• Title/Summary/Keyword: Formant Space

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Gender difference in speech intelligibility using speech intelligibility tests and acoustic analyses

  • Kwon, Ho-Beom
    • The Journal of Advanced Prosthodontics
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    • v.2 no.3
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    • pp.71-76
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    • 2010
  • PURPOSE. The purpose of this study was to compare men with women in terms of speech intelligibility, to investigate the validity of objective acoustic parameters related with speech intelligibility, and to try to set up the standard data for the future study in various field in prosthodontics. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Twenty men and women were served as subjects in the present study. After recording of sample sounds, speech intelligibility tests by three speech pathologists and acoustic analyses were performed. Comparison of the speech intelligibility test scores and acoustic parameters such as fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency range, formant frequency, formant ranges, vowel working space area, and vowel dispersion were done between men and women. In addition, the correlations between the speech intelligibility values and acoustic variables were analyzed. RESULTS. Women showed significantly higher speech intelligibility scores than men and there were significant difference between men and women in most of acoustic parameters used in the present study. However, the correlations between the speech intelligibility scores and acoustic parameters were low. CONCLUSION. Speech intelligibility test and acoustic parameters used in the present study were effective in differentiating male voice from female voice and their values might be used in the future studies related patients involved with maxillofacial prosthodontics. However, further studies are needed on the correlation between speech intelligibility tests and objective acoustic parameters.

Acoustic Characteristics of Some Vowels Produced by the CI Children of Various Age Groups (인공와우 이식 시기에 따른 모음의 음향음성학적 특성)

  • Kim, Go-Eun;Ko, Do-Heung
    • Speech Sciences
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    • v.14 no.4
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    • pp.203-212
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    • 2007
  • This study was to compare some acoustic characteristics of vowels produced by children with cochlear implant (CI) and the children with normal hearing. 20 subjects under ten years old were further classified into two groups (one group of CI children under four years old and the other group of CI children over four years old). For the normal hearing group, 20 subjects are participated in the experiment. Some acoustic parameters including fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies (F1, F2) were measured in the two groups according to the age of cochlear implant operation. For the CI group, three comer vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/) were recorded five times in isolation and analyzed with Multi-Speech (Kay Elemetrics, model 3700), and two independent t-tests on their formant data were conducted using SPSS 11.5. The result showed that the implanted group over four years had a significant difference in F0 and F1 comparing with the implanted group under four years of age as well as the normal hearing group. Those values of the children with the implanted group under four years old were closer to those of the children with the normal hearing. As to the F2, there was no significant difference among implanted groups. However, it was shown that the vowel space for the implanted groups regardless the operation age indicated much smaller than that for the normal hearing children. This acoustic results suggest that CI surgery would be much more effective if it is done under the age of four years old.

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The change of vowel characteristics for the dysarthric speech along with speaking style (경도 마비말장애 환자의 발화 유형에 따른 모음 특성 비교)

  • Kim, Jiyoun;Seong, Cheoljae
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.51-59
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    • 2016
  • The purpose of present study is to examine differences between habitual speech (HS) and clear speech (CS) in individuals with mild dysarthria. Twelve speakers with mild dysarthria and twelve healthy control speakers read sentences in two speaking styles. Formant and intensity related values, triangular area, and center of gravity of /a/, /i/, and /u/ were measured. In addition, formant-ratio variables such as vowel space area(VSA), vowel articulatory index (VAI), formant centralization ratio (FCR) and F2i/F1u ratio (F2 ratio) were calculated. The results of repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant difference in F2 of vowel /i/ and F2 energy of vowel /a/ between groups. Regarding formant energy, F2 energy of vowel /a/ were observed as meaningful variables between speaking styles. There were significant speaking style-by-group interactions for F2 energy of vowel /a/. These findings indicated that current parameters could discriminate healthy group and mild dysarthria group meaningfully and that speaker with dysarthria had larger clear speech benefit than healthy talkers. We also claim that various acoustic changes of clear speech may contribute to improving vowel intelligibility.

The Study of Tonsil Affected Voice Quality after Tonsillectomy (편도적출술로 음성변화가 올 수 있는 편도 상태에 관한 연구)

  • 안철민;정덕희
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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    • v.9 no.1
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    • pp.32-37
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    • 1998
  • Tonsillectomy is the one of operation that is performed the most commonly in otolaryngology field. Many changes that include range of voice, tone, voice quality and resonance were made by tonsillectomy. Sometimes, any patients taken tonsillectomy has suffer from these voice problem after tonsillectomy. However there are less study for these problems until now. Then, we studied to find the anatomical findings that affected the voice quality when tonsillectomy was performed. We evaluated the voice in 2 groups, one is the group showed the normal pharyngeal space by using the transnasal fiberscopy, the other is group showed medially bulging tonsil at pharyngeal cavity by using same method, with perceptual evaluation, nasalance score, nasality, oral formant and nasal formant. We used the computerized speech analysis system, the nasometer and the spectrogram in the CSL program. We could not find any differences in perceptual evaluation between two groups. But objective measures were provided. Nasalance score and nasality on the nasometric analysis were increased significantly and oral formant on the spectrogram was changed singnificantly after tonsillectomy in Group 2. Authors thought medially bulging tonsil in the pharynx is able to affect the voice quality after tonsillectomy when we evaluted through the nasal cavity by the using of fiberscopy and this evaluation would be important especially in singers.

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An Acoustical Study of English Diphthongs Produced by American Males and Females (미국인 남성과 여성이 발음한 영어이중모음의 음향적 연구)

  • Yang, Byung-Gon
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.2 no.2
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    • pp.43-50
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    • 2010
  • English vowels can be divided into monophthongs and diphthongs depending on the number of vocal tract shapes. Diphthongs are usually produced with more than one shape. This study attempts to collect acoustical data of English diphthongs published by Hillenbrand et al.(1995) online and to examine acoustic features of the diphthongs for phoneticians and English teachers. Sixty three American males and females were chosen after excluding those subjects with different target vowels or ambiguous formant tracks. The author used Praat to obtain the acoustical data systematically at eleven equidistant timepoints over the diphthongal segment. Obvious errors were corrected based on the spectrographic display of each diphthong. Results show that the formant trajectories of the diphthongs produced by the American males and females appeared quite similar. When the female formant values were uniformly normalized to those of the males, almost a perfect collapse occurred. Secondly, the diphthongal movements on the vowel space appeared not linear due to the coarticulatory gesture for the following consonant. Thirdly, the average duration of the diphthongs produced by the females was 1.156 times longer than that of the males while the pitch ratio between the two groups turned out to be 1.746 with a similar contour over measurement points. The author concludes that English diphthongs produced by various groups can be compared systematically when the acoustical values are obtained at proportional timepoints. Further studies will be desirable on the comparison of English diphthongs produced by native and nonnative speakers.

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The characteristics of soprano students' voice related to the vocal methods (발성방법에 따른 소프라노 성악도의 음성 특성)

  • Kim, Jungtaek;Seong, Cheoljae
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.9 no.3
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    • pp.75-83
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    • 2017
  • The purpose of this study is to find clues to the risk of voice disorders in soprano students. The subjects of the study were 17 soprano students and 18 general students (women). The phonation of vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/ with C4 and F4 notes in each group were recorded. Then, only soprano students were made to record their classical vocalization containing vibrato. Formant, formant energy, bandwidth, VAI (vowel area index), VSA (vowel space area) and L/H ratio were analyzed. There was significant difference in F3 such that the singers' note was measured around 3 kHz which seems to be 400 Hz higher than one from general students. But, There was no significant difference in L/H ratio between soprano student and the general student. There was a significant difference in F3 in the comparison of the soprano students' two vocalization methods. Classical vocalization was measured at 200Hz higher than sustained phonation in F3. Vocal tract adjustment was made and vowel space changed, but there was no significant difference in F3 energy, which is the index of singers' formant according to the phonation method. The L/H ratio, which can be a direct indicator of vocal effort, has no difference in phonation method and is lowered in all phonation methods as the pitch increases. C4 and F4 pitches are lower than the singing range of the soprano. When the pitch changes, vocal effort increases like a general student which will be an indicator of the risk of vocalization. This will be a clue to the vocalization of the immature soprano student.

Characteristics of Speech Intelligibility and the Vowel Space in Patients with Parkinson's disease (파킨슨병 환자의 말 명료도와 모음 공간 특성)

  • Shim, Hee-Jeong;Park, Won-Kyoung;Ko, Do-Heung
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.4 no.3
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    • pp.161-169
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    • 2012
  • The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of speech intelligibility of spontaneous speech and the vowel space parameters in patients with Parkinson's disease. Ten PD patients (M=5, F=5) and a corresponding control group of ten normal adults participated in this study. Firstly, subjects were asked to tell a story about their hometown and youth in order to analyze speech intelligibility. Secondly, the subjects were also asked to repeat four vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/, /e/) five times in order to compare their vowel spaces. The results were as follows: (1) the speech intelligibility of the PD group was lower than that of the control group. (2) Four parameters including vowel area, vowel articulatory index, formant centralization ratio, F2i/F1u ratio were significantly different in each group. For instance, vowel area and F2 ratio were wider and higher, respectively. As a result, a decrease in speech intelligibility of patients with PD is likely to show different types of errors from the normal group. The results of this research are meaningful in a sense that they could provide the objective standard of speech intelligibility and vowel space parameters.

A Comparison of Parameters of Acoustic Vowel Space in Patients with Parkinson's Disease (파킨슨병 환자의 음향 모음 공간 파라미터 비교)

  • Kang, Young-Ae;Yoon, Kyu-Chul;Lee, Hak-Seung;Seong, Cheol-Jae
    • Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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    • v.2 no.4
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    • pp.185-192
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    • 2010
  • The acoustic vowel space has been used as an acoustic parameter in dysarthric speech. The aim of this work was to examine mathematical formulae for acoustic vowel space and to apply these to Korean speakers with idiopathic Parkinson's disease(IPD). Five acoustic parameters were chosen from earlier works and one new parameter was proposed, the pentagonal vowel space. The six parameters included triangular vowel space (3 area), irregular quadrilateral vowel space (4 area), irregular pentagonal vowel space (5 area), vowel articulatory index (VAI), formant centralization ratio (FCR) and F2i/F1u ratio (F2 ratio). An experimental group of 32 IPD patients(male:female=16:16) and a control group of twenty healthy people (male:female=8:12) participated in the study and repeated vowels (/a-i-u-e-o/) three times. A correlation analysis was performed among the six parameters, 2-way ANOVA was done with gender and groups as independent factors, and an independent sample t-test was conducted between the male and the female group as post hoc comparison. All parameters were highly correlated with each other and only the FCR showed a high negative correlation with the others. The results of ANOVA showed a significant difference in F2 ratio, 3 area, 4 area and 5 area between gender and in 4 area and 5 area between groups. For the male members of the two groups, significant statistical differences were found in all parameters whereas no such differences were found for the female members. These findings indicated that the vowel space of the female group was wider than the vowel space of the male group. These differences may have been caused by gender-specific speech styles rather than by patho-physiological mechanisms. We also claim that the pentagonal vowel space is better than the other vowel spaces at representing the disordered speech in natural speech situations.

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An Evaluation of Effectiveness of Scalp Acupuncture on Post-stroke Dysarthria Group through Graphed Vowel Space (두침치료를 시행한 중추성 마비 말장애(Dysarthria) 환자의 모음 공간 평가)

  • Shin, Yoo-Jeong;Park, Jong-Hyuck;Baek, Kyung-Min;Chang, Woo-Seok;Choi, Yang-Kyu
    • The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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    • v.29 no.2
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    • pp.413-420
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    • 2008
  • Objective : To investigate the therapeutic effect of scalp acupuncture on dysarthria after stroke. Methods : A-B model in single subject research. The experimental group of 7 members received scalp acupuncture and the control group of 5 nothing for dysarthria itself. Five single vowels were recorded by voice recorder and measured for 1st & 2nd formant. By the formants, a vowel space was made according to each one of the patients. Praat program was used for evaluation. Results : 4 cases in the experimental group showed significant change and just 1 case of the none-operated group got better. Conclusion : In this study, it's proven that acupuncture treatment might have positive efficacy on dysarthria cases. At this moment, more clinical reports are needed for objective oriental medical study.

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Correlation Analysis of Between Paranasal Sinuses and Formant Frequency According to External Stimulation (외부 자극에 따른 부비동과 포먼트주파수와의 상관성 분석)

  • Kim, Bong-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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    • v.17 no.8
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    • pp.1955-1961
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    • 2013
  • Paranasal sinuses of the empty space is filled with air that exists in the bones in the face. However, the pus becomes inflamed paranasal sinuses sinusitis onset brings the voice of change, and complained of headaches and lethargy. Therefore, in this paper, paranasal sinuses related diseases to predict voice analysis parameter as measured by changes in paranasal sinuses through external stimuli is investigated and carried out a study to analysis the function consisting of the frontal sinus, ethmoid sinus, maxillary sinus, sphenoid sinus. From this, cold pack stimulation in the paranasal sinus area for stimulation before and after voice was performed by measuring formant frequency and external stimuli through correlation analysis of the mutual impact on paranasal sinuses were analyzed.