PSYC 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: International Phonetic Alphabet, Vocal Tract, Vocal Folds

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 212
• Professor: Mathieu Roy

Document Summary

Follow up on student question -- cannot cure tinnitus with a cochlear implant. Estimated that there are around 5k languages in the world that use 850 words. Another word for a speech sound is a phoneme. Def: a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language [e. g. kill vs kiss] To get around confusing differences between sound and spelling, we use the. Nowadays, there are a little bit over 100 gaphemes in the alphabet. Respiration: the diaphragm pushes air out of lungs, through the trachea, up the larynx. Phonation: the process through which vocal folds are made to vibrate when air pushes out of the lungs. At the larynx, the air must pass through 2 vocal folds [aka vocal chords] More tension = more high pitched sounds. Small vocal folds = high pitched voices [children < women