Examining effects of specific feedback on the acoustic characteristics of clearly spoken nasal consonants

Clear speech is a speaking style in which speakers modify their speech—typically by slowing down, increasing intensity, and producing more precise articulation—to enhance intelligibility. This study aims to extend prior findings by examining how feedback-driven adaptations influence the production of nasal consonants in clear speech. Participants completed a faux speech recognition software training task, (Maniwa et al., 2009) producing words containing nasal consonants in word-initial and word-final positions within the carrier phrase, “I say a ___ again.” Speakers first used their typical speech and then received one of three types of scripted feedback. General feedback (“???”) was intended to prompt broad clarification; specific feedback (“Did you say bet?”) simulated a targeted misperception; and correct feedback (/met/ → /met/) confirmed the target word. Finally, participants produced the target word again to clarify their production. We hypothesize that feedback will elicit hyper-articulation of nasal consonants and a reduction in co-articulatory nasalization (Zellou & Scarborough, 2012). We expect distinct acoustic patterns across feedback conditions that differ by number and type of feature contrasts. Specifically, we predict greater hyper-articulation following feedback with minimal contrasts to the target word (/m/ → /b/) compared to those involving maximal contrasts (/m/ → /d/).