Auditory feedback control of vocal pitch during sustained vocalization: a cross-sectional study of adult aging (original) (raw)
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Age-related differences in vocal responses to pitch feedback perturbations: A preliminary study
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2010
The present study tested the effect of age on voice fundamental frequency ͑F 0 ͒ responses to pitch-shifted feedback. Pitch-shift stimuli ͑Ϫ100 cents, 200 ms duration͒ were presented to 30 native-English speakers: 10 children ͑7-12 yrs͒, 10 younger adults ͑19-21 yrs͒, and 10 older adults ͑60-73 yrs͒. Significantly larger response magnitudes were found in the older group compared to the children and young adult groups, while the longest latencies were associated with the children group as compared to the two adult groups. These findings provide preliminary evidence of an age effect on the modulation of vocal responses to pitch-shifted feedback.
Effects of Aging on Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Vowel Formants in Men and Women
Journal of Voice, 2017
Purpose-This study reports data on vocal fundamental frequency (f o) and the first four formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3, F4) for four vowels produced by speakers in 3 adult-age cohorts, in a test of the null hypothesis that there are no age-related changes in these variables. Participants were 43 men and 53 women between the ages of twenty to ninety-two years. Results-The most consistent age-related effect was a decrease in f o for women. Significant differences in F1, F2, and F3 were vowel-specific for both sexes. No significant differences were observed for the highest formant F4. Conclusions-Women experience a significant decrease in f o , which is likely related to menopause. Formant frequencies of the corner vowels change little across several decades of adult life, either because physiological aging has small effects on these variables or because individuals compensate for age-related changes in anatomy and physiology.
Title Page Effects of Aging on Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Vowel Formants in Men and Women
2017
Purpose: This study reports data on vocal fundamental frequency (fo) and the first four formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3, F4) for four vowels produced by speakers in 3 adult-age cohorts, in a test of the null hypothesis that there are no age-related changes in these variables. Participants were 43 men and 53 women between the ages of twenty to ninety-two years. Results: The most consistent age-related effect was a decrease in fo for women. Significant differences in F1, F2, and F3 were vowel-specific for both sexes. No significant differences were observed for the highest formant F4. Conclusions: Women experience a significant decrease in fo, which is likely related to menopause. Formant frequencies of the corner vowels change little across several decades of adult life, either because
Voice Pitch Elicited Frequency Following Response in Chinese Elderlies
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 2016
Background: Perceptual and electrophysiological studies have found reduced speech discrimination in quiet and noisy environment, delayed neural timing, decreased neural synchrony, and decreased temporal processing ability in elderlies, even those with normal hearing. However, recent studies have also demonstrated that language experience and auditory training enhance the temporal dynamics of sound encoding in the auditory brainstem response (ABR). The purpose of this study was to explore the pitch processing ability at the brainstem level in an aging population that has a tonal language background. Method: Mandarin speaking younger (n = 12) and older (n = 12) adults were recruited for this study. All participants had normal audiometric test results and normal suprathreshold click-evoked ABR. To record frequency following responses (FFRs) elicited by Mandarin lexical tones, two Mandarin Chinese syllables with different fundamental frequency pitch contours (Flat Tone and Falling Tone) were presented at 70 dB SPL. Fundamental frequencies (f0) of both the stimulus and the responses were extracted and compared to individual brainstem responses. Two indices were used to examine different aspects of pitch processing ability at the brainstem level: Pitch Strength and Pitch Correlation. Results: Lexical tone elicited FFR were overall weaker in the older adult group compared to their younger adult counterpart. Measured by Pitch Strength and Pitch Correlation, statistically significant group differences were only found when the tone with a falling f0 (Falling Tone) were used as the stimulus. Conclusion: Results of this study demonstrated that in a tonal language speaking population, pitch processing ability at the brainstem level of older adults are not as strong and robust as their younger counterparts. Findings of this study are consistent with previous reports on brainstem responses of older adults whose native language is English. On the other hand, lexical tone elicited FFRs have been shown to correlate with the length of language exposure. Older adults' degraded responses in our study may also be due to that, the Mandarin speaking older adults' long term exposure somewhat counteracted the negative impact on aging and helped maintain, or at least reduced, the degradation rate in their temporal processing capacity at the brainstem level.
Effects of Vocal Aging on Fundamental Frequency and Formants
In this paper we study changes of the articulatory organs from young adulthood to old age. In particular, we focus on how the larynx and vocal folds age along with the rest of the body. The objective of the paper is to automatically compute the effects of vocal aging on fundamental frequency and the formants.
Noise and Tremor in the Perception of Vocal Aging in Males
Journal of Voice, 2010
To specify a set of acoustic cues for vocal aging and to establish their perceptual relevance. Study Design. Perceptual testing. Methods. To identify the acoustic and perceptual correlates of the aging voice, voice quality [in conjunction with speaking rate and fundamental frequency (F 0)] was systematically manipulated using resynthesis to determine its effect on perceived age. Ten young male voices were resynthesized using two levels of noise (random modulation of F 0 contour) and two levels of tremor (constant modulation of F 0 contour with a low-amplitude wave) under a speaking-rate manipulation (an increase in speaking rate that is common to older male voices). These materials were submitted to 40 naive listeners in an age-estimation task. Two sets of comparison materials were also included for evaluation: unmanipulated samples from a 150 voice database of young, middle-aged, and older voices and disordered voice samples representing natural manifestations of the voice qualities of interest. Results. Speaking rate, highest degree of tremor, and highest degree of noise all shifted, in an additive manner, the mean perceived age of the young male voices by a maximum of 12 years on average; individual voices were observed being shifted by a generation. Fundamental frequency manipulations had no significant effect on perceived age. Conclusions. Voice quality (both tremor and noise) and speaking rate are all perceptually relevant cues of age in male voices.
Vocal aging effects on F0 and the first formant: A longitudinal analysis in adult speakers
Speech Communication, 2010
This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of the extent to which age affects F 0 and formant frequencies. Five speakers at two time intervals showed a clear effect for F 0 and F 1 but no systematic effects for F 2 or F 3. In two speakers for which recordings were available in successive years over a 50 year period, results showed with increasing age a decrease in both F 0 and F 1 for a female speaker and a Vshaped pattern, i.e. a decrease followed by an increase in both F 0 and F 1 for a male speaker. This analysis also provided strong evidence that F 1 approximately tracked F 0 across the years: i.e., the rate of change of (the logarithm of) F 0 and F 1 were generally the same. We then also tested that the changes in F 1 were not an acoustic artifact of changing F 0. Perception experiments with the main aim of assessing whether changes in F 1 contributed to age judgments beyond those from F 0 showed that the contribution of F 1 was inconsistent and negligible. The general conclusion is that age-related changes in F 1 may be compensatory to offset a physiologically induced decline in F 0 and thereby maintain a relatively constant auditory distance between F 0 and F 1 .
An Acoustic Analysis on Voice Changes in Adults and Geriatrics
https://www.ijhsr.org/IJHSR\_Vol.13\_Issue.5\_May2023/IJHSR-Abstract13.html, 2023
Objective: This study has established the acoustic analyses on adults and geriatrics in both male and female populations. And to compare the acoustic analyses of both male and female populations Method: Participants were 118 male and female between the age range of 30-60 years, without the signs and symptoms of vocal problems; Praat (6.1.16 version); Vowels /a/ /i/ and /u/. Result: There is no significant difference (p > 0.05) for fundamental frequency (F0), harmonic to noise ratio (HNR), Jitter and Shimmer across the selected age groups (30-39; 40-49; 50-60). Gender comparison of voice characteristics shows high significant difference (p< 0.01) in fundamental frequency (F0). Whereas no difference or change in the score were noted for harmonics to noise ratio, jitter and shimmer. Conclusion: This study, like other investigations, supports the assumption that the fundamental frequency of males increases with age. The female fundamental frequency decreases with age. The male and female voice have no significant difference among the chosen age group in statistical analysis.
Educational Gerontology, 2001
The study reported in this article attempted to obtain normative acoustic data of voice for elderly male and female speakers and to explore the educational implications of the effects of aging on those selected acoustic parameters. Voice samples from 21 male and 23 female elderly speakers aged 70 to 80 years were obtained on measures of 15 selected Multi-Dimensional Voice Program acoustic parameters. These data then were compared with the published norms for young and middle-aged adults. The results showed that, compared with young and middle-aged adults, elderly speakers had signi cantly different (usually poorer) vocal output on all of the selected acoustic parameters of voice. These ndings illustrate the importance of establishing acoustic norms and thresholds for elderly men and women and stress the necessity of using discretion in making dragnostic measurements of elderly speakers' acoustic parameters of voice. This article also highlights the educational implications of such aging voice changes.