Age-related changes in human vocal tract configurations and the effects on speakers' vowel formant frequencies: A pilot study

An Xue*, Jack Jiang, Emily Lin, Raymond Glassenberg, Peter B. Mueller

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

The study aims to: (i) make accurate measurements of age-related changes in female speakers' vocal tract configurations with acoustic reflection technique (ART); (ii) obtain acoustic information of vowel formant frequency changes as a function of aging; and (iii) test the hypothesis that there are age-related vocal tract dimensional changes and concomitant decreases in all the vowel formant frequencies as people age. Preliminary findings indicate that older female subjects tend to have a more expanded pharyngeal lumen, but not longer vocal tract length, than their younger cohorts, and formant frequencies would not unanimously decrease as a function of aging. The study highlights the importance of larger-scale measurements of age-related vocal tract configuration changes and the necessity of developing new acoustic models that will delineate all the concomitant formant frequency and other acoustic changes as people age.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)132-137
Number of pages6
JournalLogopedics Phoniatrics Vocology
Volume24
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1999

Keywords

  • Acoustic reflection technique
  • Aging
  • Speech

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Speech and Hearing
  • LPN and LVN

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