Summary
Purpose
Subvocalization, the low-grade activity of speech articulator muscles while thinking
or reading, may mediate phonological representations of verbal material. However,
no literature exists that directly measures whether intrinsic laryngeal muscles (ILMs)
are active during subvocalization. The possibility of ILM activation during subvocalization
has implications for establishing appropriate baselines when experimental conditions
involve linguistic features.
Method
In two separate studies, forty-five cisgender women completed one or two silentsil
tasks (two in the first study, Experiments 1a and 1b, and one in the second, Experiment
2). Fine wire electromyography was used to directly measure ILM activity during an
at-rest baseline and silent tasks used to determine whether subvocalization occurred
(referred to hereafter as “subvocalization tasks”). Other muscles were measured via
surface electromyography: submental muscle in Experiments 1a and 1b, anterior tibialis
in Experiment 2, and upper trapezius in all experiments.
Results
Interrupted time-series analysis was used to directly measure changes in ILM activity
from baseline to the subvocalization tasks. A paired two tailed t-test was used to measure mean differences in ILM activity across conditions for each
participant. Some individuals displayed statistically significant increases from baseline
during subvocalization tasks, whereas others displayed decreases. Cohen's d was used to calculate the effect size for each muscle across the three subvocalization
conditions. Of the 21 muscles measured across three experiments, five yielded a small
mean effect size, and the effect sizes for the remaining 16 muscles were negligible.
At a group level, only the right cricothyroid showed statistically significant changes
(Experiment 1b).
Conclusion
The ILM responses during subvocalization vary in both magnitude and direction. Most
but not all changes can be described as negligible. For future studies of ILM activity
during conditions that involve linguistic processing, investigators should consider
the idiosyncratic variation during subvocalization when determining the most appropriate
baseline task.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 18, 2021
Accepted:
January 24,
2021
Footnotes
This study was partially supported by the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science Doctoral Award (awarded to the Principal Investigator Helou), a research grant from the Voice Foundation (awarded to Helou), the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Rehabilitation Institute (awarded to Wang), and the National Institutes of Health (Grants 3R01NS050256-05S1 [awarded to Wang], 8KL2TR000146 [awarded to Wang], and R01 DC008567 [awarded to Verdolini Abbott]).
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© 2021 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
