The Biological Bases of Speech Production (1)

Connections between Auditory and Speech Mechanisms
First, let's try to read out the WORDS below as fast as you can.
紅 藍 黃 白 綠 藍 紅 白 黃

Now, try this one below:
藍 白 綠 紅 藍 黃 白 綠 紅

How is your reading of the first string? How is that about reading the latter one? I know that you felt confused while reading the second one and it seems to be hard to read it right and fast as you do the first one. Why? We may say that our brains are fooled by the colors of each word especially when they are not match to the word's meaning. It shows some connections between reading and speaking and also some independencies. What about other senses we have? Let's visit the website below to discover.

http://www.eng.mu.edu/rehab/Rehab167/Mod2/hearing/

The pictures below can help you to understand the location of each organs mentioned in the website.


▲ anatomy of the vocal tract (from PATTS)


▲ ear diagram （from The Stanford Health Library）

It seems like hearing and speaking are too relative to be apart, but some people are born with hearing loss and still can speak like speaking people. Now, we will get to know about hearing loss, and how do deaf people learn to speak.