Aspects of voice irregularity measurement in connected speech

Applications of the use of connected speech material for the objective assessment of two primary physical aspects of voice quality are described and discussed. Simple auditory perceptual criteria are employed to guide the choice of analysis parameters for the physical correlate of pitch, and their utility is investigated by the measurement of the characteristics of particular examples of the normal-speaking voice. This approach is extended to the measurement of vocal fold contact phase control in connected speech and both techniques are applied to pathological voice data

Closing and opening phase variability in dysphonia

Four examples of the use of vocal fold contact phase measurement are discussed for unilateral paresis. In each case this aspect of voice quality is of greater importance than the physical measurement of loudness and pitch related parameters. For three of the cases electro-stimulation has been used as a main part of the treatment. Phonation in both connected speech and, for comparison, in sustained sound production has been used with electro-laryngograph / egg signals providing the basis for measurement. The main new descriptors that have been found to be useful relate to: vocal fold closure and closure duration regularities and distributions; but reference is also made to related measures of peak acoustic amplitude. The new measures described give, in some cases, quite striking results that are of auditory significance and potentially of clinical value

Contributions of temporal encodings of voicing, voicelessness, fundamental frequency, and amplitude variation to audiovisual and auditory speech perception

Auditory and audio-visual speech perception was investigated using auditory signals of invariant spectral envelope that temporally encoded the presence of voiced and voiceless excitation, variations in amplitude envelope and F-0. In experiment 1, the contribution of the timing of voicing was compared in consonant identification to the additional effects of variations in F-0 and the amplitude of voiced speech. In audio-visual conditions only, amplitude variation slightly increased accuracy globally and for manner features. F-0 variation slightly increased overall accuracy and manner perception in auditory and audio-visual conditions. Experiment 2 examined consonant information derived from the presence and amplitude variation of voiceless speech in addition to that from voicing, F-0, and voiced speech amplitude. Binary indication of voiceless excitation improved accuracy overall and for voicing and manner. The amplitude variation of voiceless speech produced only a small increment in place of articulation scores. A final experiment examined audio-visual sentence perception using encodings of voiceless excitation and amplitude variation added to a signal representing voicing and F-0. There was a contribution of amplitude variation to sentence perception, but not of voiceless excitation. The timing of voiced and voiceless excitation appears to be the major temporal cues to consonant identity. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(99)01410-1]

Accuracy and variability of acoustic measures of voicing onset

Five commonly used methods for determining the onset of voicing of syllable-initial stop consonants were compared. The speech and glottal activity of 16 native speakers of Cantonese with normal voice quality were investigated during the production of consonant vowel (CV) syllables in Cantonese. Syllables consisted of the initial consonants /ph/, /th/, /kh/, /p/, /t/, and /k/ followed by the vowel /a/. All syllables had a high level tone, and were all real words in Cantonese. Measurements of voicing onset were made based on the onset of periodicity in the acoustic waveform, and on spectrographic measures of the onset of a voicing bar (f0), the onset of the first formant (F1), second formant (F2), and third formant (F3). These measurements were then compared against the onset of glottal opening as determined by electroglottography. Both accuracy and variability of each measure were calculated. Results suggest that the presence of aspiration in a syllable decreased the accuracy and increased the variability of spectrogram-based measurements, but did not strongly affect measurements made from the acoustic waveform. Overall, the acoustic waveform provided the most accurate estimate of voicing onset; measurements made from the amplitude waveform were also the least variable of the five measures. These results can be explained as a consequence of differences in spectral tilt of the voicing source in breathy versus modal phonation. ©2003 Acoustical Society of America.published_or_final_versio

Vocal fold vibratory patterns in tense versus lax phonation contrasts

This study explores the vocal fold contact patterns of one type of phonation contrast--the tense vs lax phonation contrasts of three Yi (Loloish) languages. These contrasts are interesting because neither phonation category is very different from modal voice, and because both phonations are largely independent of the languages' tonal contrasts. Electroglottographic (EGG) recordings were made in the field, and traditional EGG measures were derived. These showed many small but significant differences between the phonations, with tense phonation having greater contact quotients and briefer but slower changes in contact. Functional data analysis was then applied to entire EGG pulse shapes. The resulting first principal component was found to be mostly strongly related to the phonation contrasts, and correlated with almost all the traditional EGG measures. Unlike the traditional measures, however, this component also seems to capture differences in abruptness of contact. Furthermore, previously collected perceptual responses from native speakers of one of the languages correlated better with this component than with any other EGG measure or any acoustic measure. The differences between these tense and lax phonations are not large, but apparently they are consistent enough, and perceptually robust enough, to support this linguistic contrast

A Ligand Peptide Motif Selected from a Cancer Patient Is a Receptor-Interacting Site within Human Interleukin-11

Interleukin-11 (IL-11) is a pleiotropic cytokine approved by the FDA against chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia. From a combinatorial selection in a cancer patient, we isolated an IL-11-like peptide mapping to domain I of the IL-11 (sequence CGRRAGGSC). Although this motif has ligand attributes, it is not within the previously characterized interacting sites. Here we design and validate in-tandem binding assays, site-directed mutagenesis and NMR spectroscopy to show (i) the peptide mimics a receptor-binding site within IL-11, (ii) the binding of CGRRAGGSC to the IL-11Rα is functionally relevant, (iii) Arg4 and Ser8 are the key residues mediating the interaction, and (iv) the IL-11-like motif induces cell proliferation through STAT3 activation. These structural and functional results uncover an as yet unrecognized receptor-binding site in human IL-11. Given that IL-11Rα has been proposed as a target in human cancer, our results provide clues for the rational design of targeted drugs