PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Native Ohioans' speaking patterns help scientists decipher famous moon landing

2013-05-31
(Press-News.org) When Neil Armstrong took his first step on the Moon, he claimed he said, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" – but many listeners think he left out the "a." A team of speech scientists and psychologists from Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing and The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus is taking a novel approach to deciphering Armstrong's quote by studying how speakers from his native central Ohio pronounce "for" and "for a." Their results suggest that it is entirely possible that Armstrong said what he claimed, though evidence indicates that people are statistically more likely to hear "for man" instead of "for a man" on the recording. The team will present its work at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013), held June 2-7 in Montreal.

Armstrong was raised in central Ohio, where there is typically a lot of blending between words such as "for" and "a." "Prior acoustic analyses of Neil Armstrong's recording have established well that if the word 'a' was spoken, it was very short and was fully blended acoustically with the preceding word," says co-presenter Laura Dilley of Michigan State University. If Armstrong actually did say "a," she continues, it sounded something like "frrr(uh)." His blending of the two words, compounded with the poor sound quality of the transmission, has made it difficult for people to corroborate his claim that the "a" is there.

Dilley and her colleagues, who include MSU linguist Melissa Baese-Berk and OSU psychologist Mark Pitt, thought they might be able to figure out what Armstrong said with a statistical analysis of the duration of the "r" sound as spoken by native central Ohioans saying "for" and "for a" in natural conversation. They used a collection of recordings of conversational speech from 40 people raised in Columbus, Ohio, near Armstrong's native town of Wapakoneta. Within this body of recordings, they found 191 cases of "for a." They matched each of these to an instance of "for" as said by the same speaker and compared the relative duration. They also examined the duration of Armstrong's "for (a") from the lunar transmission.

The researchers found a large overlap between the relative duration of the "r" sound in "for" and "for a" using the Ohio speech data. The duration of the "frrr(uh)" in Armstrong's recording was 0.127 seconds, which falls into the middle of this overlap, though it is a slightly better match for an "a"-less "for." In other words, the researchers conclude, the lunar landing quote is highly compatible with either possible interpretation, though it is probably slightly more likely to be perceived as "for" regardless of what Armstrong actually said. Dilley says there may have been a "perfect storm of conditions" for the word "a" to have been spoken but not heard.

"We've bolstered Neil Armstrong's side of the story," she continues. "We feel we've partially vindicated him. But we'll most likely never know for sure exactly what he said based on the acoustic information."

Beyond shedding light on the famous quote, the work has implications for understanding how people perceive meaning in spoken language. "Every time we listen to speech and think we understand a sentence, we are performing a miraculous task, which is to take what is actually a continuous acoustic signal, break up that signal into somewhat arbitrary parts, and map those parts to our memories of all the words that we know in the language," Dilley says. "We need only look at computer speech recognition and how it succeeds and how it largely often fails to see how very difficult that problem is."

### Presentation 5aSCb53, "One small step for (a) man: Function word reduction and acoustic ambiguity," is in the morning session on Friday, June 7. Abstract: http://asa.aip.org/web2/asa/abstracts/search.jun13/asa1585.html

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE ICA 2013 MONTREAL

USEFUL LINKS: Main meeting website: http://www.ica2013montreal.org/ Itinerary planner and technical program: http://acousticalsociety.org/meetings/ica-2013/

WORLD WIDE PRESS ROOM ASA's World Wide Press Room will be updated with additional tips on dozens of newsworthy stories and with lay-language papers, which are 300-1200 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience and accompanied by photos, audio, and video.

PRESS REGISTRATION We will grant free registration to credentialed journalists and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend, contact Jason Bardi (jbardi@aip.org, 240-535-4954), who can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

This news release was prepared for the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world's leading journal on acoustics), Acoustics Today magazine, ECHOES newsletter, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. For more information about ASA, visit our website at http://www.acousticalsociety.org.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

New speaker system for cars creates separate 'audio zones' for front and rear

2013-05-31
Ever wish that your car's interior cabin could have separate audio zones for the front and rear seats? It soon may. A new approach achieves independent listening zones within a car by using small, modified speakers to produce directional sound fields and a signal processing strategy that optimizes the audio signals used to drive each of the speakers. The new design will be presented at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013), held June 2-7 in Montreal. Today, car cabins often reverberate with the sounds of music, video soundtracks, navigation system ...

Ultrasound 'making waves' for enhancing biofuel production

2013-05-31
All chefs know that "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet," and that includes engineers at Iowa State University who are using high-frequency sound waves to break down plant materials in order to cook up a better batch of biofuel. Research by David Grewell, associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, and his colleagues Melissa Montalbo-Lomboy and Priyanka Chand, has shown that "pretreating" a wide variety of feedstocks (including switch grass, corn stover, and soft wood) with ultrasound consistently enhances the chemical reactions necessary ...

A survey of GPs reveals that many identify nicotine as a harmful cigarette-smoke component

2013-05-31
A survey of GPs (general practitioners) in the UK and Sweden revealed that some hold the view that one of the greatest health risks from smoking is nicotine. This belief likely influences health advice to smokers when considering whether to recommend the use of alternative nicotine products. Nicotine is the addictive component of tobacco smoke, but unlike some other constituents of tobacco smoke, it is not carcinogenic and according to the UK Royal College of Physicians, 'medicinal nicotine is a very safe drug.' Switching to alternative nicotine products such as ...

Secrets of the cicada's sound

2013-05-31
Of all the bugs that achieve the mantle of summer pest, cicadas are perhaps the most curious. They don't sting, they don't bite, they don't buzz around your head, they taste good in chocolate, but as the drowning din of the 17-year brood this summer will remind: we would love them less if they emerged more often. Cicadas are unique among insects in their ability to emit loud and annoying sounds. So why would anyone actually want to replicate theses sounds? A team of U.S. Naval researchers have been working on that very problem for several years now, because it turns ...

How flames change the sound of a firefighters' personal safety alarm

2013-05-31
The PASS, short for "Personal Alert Safety System," has been used by firefighters for thirty years to help track members of their team who might be injured and need assistance to escape a fire. Though the alarm has saved many lives, there are cases in which the device is working correctly but is not heard or not recognized. In one recent incident report from 2010, firefighters inside a burning building either did not hear or heard and then stopped hearing an alarm that was easily audible from outside the building. Working with the National Fire Protection Association ...

Researchers design sensitive new microphone modeled on fly ear

2013-05-31
Using the sensitive ears of a parasitic fly for inspiration, a group of researchers has created a new type of microphone that achieves better acoustical performance than what is currently available in hearing aids. The scientists will present their results at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics, held June 2-7 in Montreal. Ronald Miles, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Binghamton University, studies the hearing of Ormia ochracea, a house fly-sized insect that is native to the southeast United States and Central America. Unlike most other ...

New maps show how shipping noise spans the globe

2013-05-31
The ocean is naturally filled with the sounds of breaking waves, cracking ice, driving rain, and marine animal calls, but more and more, human activity is adding to the noise. Ships' propellers create low-frequency hums that can travel hundreds of kilometers or more in the deep ocean. Scientists have now modeled this shipping noise on a global scale. The world-wide maps will be presented for the first time at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013), held June 2-7 in Montreal. "The most important thing about these maps is that seeing the sound can get ...

New technology modifies music hall acoustics

2013-05-31
A new technology that relies on a system of inflatable sound absorbers may help make any performance hall instantly convertible into a venue for music ranging from classical to hard rock. The technology will be described at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013), held June 2-7 in Montreal. Getting the right vibe for listeners from a particular kind of music is an acoustic challenge. Music genres differ radically both in the sound energy they generate and in how that sound interacts with the ceiling and walls of a performance space. A hall for classical ...

A bad biology grade sticks around

2013-05-31
Don't let low grades haunt your students. A new study in the Journal of Animal Science shows that performance in foundational biology courses is a strong predictor of performance in high-level animal science courses. In a study of 1,516 students over 7 years, researchers from Kansas State University found that students who did well in biology also performed well in a rigorous genetics course. This result was not surprising, but the researchers were struck by the importance of timing. Undergraduate students did best when they waited at least a year to take the genetics ...

Difference in arterial health seen in highly active college-age people compared to inactive peers

2013-05-31
Indiana University researchers found that people in their 20s already began to demonstrate arterial stiffening -- when arteries become less compliant as blood pumps through the body -- but their highly active peers did not. The researchers made a similar discovery with middle-age men and women, finding that highly active study participants did not show the arterial stiffening that typically comes with aging, regardless of their gender or age. A reduction in compliance of the body's arteries is considered a risk factor, predictive of future cardiovascular disease, such ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Oil rig study reveals vital role of tiny hoverflies

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers boost widespread use of dental varnish across pediatric network

iRECODE: A new computational method that brings clarity to single-cell analysis

New NUS-MOH study: Singapore’s healthcare sector carbon emissions 18% lower than expected, a milestone in the city-state’s net zero journey

QUT scientists create material to turn waste heat into clean power

Major new report sets out how to tackle the ‘profound and lasting impact’ of COVID-19 on cardiovascular health

Cosmic crime scene: White dwarf found devouring Pluto-like icy world

Major report tackles Covid’s cardiovascular crisis head-on

A third of licensed GPs in England not working in NHS general practice

ChatGPT “thought on the fly” when put through Ancient Greek maths puzzle

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

[Press-News.org] Native Ohioans' speaking patterns help scientists decipher famous moon landing