Affective state and voice : cross-cultural assessment of speaking behavior and voice sound characteristics : a normative multicenter study of 577 + 36 healthy subjects

BACKGROUND: Human speech is greatly influenced by the speakers' affective state, such as sadness, happiness, grief, guilt, fear, anger, aggression, faintheartedness, shame, sexual arousal, love, amongst others. Attentive listeners discover a lot about the affective state of their dialog partners with no great effort, and without having to talk about it explicitly during a conversation or on the phone. On the other hand, speech dysfunctions, such as slow, delayed or monotonous speech, are prominent features of affective disorders. METHODS: This project was comprised of four studies with healthy volunteers from Bristol (English: n = 117), Lausanne (French: n = 128), Zurich (German: n = 208), and Valencia (Spanish: n = 124). All samples were stratified according to gender, age, and education. The specific study design with different types of spoken text along with repeated assessments at 14-day intervals allowed us to estimate the 'natural' variation of speech parameters over time, and to analyze the sensitivity of speech parameters with respect to form and content of spoken text. Additionally, our project included a longitudinal self-assessment study with university students from Zurich (n = 18) and unemployed adults from Valencia (n = 18) in order to test the feasibility of the speech analysis method in home environments. RESULTS: The normative data showed that speaking behavior and voice sound characteristics can be quantified in a reproducible and language-independent way. The high resolution of the method was verified by a computerized assignment of speech parameter patterns to languages at a success rate of 90%, while the correct assignment to texts was 70%. In the longitudinal self-assessment study we calculated individual 'baselines' for each test person along with deviations thereof. The significance of such deviations was assessed through the normative reference data. CONCLUSIONS: Our data provided gender-, age-, and language-specific thresholds that allow one to reliably distinguish between 'natural fluctuations' and 'significant changes'. The longitudinal self-assessment study with repeated assessments at 1-day intervals over 14 days demonstrated the feasibility and efficiency of the speech analysis method in home environments, thus clearing the way to a broader range of applications in psychiatry. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

The Office of Auditor of State's letter reporting the results of its evaluation of whether the Office of Secretary of State may appropriately use funds received under the Help America Vote Act

The Office of Auditor of State's letter reporting the results of its evaluation of whether the Office of Secretary of State may appropriately use funds received under the Help America Vote Act

The Iowa Perinatal Letter, 2014, Vol. 34, no. 1

This newsletter from The Department of Public Health about perinatal health care and statistics.

The Iowa Perinatal Letter, April-May-June 2005, Vol. 26, no.2

This newsletter from The Department of Public Health about perinatal health care and statistics.

The Iowa Perinatal Letter, January, February, March 2005, Vol. 26, no.1

This newsletter from The Department of Public Health about perinatal health care and statistics.

The Iowa Perinatal Letter, July, August, September 2005, Vol. 26, no.3

This newsletter from The Department of Public Health about perinatal health care and statistics.

The Iowa Perinatal Letter, October, November, December 2005, Vol. 26, no.4

This newsletter from The Department of Public Health about perinatal health care and statistics.

The Iowa Perinatal Letter Index

This newsletter has a index from The Department of Public Health about perinatal health care and statistics.

A Nondestructive Method for Determining the Thickness of Sound Concrete on Older Pavements, HR-250, 1983

The primary purpose of this project was to assess the potential of a nondestructive remote sensing system, specifically, ground penetrating subsurface interface radar, for identification and evaluation of D-cracking pavement failures. A secondary purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of this technique for locating voids under pavements and determining the location of steel reinforcement. From the data collected and the analysis performed to date, the following conclusions can be made regarding the ground penetrating radar system used for this study: (1) steel reinforcement can be accurately located; (2) pavement thickness can be determined; (3) distressed areas in pavements can be located and broadly classified as to severity of deterioration; (4) voids under pavements can be located; and (5) higher resolution recording equipment is required to accurately determine both the thickness of sound pavement remaining over distressed areas and the depth of void areas under pavements.

Effect of orthographic processes on letter identity and letter-position encoding in dyslexic children.

The ability to identify letters and encode their position is a crucial step of the word recognition process. However and despite their word identification problem, the ability of dyslexic children to encode letter identity and letter-position within strings was not systematically investigated. This study aimed at filling this gap and further explored how letter identity and letter-position encoding is modulated by letter context in developmental dyslexia. For this purpose, a letter-string comparison task was administered to French dyslexic children and two chronological age (CA) and reading age (RA)-matched control groups. Children had to judge whether two successively and briefly presented four-letter strings were identical or different. Letter-position and letter identity were manipulated through the transposition (e.g., RTGM vs. RMGT) or substitution of two letters (e.g., TSHF vs. TGHD). Non-words, pseudo-words, and words were used as stimuli to investigate sub-lexical and lexical effects on letter encoding. Dyslexic children showed both substitution and transposition detection problems relative to CA-controls. A substitution advantage over transpositions was only found for words in dyslexic children whereas it extended to pseudo-words in RA-controls and to all type of items in CA-controls. Letters were better identified in the dyslexic group when belonging to orthographically familiar strings. Letter-position encoding was very impaired in dyslexic children who did not show any word context effect in contrast to CA-controls. Overall, the current findings point to a strong letter identity and letter-position encoding disorder in developmental dyslexia.

Contributions of pitch and bandwidth to sound-induced enhancement of visual cortex excitability in humans.

Multisensory interactions have been documented within low-level, even primary, cortices and at early post-stimulus latencies. These effects are in turn linked to behavioral and perceptual modulations. In humans, visual cortex excitability, as measured by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) induced phosphenes, can be reliably enhanced by the co-presentation of sounds. This enhancement occurs at pre-perceptual stages and is selective for different types of complex sounds. However, the source(s) of auditory inputs effectuating these excitability changes in primary visual cortex remain disputed. The present study sought to determine if direct connections between low-level auditory cortices and primary visual cortex are mediating these kinds of effects by varying the pitch and bandwidth of the sounds co-presented with single-pulse TMS over the occipital pole. Our results from 10 healthy young adults indicate that both the central frequency and bandwidth of a sound independently affect the excitability of visual cortex during processing stages as early as 30 msec post-sound onset. Such findings are consistent with direct connections mediating early-latency, low-level multisensory interactions within visual cortices.