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Phonation type and the prominence of the voice source fundamental

Time: Fri 2019-11-22 15.15

Location: Fantum (Lindstedtsvägen 24, floor 5, room no. 522)

Participating: Johan Sundberg

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Abstract:
Phonation type, a phonatory dimension ranging from hypofunction/breathy
to hyperfunctional/pressed, is important both from a clinical and
acoustical point of view; hyperfunctional voice can lead to voice
disorders and hypofunctional voice reduces text intelligibility. Five
trained voices produced diminuendo sequences of the syllable /pae/ and
also speech or singing samples with different phonation types. The /pae/
sequences were analyzed by inverse filtering and the associated
subglottal pressures were measured as the oral pressure during the /p/
occlusion. The AC amplitude of the flow glottogram showed a strong
quasi-linear correlation with subglottal pressure, and also with the
average airflow and with the levels of the first and second voice source
partials. Moreover, these correlations varied systematically with
phonation type, while the correlation with the amplitude of the voice
source fundamental was very close to 1.0, regardless of phonation type.
Also the level difference between the first and second partials in a
narrow-band long-term-average spectrum of speech and singing was found
to vary systematically with phonation type. The findings support the
assumption that the amplitude of the voice source fundamental is useful
for an objective measure of phonation type.