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From: Dave Corey
Date: 22 Oct 2009
Time: 08:53:04 -0500
Remote Name: 98.163.237.149
I actually have done some research on the association between vocal pitch and DAF effects among normally-fluent people, though the results aren't in print yet. My thought is that if between-sex differences in pitch have a real-time influence on DAF effects, the effect may be occurring via an attentional mechanism. When we speak during DAF we can hear the delayed signal but we also can hear our natural speech that is transmitted from the larynx to the inner ear via body tissues, also known as "bone conducted" sound (BCS). The way BCS travels through body tissues is affected by the pitch of the sound. So the difference in pitch of males' and females' voices may translate into different access to natural, non-delayed speech. I would expect this relative loudness to affect the salience of natural non-delayed speech during DAF presentation, which in turn I would expect to affect an individual's ability to attend to the non-delayed speech as a means to maintain fluency. However, we don't know yet whether the effect of pitch on the loudness of non-delayed speech is large enough to have a meaningful effect. Good question--thanks.