• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.97-108
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• 2019

An automated Praat script was implemented to measure optimal formant frequencies for adults. Optimal formant analysis could be interpreted to show that the deviation of formant frequency that resulted from the two variously combined setting parameters (maximum formant and number of formants) was minimal. To increase the reliability of formant analysis, LPC order should be set differently, based on the gender or vowel type. Praat recommends 5,000 Hz and 5,500 Hz as maximum formant settings and, at the same time, recommends 5 as the number of formants for males and females. However, verification is needed to determine whether these recommended settings are valid for Korean vowels. Statistical analysis showed that formant frequencies significantly varied across the adapted scripts, especially with respect to the data on females. Formant plots and statistical results showed that linear_script and qtone_script are much more reliable in formant measurements. Among four kinds of scripts, the linear and qtone_scripts proved to be more stable and reliable. While the linear_script was designed to have a linearly increased formant step in for-loop, the increment of formant step in the qtone_script was arranged by quarter tone scale (base frequency×common ratio ($\sqrt[24]{2}$)). When looking at the tendency of the formant setting drawn by the two referred algorithms in the context of front vowel [i, e], the maximum formant was set higher; and the number of formants set at a lower value than recommended by Praat. The back vowel [o, u], on the contrary, has a lower maximum formant and a higher number of formants than the standard setting.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.29-47
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to show how to convert the label files of the Buckeye Corpus of Spontaneous Speech [1] into Praat format and to introduce some of the Praat scripts that will enable linguists to study various aspects of spoken American English present in the corpus. During the conversion process, several types of errors were identified and corrected either manually or automatically by the use of scripts. The Praat script tools that have been developed can help extract from the corpus massive amounts of phonetic measures such as the VOT of plosives, the formants of vowels, word frequency information and speech rates that span several consecutive words. The script tools can extract additional information concerning the phonetic environment of the target words or allophones.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

This study introduces an automated Praat script allowing optimal formant analysis for children's vowels. Using Burg's algorithm in Praat, formants can be extracted by setting the maximum formant value and the number of formants. The optimal formant setting was determined by identifying the two conditions, F1 and F2, with minimum standard deviations. When applying the optimal formant setting determined by the script, the results of normality tests were not significant among all vowels except /e/ for the maximum formant value, and among the vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /ʌ/ for the number of formants. This indicates that when analyzing the formants of children's vowel sounds, the unilateral application of a parameter setting (the maximum formant value and the number of formants) to all vowels is problematic. The performance of the optimal formant setting script was evaluated along with 3 different algorithm in order to determine whether it properly extracts formants for children's vowels. To this end, Korean monophghongs of 6-year-old children were collected and the Praat scripts were applied to the data. Resultant Formant plots and statistical analysis showed that optimum_script and qtone_script, which links to the perceptual unit, performed very well in formant extraction compared to the remaining 2 scripts.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.91-97
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• 2024

The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Acoustic Voice Tremor index (AVTI) for the acoustic measurement of voice tremor. A total of 71 normal adults and 41 patients with voice tremor participated in the study. Vowels /a/ were recorded for at least five seconds. Three seconds of vowel stable duration were edited to identify measures of 18 variables related to voice tremor using a Praat script. These variables and the overall severity (OS) of auditory-perceptual assessment were used to design the AVTI using linear regression analysis. The linear regression analysis identified four out of the 18 variables as significant, and a regression equation was constructed. Furthermore, internal and external validity studies demonstrated high correlations, with an average of over 0.8. The AVTI demonstrated a high correlation of 0.841 with OS. The AVTI was found to be capable of predicting voice tremor. Further studies should include a larger number of voice samples and a complementary Praat script for further analysis.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.131-138
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• 2016

This study analyzes the characteristics of good impression using speech manipulation scripts and investigates the characteristics of preferred speech voice. Fourty male and female college students participated in this study. They have been exposed to the Gyeongsang dialect spoken by their friends and family for more than 15 years. Two sample voices(1 male and 1 female), considered as giving good impression, were subject to voice analysis. Two students were asked to read the sample paragraph of 'Walking' and their voice samples were analyzed through Praat. The collected speech data were manipulated into 4 different sets by changing pitch level, degree of loudness and speech rate. First, both men and women received good impression more from pitch-lowered sound than from the original one. Second, men tended to receive good impression more from slightly louder voice than from the natural-pitched one. Third, it was shown that men often felt more drowned to a voice at slightly faster speech rate than at the original speech rate. Overall, both male and female listeners favored lower pitch over the original pitch. Men tended to prefer louder voice sound while women preferred less loud one. Men received better impression at a lower speech rate but women at a faster speech rate.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.45-53
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• 2019

The purpose of this work was to examine the factors affecting the identities of the voiceless plosives, i.e. English [p, t, k] and Korean [p^h, t^h, k^h], from the spontaneous speech corpora. The factors were automatically extracted by a Praat script and the percent correctness of the discriminant analyses was incrementally assessed by increasing the number of factors used in predicting the identities of the plosives. The factors included the spectral moments and tilts of the plosive release bursts, the post-burst aspirations and the vowel onsets, the durations such as the closure durations and the voice onset times (VOTs), the locations within words and utterances and the identities of the following vowels. The results showed that as the number of factors increased up to five, so did the percent correctness of the analyses, resulting in 74.6% for English and 66.4% for Korean. However, the optimal number of factors for the maximum percent correctness was four, i.e. the spectral moments and tilts of the release bursts and the following vowels, the closure durations and the VOTs. This suggests that the identities of the voiceless plosives are mostly determined by their internal and vowel onset cues.