Identifier

etd-04062016-193223

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Previous data suggest the metrical properties of a word may influence the time course of phonological encoding, particularly in adults who stutter. The purpose of the present study is to examine phonological and metrical encoding skills in fluent and non-fluent adults, in particular the medial stress-bearing vowel. Investigators used a silent phoneme monitoring paradigm to assess reaction times for all phonemes within nonword CVCCVC stimuli. This paradigm required participants to manually identify target phonemes within a nonword to further isolate the level of phonological encoding from other processes. Eight participants were exposed to stimuli with initial-stress, and eight participants were exposed to stimuli with non-initial stress. Both groups demonstrated increased monitoring latencies for the initial vowel, regardless of initial or non-initial stress. However, results did not yield any significant between-group latencies or false negative errors. Participants from both groups demonstrated increased post-trial error rates compared with those from previous studies with similar methodology, suggesting the task of auditory identification of consonants and vowels in isolation may have been more challenging for both talker groups than identification of consonants alone. Together, these preliminary data suggest that AWS and AWNS demonstrate similar efficiency when encoding the medial, stress-bearing vowel.

Date

2016

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Coalson, Geoffrey

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.3325

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