Sensory Contributions to Control of Fundamental Frequency of Phonation

Interactions between auditory and somatosensory feedback for voice F 0 control

“…There have been several previous studies that have also studied the effects of anesthesia of laryngeal nerves or mucosal tissues on voice F 0 (Mallard et al 1978;Sorensen et al 1980;Sundberg et al 1995;Tanabe et al 1975;Yang and Chen 2005). The main effects of anesthesia were an increase in F 0 variability and/or a decrease in accuracy of producing a specific F 0 .…”

“…Pre and postlingually deaf speakers have abnormal levels of F 0 and variations in F 0 (Binnie et al 1982;Leder et al 1987;Osberger and Hesketh 1988). Other studies demonstrated that masking of auditory feedback led to a deterioration in fine control of F 0 and inaccuracy in singing musical notes (Elliott and Niemoeller 1970;Mallard et al 1978;Mürbe et al 2002). Presentation of sudden perturbations in voice auditory pitch feedback while subjects are speaking or sustaining a vowel sound have demonstrated compensatory changes in voice F 0 production (Burnett et al 1998;Chen et al 2007;Donath et al 2002;Hain et al 2000;Jones and Munhall 2002;Kawahara 1995;Larson et al 2001;Natke and Kalveram 2001;Sapir et al 1983;Xu et al 2004).…”

“…In this regard, Mallard et al 1978 disrupted both kinesthesia and auditory feedback and measured voice F 0 while subjects attempted to match specific tones and while they were reading sentences with specific intonation contours. In four experimental conditions: normal/control condition, auditory masking, anesthetization of the vocal fold mucosa and masking combined with anesthesia; it was found that the greatest disruption occurred with masking alone.…”

Central nervous system control of the laryngeal muscles in humans

“…The effects of auditory masking have been contrasted with the effects of blocking mucosal afferents on voice control of fundamental frequency in single tones and during sentence intonation in normal speakers (Mallard et al, 1978). Auditory feedback was shown to play a greater role in the control of fundamental frequency than afferent feedback in these speakers.…”

“…On the other hand, afferent information may be important for accurate pitch control in trained singers who can accurately initiate voice on a target pitch before auditory feedback becomes available (Sundberg et al, 1996). The authors proposed that intonation patterns "appeared to be programmed into the speech production system at a "high level" independent of peripheral monitoring" (Mallard et al, 1978). The pitch shift studies by Larson and coworkers (Burnett et al, 1998;Larson et al, 2000) suggest than even when intonation patterns are pre-programmed, a perturbation in auditory feedback can have an immediate effect on pitch control presumably via changes in laryngeal muscle activity.…”