• Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.17-26
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• 1999

It has been claimed that Korean mid-vocalic voiceless unaspirated lax stops are phonetically realized with voicing throughout the oral closure phase. Acoustic measurements were undertaken to examine the claim with four Korean native speakers using /$V_1CV_2$/ words where the vowel ($V_1\;=\;V_2$) was /i, a, u/ and the C was voiceless unaspirated lax stops /p, t, k/. Findings: (1) During mid-vocalic stops /k/ and /p/ the vowel /u/ was accompanied generally by a significant increase in voice cessation time as percentage of the oral closure interval (PCT) than the vowel /a/, regardless of subjects, whereas in mid-vocalic alveolar stop /t/ the effects of vowels on PCT were subject-dependent, (2) The effects of vowels on PCT were significantly greater in mid-vocalic /k/ than /p/, regardless of subjects, (3) The mean PCT, averaged across six tokens, ranged from 17% to100%, giving overall mean 61% in which the standard deviation was ${\pm}30$, and (4) Overall % of the total of mid-vocalic unaspirated lax stops were produced with a substantial period of devocing and voicing lag. Considering these results, it is difficult to agree with the existing claims that Korean voiceless unaspirated lax stops are phonetically realized with voicing throughout the oral closure phase. Other phonetic variables, including the durations of pre/post-stop vowels, voice onset time, voice cessation time, and the duration of oral closure, were measured.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate how deaf parents influence the speech sounds of their normal-hearing children. Twenty four normal hearing children of deaf adults (CODA) and normal hearing parents (NORMAL) aged 3 to 4 participated in the study. The F1, F2, and the vowel triangle area in 7 vowels and the voice onset times (VOTs) and closure durations in 9 stops were measured. The results of the study are as follows. First, the F1 and F2 for all vowels were higher and the vowel triangle area was larger in CODA than in NORMAL although they were not statistically significant. Second, VOTs in $C_{stop}V$ for $/t^*/$ and in $VC_{stop}V$ for $/t^*/$, $/t^h/$, and $/k^h/$ were longer in CODA than in NORMAL. Most stops in CODA appeared to be longer VOTs for most phonemes. Third, the manner and place of articulation in stops did not make a difference between CODA and NORMAL in VOTs and closed durations. CODA does not demonstrate the speech characteristics of deaf people, however, they seem to speak differently than NORMAL, which means CODA might be influenced by a different linguistic environment created by deaf parents in some way.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2006

Background and Objectives: Countertenors who can produce higher vocal pitch like female classical singer's voice and use both modal and falsetto register. This study was conducted to study phonatory characteristics between modal and falsetto register of the countertenor. Materials and Methods: A male countertenor who had 8 years of experience was examined using a videostroboscopy and his voice was analyzed using aerodynamic measures; fundamental frequency(F0), Mean air flow rate(MFR), intensity(SLP), subglottal air pressure(Psub) with phonatory function analyzer(Nagashima) and acoustic measures; jitter, shimmer, HNR, closed quotient(CQ) using a Electro-glottography(EGG) of Lx. Speech Studio(Laryngoscope, Ltd, UK) and voice range profile of CSL(Kay elemetrics). Results: In the stroboscopy finding, the longitudinal length of vocal folds was increased at the falsetto register and the upper margin of vocal folds vibrated with incomplete closure of true vocal folds. In aerodynamic analysis, intensity was same at the modal and falsetto register. However, MFR, Psub, MPT were higher at the falsetto register. In the electroglottographic analysis, closed quotient(CQ) at the modal register was high and also much higher at the high-pitch falsetto than at the loud falsetto. In the VRP, intensity was similar though F0 was different between modal and falsetto register. Conclusion: It implied that countertenor could produce powerful voice quality by increasing of respiratory pressure and respiratory volume though glottal closure was incomplete. In addition, no change of EGG waveform, similar voice range with alto was observed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.59-67
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• 2017

Regardless of their intention, listeners tend to assess speakers' personalities based on the sounds of the speech they hear. Assessment criteria, however, have not been fully investigated to indicate whether there is any relationship between the acoustic cue of produced speech sounds and perceived personality impression. If properly investigated, the potential relationship between these two will provide crucial insights on the aspects of human communications and further on human-computer interaction. Since human communications have distinctive characteristics of simultaneity and complexity, this investigation would be the identification of minimum essential factors among the sounds of speech and perceived personality impression. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to identify significant associations between the speech sounds and perceived personality impression of speaker by the listeners. Twenty eight subjects participated in the experiment and eight acoustic parameters were extracted by using Praat from the recorded sounds of the speech. The subjects also completed the Neo-five Factor Inventory test so that their personality traits could be measured. The results of the experiment show that four major factors(duration average, pitch difference value, pitch average and intensity average) play crucial roles in defining the significant relationship.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.145-156
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• 2008

The goal of this study was to investigate acoustic and physiologic characteristics of two phonation types of 'Khoomei' which is a traditional singing style of people who live around the Altai mountains or Mongolia region. It can be produced two pitches simultaneously - high melody pitch can be perceived along with a low drone pitch. Sygyt and kargyraa styles are the most popular and identifiable styles and they can be recognized as the different sounds depending on the method of voice production. Two trained Mongolians participated and have used at least 5 - 6 years. The characteristics of this voice production were measured by using flexible fiberscope, Stroboscopy, Lx Speech studio, Spead, and Doctor Speech. In Sygyt style, very high vocal fold closure (71.50%) with both true and false vocal folds contact and strong breathing support was observed. They also showed that tongue height and harmonics were increased (around 10dB) with resonance cavity movement. In contrast, it was found that Kargyraa sound had very low pitch with relaxed stomach, less laryngeal tension and lower vocal fold contact (69.50%) than hard Sygyt style sound without raising the tongue during phonation. 'Khoomei' phonation can be made by strong contact of both true and false vocal folds and by increasing the harmonics as well.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.48-51
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• 2012

Background and Objectives : Vocal fold cyst is generally treated by surgical resection, it has a difference with vocal fold polyp, treated by conservative management first. Decrease in mucosal waves is known as main diagnostic criteria of vocal fold cyst. Sometimes there is a difficulty for diffrential diagnosis between cyst and polyp only by endoscopic examination. The purpose of the study is to identify the objective features of vocal cyst and polyp on the basis of voice analysis for the proper differential diagnosis, especially at high pitched phonation. Materials and Method : The voice analysis was done in 15 focal fold cyst patients and 42 vocal fold polyp. Parameters of perceptual assessment, acoustic and aerodynamic measure, and voice range profile were compared between two groups. Results : Vocal fold cyst patients showed significantly reduced MPT by acoustic and aerodynamic analysis, narrowed frequency-range and low maximun frequency by voice range profile analysis compared with vocal fold polyp patient. Maximun frequency 381 Hz is established for cut off value, differential diagnosis between cyst and polyp (ROC analysis, sensitivity 60%, specificity 68%). Conclusion : Voice analysis is helpful for differential diagnosis between vocal fold cyst and polyp, especially there is a difficulty for distinguish cyst from polyp at clinical situation by endoscopic examination. The result of decreased maximum frequncy at vocal fold cyst supports incomplete high-pitched phonation and falsetto regester at vocal fold cyst patients due to decreased mucosal wave, compared with vocal fold polyp patients.

• MALSORI
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• no.45
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• pp.15-22
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• 2003

This study is a kind of a preliminary study to develop naturalness of dialog TTS system. In this study, as major characteristics of politeness in Korean, temporal(total duration of utterances, speech rate and duration of utterance final syllables) and F0(mean F0, boundary tone pattern, F0 range) features were discussed through acoustic analysis of recorded data of semantically neutral sentences, which were spoken by ten professional voice actors under two conditions of utterance type - namely, normal and polite type. The results show that temporal characteristics were significantly different according to the utterance type but F0 characteristics were not.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.27-31
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• 1998

Nasal sounds include nasalized vowels and consonants. Nasal cavity is important for the acoustics of nasal sounds. Evaluating the effects of site-specific nasal obstruction on nasal sound will help us to understand the importance of nasal geometry for the nasal sound and to foretell voice change after nasal surgery This study was designed to analyze the change of nasality and formant characteristics of nasal sound by obstructing different sites around the ostiomeatal unit(OMU). Ten adult male and female volunteers participated. The nasal formants and bandwidths of nasal consonant /n/ were checked in various conditions of nasal obstruction. The nasalance of rabbit, baby, and mama passages were compared in each conditions. Nasalance of all passages decreased when anterior portion of OMU was obstructed. Center frequency of first nasal formant(NF1) of /n/ has decreased in the order of anterior, inferior obstruction. The bandwidth of NF1 decreased in female with anterior obstruction. Anterior portion of OMU is most critical to the change of nasality and acoustics of nasal consonant. When anterior portion of OMU is obstructed, the shift of NF1 to a lower frequency and the narrowing of NF1 bandwidth are the major acoustic changes of nasal consonant /n/.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.30 no.11
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• pp.1037-1043
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• 2003

This paper describes a speech synthesis technique using a diphone as an unit phoneme. Speech synthesis is basically accomplished by concatenating unit phonemes, and it's major problem is discontinuity at the connection part between unit phonemes. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a new spectral smoothing technique which reflects not only formant trajectories but also distribution characteristics of spectrum and human's acoustic characteristics. That is, the proposed technique decides the quantity and extent of smoothing by considering human's acoustic characteristics at the connection part of unit phonemes, and then performs spectral smoothing using weights calculated along a time axis at the border of two diphones. The proposed technique reduces the discontinuity and minimizes the distortion which is caused by spectral smoothing. For the purpose of performance evaluation, we tested on five hundred diphones which are extracted from twenty sentences using ETRI Voice DB samples and individually self-recorded samples.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.63-70
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• 2019

This study investigated individual variability of L2 learners' categorical judgments of L2 stops by exploring English learners' perceptual processing of two acoustic cues (voice onset time [VOT] and f0) and working memory capacity as sources of variation. As prior research has reported that English speakers' greater use of the redundant cue f0 was responsible for gradient processing of native stops, we examined whether the same processing characteristics would be observed in L2 learners' perception of Korean stops (/t/-/t^h/). 22 English learners of L2 Korean with a range of L2 proficiency participated in a visual analogue scaling task and demonstrated variable manners of judging the L2 Korean stops: Some were more gradient than others in performing the task. Correlation analysis revealed that L2 learners' categorical responses were modestly related to individuals' utilizations of a primary cue for the stop contrast (VOT for L1 English stops and f0 for L2 Korean stops), and were also related to better working memory capacity. Together, the current experimental evidence demonstrates adult L2 learners' top-down processing of stop consonants where linguistic and cognitive resources are devoted to a process of determining abstract phonemic identity.