, T., Jacobi, J., Jonkers, R., Noiray, A., & Wieling, M. (2021). Reviewing 30 years of electromagnetic articulography: some suggestions for improved experimental approaches. Laboratory Phonology: special collection: Techniques and Methods for Investigating Speech Articulation, 12(1):6, 1-42 paper.

Fundings

Period: 2017-2021
Deutsch Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, n°255676067)