• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.83-88
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• 2019

Background and Objectives: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a disorder that usually occurs in the elderly, leading to dementia in some progressive cases. The purpose of this study is to examine the utility of central auditory processing tests as early diagnostic tools for identifying the elderly with MCI. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted on 20 elderly patients with MCI and 20 healthy matched peers. The speech perception ability in a quiet environment and in the presence of background noise and also temporal resolution were assessed by using Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) and Gap in Noise (GIN) tests, respectively. Results: The results indicated that the ability to understand speech in a quiet environment did not differ significantly between the two groups. However, SPIN at the three signal-to-noise ratios and the temporal resolution scores were significantly different between the two groups (p<0.001). Conclusions: Individuals with MCI appear to have poorer speech comprehension in noise and a lower temporal resolution than those of the same age, but without cognitive defects. Considering the utility of these tests in identifying cognitive problems, we propose that since the GIN test seems to be less influenced by intervening factors, this test can therefore, be a useful tool for the early screening of elderly people with cognitive problems.

• 대한청각학회지
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• 제23권1호
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• pp.1-7
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• 2019

Self-reported difficulties in speech-in-noise (SiN) recognition are common among tinnitus patients. Whereas hearing impairment that usually co-occurs with tinnitus can explain such difficulties, recent studies suggest that tinnitus patients with normal hearing sensitivity still show decreased SiN understanding, indicating that SiN difficulties cannot be solely attributed to changes in hearing sensitivity. In fact, cognitive control, which refers to a variety of top-down processes that human beings use to complete their daily tasks, has been shown to be critical for SiN recognition, as well as the key to understand cognitive inefficiencies caused by tinnitus. In this article, we review studies investigating the association between tinnitus and cognitive control using behavioral and brain imaging assessments, as well as those examining the effect of tinnitus on SiN recognition. In addition, three factors that can affect cognitive control in tinnitus patients, including hearing sensitivity, age, and severity of tinnitus, are discussed to elucidate the association among tinnitus, cognitive control, and SiN recognition. Although a possible central or cognitive involvement has always been postulated in the observed SiN impairments in tinnitus patients, there is as yet no direct evidence to underpin this assumption, as few studies have addressed both SiN performance and cognitive control in one tinnitus cohort. Future studies should aim at incorporating SiN tests with various subjective and objective methods that evaluate cognitive performance to better understand the relationship between SiN difficulties and cognitive control in tinnitus patients.

• 대한청각학회지
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.83-88
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• 2019

Background and Objectives: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a disorder that usually occurs in the elderly, leading to dementia in some progressive cases. The purpose of this study is to examine the utility of central auditory processing tests as early diagnostic tools for identifying the elderly with MCI. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted on 20 elderly patients with MCI and 20 healthy matched peers. The speech perception ability in a quiet environment and in the presence of background noise and also temporal resolution were assessed by using Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) and Gap in Noise (GIN) tests, respectively. Results: The results indicated that the ability to understand speech in a quiet environment did not differ significantly between the two groups. However, SPIN at the three signal-to-noise ratios and the temporal resolution scores were significantly different between the two groups (p<0.001). Conclusions: Individuals with MCI appear to have poorer speech comprehension in noise and a lower temporal resolution than those of the same age, but without cognitive defects. Considering the utility of these tests in identifying cognitive problems, we propose that since the GIN test seems to be less influenced by intervening factors, this test can therefore, be a useful tool for the early screening of elderly people with cognitive problems.

• 대한음성학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한음성학회 1996년도 10월 학술대회지
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• pp.554-559
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• 1996

An utterance is normally divided into two or more intonation groups. Bach intonation group has its intonation pattern. Pitch movement of Spanish utterance is basically determined by a combination of two factors: position of the stressed syllables and the intonation pattern. The pitch of a syllable can be affected by that of preceding syllables. This is rather a physiological effect than a phonological one.

• 대한후두음성언어의학회지
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.18-26
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• 1997

There are two types of phonetic study, acoustic and physiologic, for differentiating the three manner categories of Korean stop consonants. On the physiologic studies, there are endoscopic, electromyographic(EMG), electroglottographic(EGG) and aerodynamic studies. In this study, I tried to investigate general features of Korean stops using EGG study for the open quotient of vocal fold and baseline shift during speech, and aerodynamic characteristics for e subglottal air pressure, air flow and glottal resistance at consonants. On the aerodynamic study, the glottalized and aspirated stops may be characterized by e increasing subglottal pressure comparing with lenis stop at consonants. The airflow is largest in the aspirated stops followed by lenis stops and glottalized. The glottal airway resistance (GAR) showed highest in the glottalized followed by the lenis, but lowest in e aspirated during e production of consonants, and showed highest in e aspirated, but low in the glottalized and lenis during the production of vowel. The glottal resistance at consonant showed significant difference among consonants and significant interaction between subject and types of consonant. The glottal resistance at vowel showed significant difference among consonants, and e interaction occured between subject and types of consonant. The electroglottography(EGG) has been used for investigating e functioning of e vocal folds during its vibration. The EGG should be related to the patterns of the vocal fold vibration during phonation in characterizing the temporal patterns of each vibratory cycle. The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic change of EGG waveforms during continuous speech. The dynamic changes of EGG waveforms fir the three-way distinction of Korean stops were characterized that the aspirated stop appears to be characterized by largest open quotient and smallest glottal contact area of the vocal folds in e initial portion of vocal fold vibration ; the lenis stop by moderate open quotient and glottal contact area ; but the glottalized stop by smallest open quotient and largest glottal contact area. There may be close relationship between the OQ(open quotient) in the initial voice onset and the glottal width at the time of consonant production, the larger glottal width just before vocal fold vibration results in the smaller OQ of the vocal fold vibration in the initial voice onset. The EGG changes of baseline shift during continuous speech production were characterized by the different patterns for the three types of Korean consonants. The small and less stiffness change of baseline shift was found for the lenis and the glottalized, and the largest and stiffest change was found for the aspirated. On the baseline shift for the initial voice onset, they showed so similar patterns with for the consonant production, larger changed in the aspirated. for the lenis and the glottalized during the initial voice onset, three subjects showed individual difference each other. I suggest at s characteristics were strongly related with articulatory activity of vocal tract for the production of consonant, especially for the aspirated stop. The suspecting factors to affect EGG waveforms are glottal width, vertical laryngeal movement and the intrapharyngeal pressure to neighboring tissue during connected spech. So the EGG may be an useful method to describe laryngeal activity to classify pulsing conditions of the larynx during speech production, and EGG research can be controls for monitoring the vocal tract articulation, although above factors to affect EGG would have played such a potentially role on vocal fold vibratory behavior obtained using consonant production.

• 대한후두음성언어의학회지
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.35-39
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• 2016

Background and Objectives : Voice therapy is proven to be effective, but patients are reluctant to receive the therapy when physicians recommend it. This phenomenon may due to patients'lack of trust in or low satisfaction level of the therapy. This study aimed to evaluate patients'satisfaction level after voice therapy and identify factors that could increase the satisfaction. Materials and Methods : First, the fraction of patients who were recommended voice therapy ahead and completed it was studied, and survey was conducted on those who finished ten voice therapy sessions. The patients'1) satisfaction level during the therapy, 2) satisfaction level about physician's explanation about the therapy, 3) willingness to recommend, 4) satisfaction level about the results were assessed, and was correlated with overall satisfaction level. In each category, patients' gender-, age-, and disease type-related differences were analyzed. Results : Patients under 19 years old were most satisfied during the voice therapy; patients above 40 years old showed statistically significantly higher satisfaction level regarding satisfaction with physician explanation about treatments and with treatment results compared to other ages groups. Patients above 40 also showed the highest willingness to recommend. 26.5% of patients either refused to or discontinued voice therapy. 84.3% were satisfied with treatment results. Considering variabilities among factors, patients'satisfaction with physician explanation about treatment and willingness to recommend had positive correlation. Conclusion : Though 26.3% of patients received voice therapy when physicians recommended, patients who completed the therapy were overall satisfied.

• 음성과학
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.161-172
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• 2001

Ankyloglossia (tongue-tie) limits movement of the tongue connected with feeding and has adverse impacts on both dental health and speech. For the patients with ankyloglossia, surgical intervention is recommended as primary treatment. This study suggests the efficient tool in determining indicatory factors for frenulotomy by quantifying Maximum Lingual Length-Protrusion (MLL-P) with boley gauge, and as a preliminary study, to show the measurement results with normal children using the tool. The subjects were 61 normal children, and the distance (MLL-P) between mandibular central incisor and tongue tip during tongue protrusion was measured with a boley gauge (Digimatic $Caliper^{(R)}$). The results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The mean value of MLL-P (N=61 normal children) was 21.44 mm, (2) The mean value of MLL-P was 20.69 mm in males (N=33) and 21.91 mm in females (N=28). There was no statistically significant difference between males and females, (3) The mean value of MLL-P was 19.34 mm, 21.19 mm, 22.33 mm, 22.61 mm for measurement of 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-year-old children, respectively, and (4) The mean value of MLL-P showed statistically significant difference between 3- and 5-year-old children, between 3- and 6-year old children.

• 음성과학
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.53-64
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• 2007

This paper attempts to verify the theoretical claims in Syntax ($Bo{\check{s}}kovi{\acute{c}}$ & Lasnik, 2003; Kim, 1999, 2004) about the phrasing in English that-clauses, presenting an acoustic experiment conducted to observe the patterns of edge tones at the boundaries of that. In the experiment, two different that clauses, complement and relative clauses, were varied in forms (that-retention, that-deletion, adverb insertion before that) and length. Results showed that edge tones, if occurred, mostly showed up before the complement clauses in that-deletion sentences (67%), and that their positions polarized in adverb insertion sentences (56% before toot and 44% after toot). In the relative clauses, phrasing mostly occurred before toot as opposed to after toot in that-retention (73%) and adverb insertion sentences (87%). Additionally, phrasing tends to occur more frequently as the sentences get longer. The results suggest that the previous claims based on syntax are not consistent with the results of the current phonetic experiment. This may be interpreted as stating that syntactic boundaries do not always indicate phonetic phrasing, and that there may be some other factors to determine phrasing patterns, for example, rhythmic phrasing operating at the surface level of speech.

• 한국음향학회지
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• 제32권6호
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• pp.541-547
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• 2013

두세 명 혹은 그 이상의 참가자간사이의 다자간통화 시 음량불균형, 음량포화, 잡음레벨상승으로 인해서 음질 저하가 발생한다. 이 문제를 해결하기 위해서 본 논문은 소프트웨어 기반의 다지점제어장치를 위한 향상된 오디오 믹싱 알고리즘을 제안한다. 제안된 방식은 음성구간검출과 게인콘트롤이 결합된 기술로서 음성신호 분류, 음량 추정, 게인값 적용, 모든 채널의 음성신호를 믹싱하는 알고리즘들로 구성되어 있다. 제안된 오디오 믹싱 알고리즘은 효율적인 연산과 고품질의 음성을 제공하며, 실질적인 다자간 음성 통화에 적합하다.

• 말소리와 음성과학
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.37-44
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• 2015

This study investigated the effects of the age of Korean speakers, place of articulation, and phonation types on voice onset time (VOT) of stops. Twenty-five preschoolers, 25 schoolers, and 25 adults who had no history of speech and language impairment produced plosives in /VCV/ words in isolation. A three-way ($3{\times}3{\times}3$) mixed design was used with the age of speakers (preschoolers, schoolers, adults) as a between-subject factor, the place of articulation (bilabials, alveolars, velars) and phonation types (plain, tense, aspirated consonants) as a within-subject factor. The dependent measure was the VOT values. Results revealed that three main effects were statistically significant. Preschoolers exhibited longer VOTs than adults (p<.05). There were significant differences in VOTs among the place of articulation, showing that speakers had the longest VOTs for velars (velars > alvelars > bilabials) (all p<.05). In addition, the VOTs for aspirated consonants were longer than those for plain and tense consonants, and the differences were significant among three phonation types (aspirated > tense > plain) (all p<.05). The current results suggested that VOTs would be linked to age and development, and schoolers over the age of 11 years had achieved adult-like VOTs. Moreover, the place of articulation and phonation types in Korean stops showed marked factors in normal speakers' VOT patterns.