The Effects of Aging on Acoustic Parameters of Voice

Abstract

Background/Aims: There are no studies of the phonatory parameters of elderly Iranian speakers. The purpose of this study was to obtain normative acoustic data for a group of elderly Iranian male and female speakers over 70 years of age. Four selected acoustic parameters [fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer, and harmonics-to-noise ratio] were obtained and compared to a group of young and middle-aged speakers. Methods: Subjects were 21 Iranian elderly men and 20 Iranian elderly women. The age range for both male (mean ± SD: 77.09 ± 5.84) and female subjects (77.55 ± 4.34) was 70–90 years. The control group consisted of 40 Iranian young and middle-aged adults who were 20–49 years old (20 men and 20 women). The age range for the females was 23–40 years (30 ± 4.76) and for the males it was 21–49 years (30.1 ± 8.51). Each subject phonated 5/a/vowels with constant pitch and loudness for at least 5 s. The mid 3-second portion of the tokens was analyzed using the Dr. Speech 4.3u software (subprogram: Vocal Assessment; Dr. Speech, Tiger Electronics, Seattle, Wash., USA). Results: F0 was greater for elderly males than for young and middle-aged males. Conversely, F0 was greater for young and middle-aged females than for elderly females. Average shimmer was significantly higher in elderly males than in elderly females. Likewise, jitter was significantly higher in elderly males than in elderly females. Both shimmer and jitter were significantly greater in elderly speakers than in the young and middle-aged speakers. In addition, the harmonics-to-noise ratio was significantly greater for young and middle-aged males and females than for elderly males and females. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that elderly Iranian speakers had significantly greater vocal instability than young and middle-aged Iranian adults, as measured by the selected acoustic parameters. As the elderly population in Iran and the world continues to increase rapidly, studies of this kind are needed for researchers, educators, and practitioners to better understand the effects of aging on all aspects of human speech-language communication. Voice is an important factor for communication, and its change with age alters the communication process.

Tracheoesophageal speech: A dedicated objective acoustic assessment

“…Finally, it can be observed that the periodicity in the Control set was found to be lower than in the TTS set. This decrease is due to aging, as known from the literature (Dehgan and Scherer, 2013). Note that all these results derived from the use of the SRH algorithm have been corroborated by a visual inspection of the signal.…”

“…However, the differences between the Control and TE voices did not turn out to be significant. One possible explanation is the fact that elderly normophonic voices are known to already exhibit a certain harshness (Dehgan and Scherer, 2013).…”

Effects of age on the amplitude, frequency and perceived quality of voice

“…These changes have an impact on voice production and quality (Mazzetto de Menezes et al 2014). Indeed, aging negatively affects voice stability and amplitude in a sex-dependent manner (Linville and Fisher 1985;Ma and Love 2010;Dehqan et al 2013;Goy et al 2013). For instance, men generally show a gradual increase in fundamental frequency (f0) with age (Honjo and Isshiki 1980;Harnsberger et al 2008;Torre and Barlow 2009;Ma and Love 2010;Dehqan et al 2013), while women exhibit a decrease in f0 with age (Honjo and Isshiki 1980;Torre and Barlow 2009;Ma and Love 2010;Da Silva et al 2011;Dehqan et al 2013;Goy et al 2013).…”

“…Some studies report an amplitude decrease for both women and men Da Silva et al 2011), while other show it only for men (Morris and Brown 1994;Goy et al 2013). The effect of age on voice perturbation measures is less clear: while some studies have shown that voice stability defined as jitter and shimmer declines with age (Wilcox and Horii 1980;Baken 2005;Dehqan et al 2013), other studies did not find significant changes with age Goy et al 2013). Finally, while some studies have reported reduced maximum phonation time (MPT) in aging (Ptacek et al 1966;Kreul 1972), recent reports observed no significant decrease in MPT values in older participants (Maslan et al 2011).…”

Analysis and Quantification of Acoustic Artefacts in Tracheoesophageal Speech

“…Finally, it can be observed that the periodicity in the Control set was found to be lower than in the TTS set. This decrease is due to aging, as known from the literature [11]. …”