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PubMed1996

Intrasubject variability of objective voice measures.

Recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of voice disorders necessitate the need for accurate and reliable objective voice measurements. There are many instruments commonly used to analyze voice data. Many, if not most, of these instruments have not been adequately tested for reliability or consistency. This study evaluates the intrasubject variability of the objective voice measurements from two commonly used voice analysis instruments. The study also presents data correlating subjective mood states, room temperatures, sleep times of the subject, time since last meal, and hydration levels to the various acoustic measures. Several weak but significant correlations were obtained and are discussed. Guidelines for the appropriate use of these instruments are described.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Acoustic characteristics of rough voice: subharmonics.

This study investigates the relationship between rough voice and the presence of subharmonics, which correspond to smaller yet distinct peaks located between two consecutive harmonic peaks in the power spectrum. Spectrum analysis was undertaken in 389 pathologic voices, of which 20 had subharmonics. Although all 20 voices had roughness perceptually, 8 had normal jitter and/or shimmer. The degree of roughness had a significant inverse relationship with the frequency of subharmonics. By digital signal processing, sound samples with various types of subharmonics were synthesized and perceptually analyzed. Power and frequency of subharmonics in the synthesized sound also had significant relationships with the degree of roughness. Rough voice is acoustically characterized not only by jitter and shimmer but also by the presence of subharmonics in the power spectrum. Subharmonics are important acoustic properties for objective evaluation of rough voices.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

The speaker's formant in male voices.

Spectral analysis of vowels during connected speech can be performed using the spectral intensity distribution within critical bands corresponding to a natural scale on the basilar membrane. Normalization of the spectra provides the opportunity to make objective comparisons independent from the recording level. An increasing envelope peak between 3,150 and 3,700 Hz has been confirmed statistically for a combination of seven vowels in three groups of male speakers with hoarse, normal, and professional voices. Each vowel is also analyzed individually. The local energy maximum is called "the speaker's formant" and can be found in the region of the fourth formant. The steepness of the spectral slope (i.e. the rate of decline) becomes less pronounced when the sonority or the intensity of the voice increases. The speaker's formant is connected with the sonorous quality of the voice. It increases gradually and is approximately 10 dB higher in professional male voices than in normal male voices at neutral loudness (60 dB at 0.3 min). The peak intensity becomes stronger (30 dB above normal voices) when the overall speaking loudness is increased to 80 dB. Shouting increases the spectral energy of the adjacent critical bands but not the speaker's formant itself.

Humans↗
PubMed1997

Adductor spasmodic dysphonia: case reports with acoustic analysis following botulinum toxin injection and acupuncture.

We analyzed frequency and duration parameters of voice and speech in two men with adductor spasmodic dysphonia (SD). One was treated with botulinum toxin injection; the other received acupuncture therapy. Improvement after acupuncture therapy in terms of standard deviation of fundamental frequency, acoustic perturbation measurements, durational measurements of voice and speech, and spectrographic analysis was comparable to the results achieved with botulinum toxin injection. Voice and speech parameters were stable 1 year after acupuncture therapy.

Acupuncture Therapy↗
PubMed1998

Laryngeal rebalancing for the treatment of arytenoid dislocation.

In almost every type of functional laryngeal operation a successful result hinges on the surgeon's ability to control the muscular and ligamentous forces that act upon the vocal folds. Most of the time these forces are small in relation to the manipulations and resections performed. Occasionally, the forces are significant relative to the problem encountered, resulting in a failed surgery. Of all the many conditions that fit in to this latter description, perhaps the best example in arytenoid dislocation. Dislocation of the arytenoid is usually secondary to trauma with the majority of reported cases resulting from some type of anesthetic misadventure. Two types of dislocation have been described, anteromedial and posterolateral, each with a different mechanism of causation. This paper concerns itself with the more common anteromedial variety and its treatment using botulinum toxin.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Consistency of phonatory breathing patterns in professional operatic singers.

Breathing strategy is generally regarded as an important factor in operatic singing, because it is assumed to affect phonation. If so, professional singers should exhibit well-controlled, replicable breathing movements when repeating the same phrase. The purpose of the present study was to investigate to what extent professional opera singers show a consistent, exhalatory breathing behavior in a quasi-realistic concert situation. Respiratory movements were documented in 5 professional operatic singers, two women and three men, by means of respiratory inductive plethysmography. Comparison of respiratory data gathered from 3 renderings of the same phrases revealed high consistency with regard to lung volume (LV) behavior. The same applied to rib cage (RC) movements, suggesting a great relevance of RC control in singing. Consistency in abdominal wall (AW) movement was observed in 2 singers. These observations are in accordance with the idea that the breathing strategy plays an important role in voice production during singing. In addition, the correlation between LV changes, on the one hand, and RC and AW movements on the other, was examined. The contribution to LV changes from the RC and the AW varied across singers, thus suggesting that professional operatic singing does not request a uniform breathing strategy.

Abdominal Muscles↗
PubMed1999

Formant frequencies in country singers' speech and singing.

In previous investigations breathing kinematics, subglottal pressures, and voice source characteristics of a group of premier country singers have been analyzed. The present study complements the description of these singers' voice properties by examining the formant frequencies in five of these country singers' spoken and sung versions of the national anthem and of a song of their own choosing. The formant frequencies were measured for identical phonemes under both conditions. Comparisons revealed that the singers used the same or slightly higher formant frequencies when they were singing than when they were speaking. The differences may be related to the higher fundamental frequency in singing. These findings are in good agreement with previous observations regarding breathing, subglottal pressures, and voice source, but are in marked contrast to what has been found for classically trained singers.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Effects of systematized vocal warm-up on voices with disorders of various etiologies.

This investigation studied the effect of a systematized vocal warm-up procedure on voices with disorders. There were 4 subjects with voice disorders. To optimize vocal function a systematized vocal warm-up system was developed by the author for singers and nonsingers alike. Subjects were asked to practice the vocal warm-up exercises daily, with weekly monitoring in the studio. Data from independent raters and subjects' self-ratings were compared to and corroborated with computer analysis of audio samples. Results indicated significant improvement in subjects' voices that were increasingly maintained over time.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Acoustical analysis of maternal sounds during the second stage of labor.

Experienced obstetric nurse and midwives indicate they can differentiate among sounds indicating that a woman is (a) beginning to manifest the effort to bear down, (b) experiencing pain, or (c) frightened. This study examined the acoustical properties of work/effort, childlike, and out-of-control utterances to determine whether their acoustical properties differed. Out-of-control utterances are more tense but contain similar levels of shimmer and pitch as childlike utterances. Work/effort utterances are higher pitched and more tense than childlike utterances. Work/effort utterances contain more shimmer but have similar levels of pitch and tenseness as out-of-control utterances.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Human temporal-lobe response to vocal sounds.

Voice is not only the vehicle of speech, it is also an 'auditory face' that conveys a wealth of information on a person's identity and affective state. In contrast to speech perception, little is known about the neural bases of our ability to perceive these various types of paralinguistic vocal information. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we identified regions along the superior temporal sulcus (STS) that were not only sensitive, but also highly selective to vocal sounds. In the present study, we asked how neural activity in the voice areas was influenced by (i) the presence or not of linguistic information in the vocal input (speech vs. nonspeech) and (ii) frequency scrambling. Speech sounds were found to elicit greater responses than nonspeech vocalizations in most parts of auditory cortex, including primary auditory cortex (A1), on both sides of the brain. In contrast, response attenuation due to frequency scrambling was much more pronounced in anterior STS areas than at the level of A1. Importantly, only right anterior STS regions responded more strongly to nonspeech vocal sounds than to their scrambled version, suggesting that these regions could be specifically involved in paralinguistic aspects of voice perception.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Dynamics of working memory for moving sounds: an event-related potential and scalp current density study.

Human brain imaging studies have suggested that posterior temporo-parietal regions are involved in auditory spatial processing. We used electroencephalography to investigate the dynamics of temporo-parietal networks during working memory for moving sounds. A delayed matching-to-sample task required a decision on the identity of positions and trajectories of two moving sounds S1 and S2 presented with delays of 927 or 1427 ms. Moving sounds consisted of noise bursts positioned at successive angles to create the impression of one of six possible trajectories at variable spatial positions. Stimuli in the equally difficult control condition were identical to the memory task up to S2, which was replaced by a spatial displacement in the otherwise stationary background sound whose direction had to be detected. Event-related potentials were recorded from 31 scalp electrodes in 15 subjects. Scalp current density estimates allowed to identify the following components. The fronto-central negative variation preceding S2 did not differ between tasks. In contrast, the sustained negative current during the presentation of S1 originating from superior temporal cortex was more pronounced for the memory task, probably reflecting enhanced attention allocation and foreground-background discrimination. Most importantly, the memory task activated current sources over bilateral posterior parietal regions between the middle of S1 and the end of the delay phase. This component was completely absent in the control condition. In summary, the present study disclosed varying degrees of memorization-related, top-down driven influences on the processing of moving sounds at different stages of an auditory network involving temporal and parietal regions.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

The effect of amygdala lesions on conditional and unconditional vocalizations in rats.

Electrolytic lesions centered on the amygdaloid central nucleus (ACe) resulted in the inability of rats to acquire a Pavlovian conditional vocalization response. Conditioning consisted of pairing a light conditional stimulus with a tailshock unconditional stimulus (US). The thresholds of three unconditional responses (URs) to tailshock were assessed prior to conditioning. These URs are organized at spinal (spinal motor reflexes), medullary (vocalizations during shock), and forebrain (vocalization afterdischarges, VADs) levels of the neuraxis. Compared to sham-lesioned controls, rats with amygdala lesions exhibited a selective elevation in the threshold of VADs. During conditioning the amplitude and duration of VADs were selectively reduced in amygdala-lesioned rats. These findings support earlier observations of that elicitation of VADs by tailshock correlates with the capacity of this US to support fear conditioning. The ACe may be involved in both associative and non-associative aspects of fear conditioning, but for progress in our understanding it is essential to evaluate its role in the generation of conditioning relevant URs.

Amygdala↗
PubMed2002

Multidimensional voice program analysis (MDVP) and the diagnosis of pediatric vocal cord dysfunction.

BACKGROUND: Vocal cord dysfunction (VCD) can present with signs and symptoms that mimic asthma. This may lead to unnecessary pharmacologic treatment or more invasive measures including intubation. Presently, the diagnosis of VCD can only be confirmed when a patient is symptomatic, via pulmonary function testing (PFT) or visualization of adduction of the vocal cords during inspiration by direct laryngoscopy. OBJECTIVE: Multidimensional Voice Program (MDVP) analysis. a computer program which analyzes various aspects of voice, can detect abnormal voice patterns of patients with upper airway pathology. We determined whether MDVP analysis was useful in the diagnosis of VCD. METHODS: We conducted chart reviews of patients referred to our department from 1995 to 1998 with the presumed diagnosis of VCD who had undergone MDVP analysis. The diagnosis of VCD was based on the presenting history, PFT results, laryngoscopy results, as well as voice evaluation conducted by a speech-language pathologist. We analyzed six consecutive patients referred for this investigation. We delineated common trends in the variables measured on MDVP analysis in VCD patients. and compared these with controls and other vocal cord pathology. RESULTS: Five cases of possible VCD had abnormalities in the MDVP variable of soft phonation index (SPI). All five also had abnormalities in the variation in fundamental frequency (vFo). In one case, MDVP analysis was conducted pre- and posttreatment for VCD, and SPI and vFo both normalized. In a sixth case of possible VCD. the diagnosis was not confirmed as the patient had normal PFTs and laryngoscopy. MDVP analysis was normal in this individual. The pattern of abnormal SPI and vFo was not seen in a group of normal controls or in patients with vocal cord nodules. CONCLUSIONS: MDVP analysis may be a useful tool when diagnosingVCD, as well as in evaluating response to treatment.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The real and the non-real in speech measurements.

The measurement of parameters from the output acoustic pressure waveform during speech has been a common activity in speech science laboratories for a number of decades. The widespread availability of personal computers with more than adequate processing capability to carry out speech analysis means that speech analysis is now commonly available and many more users have access to it. Indeed, there are some highly comprehensive speech analysis software packages available for PC computers as freeware. However, the results gained from speech analysis are not always a function only of the speech input itself, as there are some often surprising pitfalls to be aware of, due to the nature of the chosen measurement technique itself. This paper explores commonly applied speech analysis techniques and focuses particularly on some potential pitfalls and their consequences.

Fourier Analysis↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Automated recognition of spontaneous versus voluntary cough.

Cough or cough epochs may be an important and persistent symptom in many respiratory diseases requiring both a continuous and objective observation. The research presented in this paper is aimed at assessing a blind data-based classification between 'spontaneous' and 'voluntary' human cough on individual sound samples. Cough sounds were registered in the free acoustic field on 3 pathological and 9 healthy non-smoking subjects, all aged between 20 and 30. Each sound is represented by the normalized power spectral density (PSD). Different transformations of the cough PSD-vector are chosen as input features to the classification algorithm. An experimental error rate comparison between different neural and fuzzy classification networks is performed. All evaluated algorithms used the Euclidean metric. This resulted in a correct class-discrimination between 'spontaneous' and 'voluntary' cough for 96% of the cough database.

Acoustics↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Developmental aspects of infant's cry melody and formants.

This paper deals with the analysis of cry melodies (time variations of the fundamental frequency) as well as vocal tract resonance frequencies (formants) from infant cry signals. The increase of complexity of cry melodies is a good indicator for neuro-muscular maturation as well as for the evaluation of pre-speech development. The variation of formant frequencies allows an estimation of articulatory activity during pre-speech vocalization. Subjects are three pairs of healthy identical twins (monocygozity determined by DNA-fingerprint). Spontaneous cries of these six children were recorded at different ages: 8th-9th week, 15th-17th week and 23rd-24th week. Analysis of 136 cry melodies and intensity contours was made using KAY-CSL 4300/MDVP. For formant estimation a spectral parametric technique was applied, which was based on autoregressive models (Digital spectral analysis with applications, 1987) whose order is adaptively estimated on subsequent signal frames by means of a new method (Med. Eng. Phys. 20 (1998) 432; Utras. Med. Biol. 21 (1995) 793). Cry melodies exhibited an increasing complexity during the observation period. Beginning with the second observation period (15th-17th week) an increasing coupling and tuning between melody and resonance frequencies was observed, which was interpreted as "intentional" articulatory activity. Possible applications are in cry diagnosis as well as in the evaluation of pre-speech development.

Crying↗