A book on how formants behave in acoustic tubes. An initial step in relating vowel acoustics to vowel articulation.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Kenneth Bozeman distills the most important vocal acoustics principles and insights for contemporary teachers and singers. With concise and easy-to-understand language, the book takes these complex concepts and imparts practical tips and strategies that anyone can use in their teaching and singing"--

An integrated overview of hearing and the interplay of physical, biological, and psychological processes underlying it. Every time we listen—to speech, to music, to footsteps approaching or retreating—our auditory perception is the result of a long chain of diverse and intricate processes that unfold within the source of the sound itself, in the air, in our ears, and, most of all, in our brains. Hearing is an "everyday miracle" that, despite its staggering complexity, seems effortless. This book offers an integrated account of hearing in terms of the neural processes that take place in different parts of the auditory system. Because hearing results from the interplay of so many physical, biological, and psychological processes, the book pulls together the different aspects of hearing—including acoustics, the mathematics of signal processing, the physiology of the ear and central auditory pathways, psychoacoustics, speech, and music—into a coherent whole.

Sociophonetics focuses on the relationship between phonetic or phonological form on the one hand, and social and regional factors on the other, working across fields as diverse as sociolinguistics, phonetics, speech sciences and psycholinguistics. Covering methodological, theoretical and computational approaches, this engaging introduction to sociophonetics brings new insights to age-old questions about language variation and change, and to the broader nature of language. It includes examples of important work on speech perception, focusing on vowels and sibilants throughout to provide detailed exemplification. The accompanying website provides a range of online resources, including audio files, data processing scripts and links. Written in an accessible style, this book will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, phonetics, speech sciences and psycholinguistics. See book website at http://lingtools.uoregon.edu/sociophonetics/

A rigorous introduction to optimal control theory, with an emphasis on applications in economics. This book bridges optimal control theory and economics, discussing ordinary differential equations, optimal control, game theory, and mechanism design in one volume. Technically rigorous and largely self-contained, it provides an introduction to the use of optimal control theory for deterministic continuous-time systems in economics. The theory of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is the backbone of the theory developed in the book, and chapter 2 offers a detailed review of basic concepts in the theory of ODEs, including the solution of systems of linear ODEs, state-space analysis, potential functions, and stability analysis. Following this, the book covers the main results of optimal control theory, in particular necessary and sufficient optimality conditions; game theory, with an emphasis on differential games; and the application of control-theoretic concepts to the design of economic mechanisms. Appendixes provide a mathematical review and full solutions to all end-of-chapter problems. The material is presented at three levels: single-person decision making; games, in which a group of decision makers interact strategically; and mechanism design, which is concerned with a designer's creation of an environment in which players interact to maximize the designer's objective. The book focuses on applications; the problems are an integral part of the text. It is intended for use as a textbook or reference for graduate students, teachers, and researchers interested in applications of control theory beyond its classical use in economic growth. The book will also appeal to readers interested in a modeling approach to certain practical problems involving dynamic continuous-time models.

Bringing together the knowledge of world experts on different aspects of primate auditory function, this book bridges the epistemological gap between primate ethologists and auditory neurobiologists. Leading ethologists, comparative psychologists, and neuroscientists who have developed new experimental approaches apply their methods to a variety of issues dealing with primate vocal behavior and the neurobiology of the primate auditory system. The synthesis of ethological and neurobiological approaches to primate vocal behavior presented in this book will yield a rich understanding of the acoustic and neural bases of primate audition and shed light on the evolutionary precursors to speech.

Traditionally, investigations into speech and pronounciation have relied on the unaided skills of the phonetician in recognising and reproducing speech sounds. But many practicioners are now using instruments to gain a greater understanding of speech and to be able to analyse speech patterns in situations when speaking and hearing would otherwise be inaccessible without the use of these instruments. This new book looks at how this form of investigation has developed, and considers the types of data that can be used and which questions can be solved using experimental phonetics.

Why does a harpsichord sound different from a piano? For that matter, why does middle C on a piano differ from middle C on a tuning fork, a trombone, or a flute? Good Vibrations explains in clear, friendly language the out-of-sight physics responsible not only for these differences but also for the whole range of noises we call music. The physical properties and history of sound are fascinating to study. Barry Parker's tour of the physics of music details the science of how instruments, the acoustics of rooms, electronics, and humans create and alter the varied sounds we hear. Using physics as a base, Parker discusses the history of music, how sounds are made and perceived, and the various effects of acting on sounds. In the process, he demonstrates what acoustics can teach us about quantum theory and explains the relationship between harmonics and the theory of waves. Peppered throughout with anecdotes and examples illustrating key concepts, this invitingly written book provides a firm grounding in the actual and theoretical physics of music.

This book provides state-of-the-art coverage of research in laboratory phonology. Laboratory phonology denotes a research perspective, not a specific theory: it represents a broad community of scholars dedicated to bringing interdisciplinary experimental approaches and methods to bear on how spoken language is structured, learned and used; it draws on a wide range of tools and concepts from cognitive and natural sciences. This book describes the investigative approaches,disciplinary perspectives, and methods deployed in laboratory phonology, and highlights the most promising areas of current research.Part one introduces the history, nature, and aims of laboratory phonology. The remaining four parts cover central issues in research done within this perspective, as well as methodological resources used for investigating these issues. Contributions to this volume address how laboratory phonology approaches have provided insight into human speech and language structure and how theoretical questions and methodologies are intertwined. This Handbook, the first specifically dedicated tothe laboratory phonology approach, builds on the foundation of knowledge amassed in linguistics, speech research and allied disciplines. With the varied interdisciplinary contributions collected, the Handbook advances work in this vibrant field.