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Native language influence on brass instrument performance: An application of generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to midsagittal ultrasound images of the tongue

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jalal-eddin Al-TamimiORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

This paper presents the findings of an ultrasound study of ten New Zealand English and ten Tongan -speaking trombone players, to determine whether there is an influence of native language speech production on trombone performance. Trombone players’ midsagittal tongue positions were recorded while reading wordlists and during sustained note productions. After normalizing to account for differences in vocal tract shape and ultrasound transducer orientation, we used generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to estimate average tongue shapes used by the players from the two language groups when producing notes at different pitches and intensities, and during the production of the monophthongs in their native languages. The average midsagittal tongue contours predicted by our models show a statistically robust difference at the back of the tongue distinguishing the two groups, although tongue shape during playing does not directly map onto vowel tongue shapes as prescribed by the pedagogical literature. While the New Zealand English-speaking participants employed a playing tongue position approximating the neutral vowel schwa and vowel used in the word ‘lot’, the Tongan participants used a tongue shape loosely patterning with the back vowels /o/ and /u/. We argue that these findings represent evidence for native language influence on brass instrument performance; however, this influence seems to be secondary to more basic constraints of brass playing related to airflow requirements and acoustical considerations, with the vocal tract configurations observed across both groups satisfying these conditions in different ways. Our findings furthermore provide evidence for the functional independence of various sections of the tongue and indicate that speech production, itself an acquired motor skill, can influence another skilled behavior via motor memory of vocal tract gestures forming the basis of local optimization processes to arrive at a suitable tongue position for sustained note production.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Heyne M, Derrick D, Al-Tamimi J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Frontiers in Psychology

Year: 2019

Volume: 10

Online publication date: 27/11/2019

Acceptance date: 01/11/2019

Date deposited: 01/11/2019

ISSN (electronic): 1664-1078

Publisher: Frontiers Research Foundation

URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02597

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02597


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
AF-2018-016
NIH
R01DC002852

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