Application of Concepts From Cross-Recurrence Analysis in Speech Production (Lancia et al., 2014)

Purpose The aim of this article was to introduce an important tool, cross-recurrence analysis, to speech production applications by showing how it can be adapted to evaluate the similarity of multivariate patterns of articulatory motion. The method differs from classical applications of cross-recurrence analysis because no phase space reconstruction is conducted, and a cleaning algorithm removes the artifacts from the recurrence plot. The main features of the proposed approach are robustness to nonstationarity and efficient separation of amplitude variability from temporal variability. Method The authors tested these claims by applying their method to synthetic stimuli whose variability had been carefully controlled. The proposed method was also demonstrated in a practical application: It was used to investigate the role of biomechanical constraints in articulatory reorganization as a consequence of speeded repetition of CVCV utterances containing a labial and a coronal consonant. Results Overall, the proposed approach provided more reliable results than other methods, particularly in the presence of high variability. Conclusion The proposed method is a useful and appropriate tool for quantifying similarity and dissimilarity in patterns of speech articulator movement, especially in such research areas as speech errors and pathologies, where unpredictable divergent behavior is expected.