Monitoring voice condition using smartphones

Firenze, ItalySmartphone mediated voice monitoring has the potential to support voice care by facilitating data collection, analysis and biofeedback. To field-test this approach we have developed a smartphone app that allows recording of voice samples alongside voice self-report data. Our longterm aim is convenient and accessible voice monitoring to prevent voice problems and disorders. Our current study focussed on the automatic detection of voice changes in healthy voices that result from common transient illnesses like colds. We have recorded a database of approximately 700 voice samples from 62 speakers and selected a subset of 225 voice samples from 8 speakers who had submitted at least 10 recordings and reported at least one instance of a moderate cold. We extracted 12 acoustic parameters and applied multivariate statistical process control procedures (Hotelling's T2) to detect whether instances of cold caused violations of distributional control limits. Results showed significant association between control limit violations and reporting of a cold. While there is scope for further improvement of sensitivity and specificity of the procedure, it could already support early detection of voice problems, especially if mediated by voice experts.http://www.fupress.comcaslpub4892pu

『日本語話し言葉コーパス』への声質情報付与と予備的分析

National Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics会議名: 言語資源活用ワークショップ2019, 開催地: 国立国語研究所, 会期: 2019年9月2日−4日, 主催: 国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター『日本語話し言葉コーパス』コア中の母音に、声質研究用に各種音響特徴量を付与する試みについて報告する。母音の無声化等によって測定不可能な母音を除いたすべての母音を対象に、F0, インテンシティ, F1, F2の平均値、jitter, shimmer, signal to noise ratio, H1*-H2*, H1*-A2, H1*-A3*等の声質関連情報、さらに発話中の位置に関するメタ情報などを付与し、RDBで検索可能とした。この情報の応用上の可能性を示すために、主要な音響特徴量が発話中の位置に応じてどのような変化を示すかを検討した。F0やインテンシティだけでなく、H1関連指標などにも発話末において一定の値に収束する傾向が認められた

Laryngeal contrasts in the Tai dialect of Cao Bằng

The Tai dialect spoken in Cao Bằng province, Vietnam, is at an intermediate stage between tonal register split and the accompanying transphonologization of a voicing contrast into a dual-register tone system. While the initial sonorants have completely lost their historical voicing distinction and developed a six-way tonal contrast, the obstruent series still preserves the original voicing contrast, leaving the tonal split incomplete. This paper presents the first acoustic study of tones and onsets in Cao Bằng Tai. Although f0, VOT, and voice quality were all found to play a role in the system of laryngeal contrasts, the three speakers considered varied in terms of the patterns of acoustic cues used to distinguish between onset types, particularly the breathy voiced onset //. From the diachronic perspective, our findings may help to explain why the reflex of modal pre-voiced stops (*b) can be either aspirated or unaspirated voiceless stops.</jats:p

Transphonologization of voicing in Chru:Studies in production and perception

Chru, a Chamic language of south-central Vietnam, has been described as combining contrastive obstruent voicing with incipient registral properties (Fuller, 1977). A production study reveals that obstruent voicing has already become optional and that the voicing contrast has been transphonologized into a register contrast based primarily on vowel height (F1). An identification study shows that perception roughly matches production in that F1 is the main perceptual cue associated with the contrast. Structured variation in production suggests a sound change still in progress: While younger speakers largely rely on vowel height to produce the register contrast, older male speakers maintain a variety of secondary properties, including optional closure voicing. Our results shed light on the initial stages of register formation and challenge the claim that register languages must go through a stage in which breathiness or aspiration is the primary contrastive property (Haudricourt, 1965; Wayland & Jongman, 2002; Thurgood, 2002). This article also complements several recent studies about the transphonologization of voicing in typologically diverse languages (Svantesson & House, 2006; Howe, 2017; Coetzee, Beddor, Shedden, Styler, & Wissing, 2018)

The production and perception of coronal fricatives in Seoul Korean: The case for a fourth laryngeal category

This article presents new data on the contrast between the two voiceless coronal fricatives of Korean, variously described as a lenis/fortis or aspirated/fortis contrast. In utterance-initial position, the fricatives were found to differ in centroid frequency; duration of frication, aspiration, and the following vowel; and several aspects of the following vowel onset, including intensity profile, spectral tilt, and F1 onset. The between-fricative differences varied across vowel contexts, however, and spectral differences in the vowel onset especially were more pronounced for /a/ than for /i, ɯ, u/. This disparity led to the hypothesis that cues in the following vowel onset would exert a weaker influence on perception for high vowels than for low vowels. Perception data provided general support for this hypothesis, indicating that while vowel onset cues had the largest impact on perception for both high- and low-vowel stimuli, this influence was weaker for high vowels. Perception was also strongly influenced by aspiration duration, with modest contributions from frication duration and f0 onset. Taken together, these findings suggest that the 'non-fortis' fricative is best characterized not in terms of the lenis or aspirated categories for stops, but in terms of a unique representation that is both lenis and aspirated

Acoustic correlates of word stress in American English

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-126).Acoustic parameters that differentiate between primary stress and non-primary full vowels were determined using two-syllable real and novel words and specially constructed novel words with identical syllable compositions. The location of the high focal pitch accent within a declarative carrier phrase was varied using an innovative object naming task that allowed for a natural and spontaneous manipulation of phrase-level accentuation. Results from male native speakers of American English show that when the high focal pitch accent was on the novel word, vowel differences in pitch, intensity prominence, and amplitude of the first harmonic, H1 * (corrected for the effect of the vocal tract filter), accurately distinguished full vowel syllables carrying primary stress vs. non-primary stress. Acoustic parameters that correlated to word stress under all conditions tested were syllable duration, HI*-A3*, as a measurement of spectral tilt, and noise at high frequencies, determined by band-pass filtering the F3 region of the spectrum. Furthermore, the results indicate that word stress cues are augmented when the high focal pitch accent is on the target word.(cont.) This became apparent after a formula was devised to correct for the masking effect of phrase-level accentuation on the spectral tilt measurement, Hi *-A3*. Perceptual experiments also show that male native speakers of American English utilized differences in syllable duration and spectral tilt, as controlled by the KLSYN88 parameters DU and TL, to assign prominence status to the syllables of a novel word embedded in a carrier phrase. Results from this study suggest that some correlates to word stress are produced in the laryngeal region and are due to vocal fold configuration. The model of word stress that emerges from this study has aspects that differ from other widely accepted models of prosody at the word level. The model can also be applied to improve the prosody of synthesized speech, as well as to improve machine recognition of speech.by Anthony O. Okobi.Ph.D