Acoustic characteristics of the sustained vowel phonation according to age groups

Abstract

This study was performed to investigate acoustic characteristics of sustained vowels produced by Seoul Korean speakers. For this study, three hundred nine healthy adults were chosen as participants from Korean Standard Speech Database. These subjects were divided into five chronological age groups (20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60-70s) and two gender groups (male and female). Fundamental frequency (f0), jitter, shimmer, and NHR (noise-to-harmonics ratio) was measured with 8 Korean vowels (/ɑ/, /ae/, /ʌ/, /e/, /o/, /u/, /ɯ/, /i/) by using Praat. The results showed that the vowel type significantly affected all acoustic parameters. Gender affected f0, jitter, and NHR significantly. The mean female speakers' f0 was greater than the males', and the mean jitter and NHR of male speakers was greater than the females'. Moreover, age affected shimmer and NHR significantly; in particular, the shimmer and NHR of elderly speakers was greater than the young speakers.

Change in acoustic characteristics of voice quality and speech fluency with aging*

“…노인층의 jitter, shimmer 값의 증가는 성대의 진동이 불안정하다 는 것을 나타내며 이는 성문하압의 조절력 저하와도 상관이 있 다. 또한 노화로 인한 호흡 및 발성 근육의 저하로 성대 진동, 성 문하압, 호흡 및 조음 능력에 문제가 발생할 수 있음을 의미하 며 이는 선행 연구와도 일치하였다 (Dehqan et al, 2013;Martins et al, 2014;Seo & Shin, 2018;Vaca et al, 2015). CPP 측정값에서 는 노년층이 낮게 나타났는데 이는 음성에서 배음의 강도가 작 다는 것을 의미하며 성대 근육과 호흡 근육의 약증이 진행되고 있음을 의미한다 (Han et al, 2019;Murton et al, 2020;Son et al, 2018).…”