Speech Motor Control and the Development of Acute Mountain Sickness

Abstract

Disturbances in cognition and speech motor control have been associated with high-altitude exposure and may involve selective hypoxic vulnerability of specific brain areas. Given the cerebral origin of AMS, we hypothesized that speech motor control as determined by voice onset timing (VOT) would be an objective measure of AMS. Fifteen women (24.7 +/-1.8 yrs) were studied at sea level and after 4 and 39 h of simulated exposure to 4,300 m altitude. AMS-C was assessed twice daily using the Environmental Symptoms Questionnaire (ESQ-C). Speech motor control was determined from digitally recorded timing patterns of 60 monosyllabic words, representing three places of articulation (labial, alveolar, and velar) and further categorized as "voiced" or "unvoiced."

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA360764

Entities

People

  • Allen Cymerman
  • Gail E. Butterfield
  • Jesse Hochstadt
  • Paul B. Rock
  • Philip Lieberman

Organizations

  • United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acclimatization
  • Altitude
  • Brain
  • Cerebral Edema
  • Consonants
  • Elevation
  • Environment
  • High Altitude
  • Hypobaric Chambers
  • Larynx
  • Measurement
  • Medical Personnel
  • Mountains
  • Palate
  • Questionnaires
  • Sea Level
  • Statistical Analysis

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Marine Mammal Biology
  • Neuroscience
  • Speech Processing/Speech Recognition.