engleski

Correlational study of young male adults' physical size and acoustic parameters of voice

For most of the people it makes sense to relate body size to voice, and particularly to the pitch of the voice. However, the question about their relationship is still unanswered. The purpose of this investigation was to shed some more light on correlation between physiological variables (age, body weight and height) and acoustic parameters of the voice - voice pitch (F0), harmonic-to-noise-ratio (HNR), jitter (JITT), voice intensity (SPL), and formant frequencies (F1-F5). Subjects for this study were 20 healthy young adult males. Their mean age was 23 years. Six were smokers and 14 were non-smokers. (This factor was controlled in correlation calculation.) The voices of the subjects were recorded in a quiet laboratory room. The phonation task was based on prolonged phonation of the vowel /a/ performed three times by each subject. The subjects' weights and heights were obtained prior to voice recordings. Acoustic parameters were analyzed using the PRAAT computer program, version 4.0.19. The partial correlation coefficients for all variables, controlling for the linear effect of smoking, indicated statistically significant correlations between some acoustic parameters themselves (F2-F3, F0-F4, JITT-HNR, F5-SPL), and between age and mean frequencies of the third formant, the fifth formant, and voice intensity respectively (AGE-F3, AGE-F5, AGE-SPL). Furthermore, significant correlation was found between body height and pitch of the voice (HEIGHT-F0). However, the latter coefficient, being positive, was more difficult to interpret. The current findings present the preliminary data of a larger project of that kind, so the results must be taken with caution.

Age; Body weight and height; F0; HNR; Jitter; Voice intensity; Formants (F1-F5)

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