PURPOSE: To analyze the impact of body weight and body fat volume on selected parameters of vocal quality, phonatory range, and aerodynamics in females. METHODS: Based on measurements of body mass index in combination with body fat volume, 29 normophonic female subjects were classified as normal weight, underweight, and obese. Voice quality was investigated via auditory-perceptual ratings of breathiness, roughness, and overall dysphonia severity, via various acoustic measures and a multiparametric index. Phonatory range performance was examined using selected measures of the voice range profile and speech range profile. Measures of vocally relevant aerodynamics included vital capacity (i.e., VC), expected VC, phonation quotient, and maximum phonation time (i.e., MPT). RESULTS: Significant differences between the three weight groups were found across several measures of intensity, VC, MPT, and shimmer. As compared to the other groups, significantly higher values of maximum and minimum intensity levels, as well as sound pressure level during habitual running speech were observed for the obese group (all p-values<0.05); whereas, the underweight group had significantly lower values for VC and ratio of expected to measured VC (p-values<0.01). Furthermore, underweight subjects differed significantly as compared to normal weight subjects with lower MPT (p=0.025) and higher lowest-F0 (p=0.035). Finally the obese group showed significantly lower shimmer values than the normal weight subjects (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Body weight and body fat volume appear to influence select objective measures of voice quality, vocal aerodynamics, and phonatory range performance.
The aim of the study was to determine the impact of body height on speaking fundamental frequency (SF0) while controlling for as many as possible influencing factors such as habits, biophysical conditions, medication, diseases, and others. Fifty-eight females were analyzed during spontaneous speech (i.e. explaining driving directions or a cooking recipe) of at least 60 seconds at comfortable pitch and loudness. The subjects showed a moderate negative and significant correlation between body height and SF0 (r = -0.40, P = 0.002). With r(2) = 0.16, however, a reasonable portion (16%) of the variance in SF0 is explained by the variance in body height. In comparison with other factors for which a correlation with SF0 was mentioned in literature (hypothyrodism, hemodialysis, auditory-maleness after female-to-male transsexualism, body weight, body mass index, and body fat), body height accounted for most of the proportion of SF0 in females. It is therefore possible to validate body height as a factor to account for in clinical F0 measurement.
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