• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.17-25
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• 2023

This study examines the fundamental frequency(f0) distribution of 2,740 Korean speakers in a dialogue speech corpus. Praat and R were used for the collection and analysis of acoustical f0 data after removing extreme values considering the interquartile f0 range of the intonational phrases produced by each individual speaker. Results showed that the average f0 value of all speakers was 185 Hz and the median value was 187 Hz. The f0 data showed a positively skewed distribution of 0.11, and the kurtosis was -0.09, which is close to the normal distribution. The pitch values of daily conversations varied in the range of 238 Hz. Further examination of the male and female groups showed distinct median f0 values: 114 Hz for males and 199 Hz for females. A t-test between the two groups yielded a significant difference. The skewness representing the distribution shape was 1.24 for the male group and 0.58 for the female group. The kurtosis was 5.21 and 3.88 for the male and female groups, and the male group values appeared leptokurtic. A regression analysis between the median f0 and age yielded a slope of 0.15 for the male group and -0.586 for the female group, which indicated a divergent relationship. In conclusion, a normative f0 distribution of different Korean age and sex groups can be examined in the conversational speech corpus recorded by a massive number of participants. However, more rigorous data might be required to define a relation between age and f0 values.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2024

The fundamental frequency (f0), representing an acoustic measure of vocal fold vibration, serves as an indicator of the speaker's emotional state and language-specific pattern in daily conversations. This study aimed to examine the f0 distribution in an English corpus of spontaneous speech, establishing normative data for American speakers. The corpus involved 40 participants engaging in free discussions on daily activities and personal viewpoints. Using Praat, f0 values were collected filtering outliers after removing nonspeech sounds and interviewer voices. Statistical analyses were performed with R. Results indicated a median f0 value of 145 Hz for all the speakers. The f0 values for all speakers exhibited a right-skewed, pointy distribution within a frequency range of 216 Hz from 75 Hz to 339 Hz. The female f0 range was wider than that of males, with a median of 113 Hz for males and 181 Hz for females. This spontaneous speech corpus provides valuable insights for linguists into f0 variation among individuals or groups in a language. Further research is encouraged to develop analytical and statistical measures for establishing reliable f0 standards for the general population.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.31-37
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• 2021

The fundamental frequency, or f0, is an important acoustic measure in the prosody of human speech. The current study examined the f0 distribution of a corpus of spontaneous speech in order to provide normative data for Korean speakers. The corpus consists of 40 speakers talking freely about their daily activities and their personal views. Praat scripts were created to collect f0 values, and a majority of obvious errors were corrected manually by watching and listening to the f0 contour on a narrow-band spectrogram. Statistical analyses of the f0 distribution were conducted using R. The results showed that the f0 values of all the Korean speakers were right-skewed, with a pointy distribution. The speakers produced spontaneous speech within a frequency range of 274 Hz (from 65 Hz to 339 Hz), excluding statistical outliers. The mode of the total f0 data was 102 Hz. The female f0 range, with a bimodal distribution, appeared wider than that of the male group. Regression analyses based on age and f0 values yielded negligible R-squared values. As the mode of an individual speaker could be predicted from the median, either the median or mode could serve as a good reference for the individual f0 range. Finally, an analysis of the continuous f0 points of intonational phrases revealed that the initial and final segments of the phrases yielded several f0 measurement errors. From these results, we conclude that an examination of a spontaneous speech corpus can provide linguists with useful measures to generalize acoustic properties of f0 variability in a language by an individual or groups. Further studies would be desirable of the use of statistical measures to secure reliable f0 values of individual speakers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.458-465
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• 2010

Hundreds of Steller sea lions, Eumetopias jubatus, migrate from Sakhalin and the northern Kuril Islands to Hokkaido every winter. During this migration, they may use their roaring sounds to navigate and to maintain their groups. We recorded the roars of wild Steller sea lions that had landed on reefs on the west coast of Hokkaido, and those of captive sea lions, while making video recordings. A total of 300 roars of wild sea lions and 870 roars of captive sea lions were sampled. The fundamental frequency ($F_0$), formant frequency ($F_1$), pulse repetition rate (PRR), and duration of syllables (T) were analyzed using a sonagraph. $F_0$, $F_1$, and PRR of the roars emitted by captive sea lions increased in the order male, female, and juvenile. By contrast, the $F_1$ of wild males was lower than that of females, while the $F_0$ and PRR of wild males and females did not differ statistically. Moreover, the $F_0$ and $F_1$ frequencies for captive sea lions were higher than those of wild sea lions, while PRR in captive sea lions was lower than in wild sea lions. Since there was a linear relationship between body length and the $F_0$ and $F_1$ frequencies in captive sea lions, the body length distribution of wild sea lions could be estimated from the $F_0$ and $F_1$ frequency distribution using a regression equation. These results roughly agree with the body length distribution derived from photographic geometry. As the volume of the oral cavity and the length of the vocal cords are generally proportional to body length, sampled roars can provide useful information about a population, such as the body length distribution and sex ratio.

• MALSORI
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• no.66
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• pp.1-20
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of fundamental frequency(F0) and amplitude distributions in persons with cerebral palsy(CP) in the reading task. Participants were divided into three groups: 6 persons with spastic CP, 6 persons with athetoid CP and 6 normal persons who are around 15-20 years old. On the results of this study, firstly, in F0 distributions, most of the spastic CPs tended to appear narrow distributions on the basis of mode, but most of the athetoid CPs were opposite, and both of the CP groups tended to distribute highly on lower and higher frequencies than mean and mode. On the other hand, normal persons had a tendency to appear narrow distributions on the basis of mode. Finally, in amplitude distributions, the spastic CPs showed a tendency that there are little differences between the distribution of mode and the others, and most of the athetoid CPs showed a tendency that the distributions of mode were higher than the others. In addition to, the normal persons had a tendency that the distributions of mode were remarkably higher than both of the CP groups.