Pitch effects on vowel roughness and spectral noise for subjects in four musical voice classifications. 1991

R A Newman, and F W Emanuel
Department of Communication, University of South Dakota, Vermillion 57069.

This study was designed to investigate the effects of vocal fo on vowel spectral noise level (SNL) and perceived vowel roughness for subjects in high- and low-pitch voice categories. The subjects were 40 adult singers (10 each sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses). Each produced the vowel /a/ in isolation at a comfortable speaking pitch, and at each of seven assigned pitches spaced at whole-tone intervals over a musical octave within his or her singing pitch range. The eight /a/ productions were repeated by each subject on a second test day. The SNL differences between repeated test samples (different days) were not statistically significant for any subject group. For the vowel samples produced at a comfortable pitch, a relatively large SNL was associated with samples phonated by the subjects of each sex who manifested the relatively low singing pitch range. Regarding the vowel samples produced at the assigned-pitch levels, it was found that both vowel SNL and perceived vowel roughness decreased as test-pitch level was raised over a range of one octave. The relationship between vocal pitch and either vowel roughness or SNL approached linearity for each of the four subject groups.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008297 Male Males
D009146 Music Sound that expresses emotion through rhythm, melody, and harmony. Classical Music,Hip Hop Music,Jazz Music,Rap Music,Rock and Roll Music,Songs,Vocal Melody,Hop Music, Hip,Melodies, Vocal,Melody, Vocal,Music, Classical,Music, Hip Hop,Music, Jazz,Music, Rap,Song,Vocal Melodies
D010700 Phonetics The science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed) Speech Sounds,Sound, Speech,Sounds, Speech,Speech Sound
D005260 Female Females
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000162 Acoustics The branch of physics that deals with sound and sound waves. In medicine it is often applied in procedures in speech and hearing studies. With regard to the environment, it refers to the characteristics of a room, auditorium, theatre, building, etc. that determines the audibility or fidelity of sounds in it. (From Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed) Acoustic
D000328 Adult A person having attained full growth or maturity. Adults are of 19 through 44 years of age. For a person between 19 and 24 years of age, YOUNG ADULT is available. Adults
D000704 Analysis of Variance A statistical technique that isolates and assesses the contributions of categorical independent variables to variation in the mean of a continuous dependent variable. ANOVA,Analysis, Variance,Variance Analysis,Analyses, Variance,Variance Analyses
D013018 Sound Spectrography The graphic registration of the frequency and intensity of sounds, such as speech, infant crying, and animal vocalizations. Sonography, Speech,Sonography, Sound,Speech Sonography,Sonographies, Sound,Sound Sonographies,Sound Sonography,Spectrography, Sound
D016018 Least-Squares Analysis A principle of estimation in which the estimates of a set of parameters in a statistical model are those quantities minimizing the sum of squared differences between the observed values of a dependent variable and the values predicted by the model. Rietveld Refinement,Analysis, Least-Squares,Least Squares,Analyses, Least-Squares,Analysis, Least Squares,Least Squares Analysis,Least-Squares Analyses,Refinement, Rietveld

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