A note on voice timing and the evolution of connected speech.

Voice is a dominant component of everyday speech in all languages. The possibility is examined that its use may have evolved so that its timing in connected speech is ideal from the point of view of information theory-with voicing taking up 50% of the total speaking time. Initial measurements have been made of voice timing proportions using Laryngograph (EGG) signals as the basis of timing analyses.

Intonation processing in congenital amusia: discrimination, identification and imitation.

This study investigated whether congenital amusia, a neuro-developmental disorder of musical perception, also has implications for speech intonation processing. In total, 16 British amusics and 16 matched controls completed five intonation perception tasks and two pitch threshold tasks. Compared with controls, amusics showed impaired performance on discrimination, identification and imitation of statements and questions that were characterized primarily by pitch direction differences in the final word.

Aspects of voice irregularity measurement in connected speech.

Applications of the use of connected speech material for the objective assessment of two primary physical aspects of voice quality are described and discussed. Simple auditory perceptual criteria are employed to guide the choice of analysis parameters for the physical correlate of pitch, and their utility is investigated by the measurement of the characteristics of particular examples of the normal-speaking voice. This approach is extended to the measurement of vocal fold contact phase control in connected speech and both techniques are applied to pathological voice data.

Hearing and phonetic criteria in voice measurement: clinical applications.

Quantitative clinical voice analysis is discussed with special reference to four factors: 1) measurement criteria that are based on well established auditory parameters; 2) voice material that is modelled on the connected speech of ordinary spoken communication rather than sustained vowels; 3) direct monitoring so as to provide both acoustic and vocal fold contact signals; and 4) phonetic structural similarities across what are ordinarily regarded as highly dissimilar languages. These factors have motivated the development and clinical application of physical analyses that provide measurements related both to vocal fold function and to the perceptual attributes of pitch, loudness, and an important aspect of voice quality.

Discussant response to 'Mirroring the voice from Garcia to the present day: some insights into singing voice registers'.

PEVOC6 took as its theme 'Mirroring the Voice' to mark the occasion, 150 years before, of Manuel Garcia's publication in London of his work on the singing voice using what is now called, following him, a laryngoscope. This also was the special theme of the final plenary session contribution to the Conference by Nathalie Henrich--but with particular reference to singing voice registers. Her paper and conference presentation have two complementary parts.

Prospects for Speech Pattern Element Aids.

A brief discussion is given of new hearing aids which are based on the use of speech pattern elements. Their operation essentially involves the reduction of the complex acoustic structure of the original speech signal into simpler sets of perceptually clear components which are then encoded for maximally relevant presentation to the listener. This approach has four primary features which may contribute crucially to future advances.

Psychoacoustic Aspects of Speech Pattern Coding for the Deaf.

The SiVo aid, which provides a sinusoidal signal indicating voice fundamental frequency and voicing information, was compared as an aid to lipreading to a conventional hearing aid having extended low-frequency output. Speech perceptual measures of consonant confusions in lipreading and the identification of a simple intonation contrast were collected from a group of 8 profoundly deaf adults. Audiometric and psychoacoustic measures were also collected.