It is crucial to record physical recording conditions to acquire reusable speech materials. Sensitivity calibration of the recording system is the first step to assure reusability. This article discusses the possibilities and current status of smartphone-based calibration because smart devices are pervasive these days. Data acquisition in everyday life conditions requires recording devices and assessment of procedures with their error limits. This article makes use of discrete-time signal processing enabled by modern digital devices.

Listeners can improve their perception of acoustically degraded speech, such as noise-vocoded speech sounds (NVSS), after perceptual training. The experiment conducted perceptual training of NVSS monosyllables and measured neural activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate cortical plasticity underlying perceptual learning of NVSS. As a result, behavioral performance of trained consonants recognition improved after the training. Furthermore, the representational similarity analysis revealed that the training increased neural representations for place of articulation, which was associated with the trained consonants, in the right precentral gyrus. These results suggest that changes in the process of NVSS perception are associated with articulatory processes.

This study examined how two types of background noise: babble noise and realistic sound, affect English language learners' listening comprehension. As realistic noise, background sound that matches the content of the listening text was added. After answering three types of listening questions: no-noise, realistic noise, and multi-talker babble noise, the participants answered questions about their confidence level of listening comprehension and their perception of noise. The results showed that the learners' listening comprehensibility as well as their confidence level in the no-noise condition was statistically significantly higher than those in both noise conditions. The different types of noise did not affect their listening comprehensibility.

A "speech Chain" is a common representation of speech communication, describing all processes and their connections properly. In practical situations, a chain in speech communication might become weak or break for various reasons. One such example is speech communication of a non-native speaker. In the present study, we asked a non-native English speaker to speak English in several speaking styles in multiple sound environments, such as with or without babble noise. The speaking styles were read speech, prepared speech, and spontaneous speech. By analyzing the recorded speech sounds, we observed deterioration of speech uttered in a noisy environment. This deterioration might degrade listeners' comprehension. Furthermore, if a listener listened to the deteriorated speech in the same noisy environment, his/her comprehension would be further degraded. Finally, we concluded that these negative chains may lead to breakdowns in speech communication.

‘Rhythm effect’ is a method that increases the fluency of those who stutter. The study focuses on tanka,which is a form of poetry read in quadruple time, to examine the effects of rhythmic reading on stuttering. The participants were three children with a stutter. Moreover, one of them had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For the study, they alternated between reading tanka rhythmically and non-rhythmically. Following this, the frequency of core symptoms of both readings was compared for each participant. Results showed that rhythmic reading led to significantly low symptoms for two participants. However, for the third child, the frequency of symptoms remained high, which can be attributed to untypical rhythm perception common to those with ASD.

In this study, we aimed to develop a pitch visualization training system for singing for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) people and examined visual information that makes it easier to sing. From preliminary experiments, the characteristics of DHH people when singing are the tendency to lower the pitch at the end of singing,the di!culty of maintaining the same pitch, and the di!culty of grasping the timing of singing. I created a video that displays the pitch and score at the same time. For the evaluation, the beginning part of the nursery rhyme "Kaeru no uta" was created by piano sound using music editing software. Comparing the pitches before and after training, some participants tended to have a smaller pitch di"erence from the sound source than before training. The questionnaire after the experiment also suggested that displaying the lyrics according to the pitch, displaying the score in the background, and displaying the note name are e"ective for singing training for the DHH. On the other hand, some participants said that it was di!cult to practice because they could not grasp their own pitch,suggesting the need for real-time feedback on the pitch.

Auditory psychology is a compulsory subject at the Speech therapist training school. We would like to present an overview of its clinically specific content for speech therapists, practical examples of lessons, problems and activities for solving them, and future various issues as well.