Compensatory responses to brief perturbations of speech amplitude

One of the key questions about speech production is the role that auditory feedback plays in the process. Here, it was investigated whether speakers show fast compensatory changes to brief perturbations of the loudness of their feedback. Speech from each subject was amplified and fed into an Eventide Ultraharmonizer that introduced brief (400 ms)±10-dB perturbations to volume of the subject’s audio feedback. Compensatory responses to both amplitude perturbation types were found in all subjects, which occurred at a similar latency (−10 dB: 171 ms; +10 dB: 287 ms) to that previously observed in responses to pitch perturbations.