Validating a psychoacoustic model of voice quality.

No agreed-upon method currently exists for objective measurement of perceived voice quality. This paper describes validation of a psychoacoustic model designed to fill this gap. This model includes parameters to characterize the harmonic and inharmonic voice sources, vocal tract transfer function, fundamental frequency, and amplitude of the voice, which together serve to completely quantify the integral sound of a target voice sample.

Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Sound Pressure Level in Charismatic Speech: A Cross-Gender and -Language Study.

Objectives/hypotheses: Charismatic leaders use vocal behavior to persuade their audience, achieve goals, arouse emotional states, and convey personality traits and leadership status. This study investigates voice fundamental frequency (f0) and sound pressure level (SPL) in female and male French, Italian, Brazilian, and American politicians to determine which acoustic parameters are related to cross-gender and cross-cultural common vocal abilities, and which derive from culture-, gender-, and language-specific vocal strategies used to adapt vocal behavior to listeners' culture-related expectations.

Study Design: Speech corpora were collected for two formal communicative contexts (leaders address followers or other leaders) and one informal communicative context (dyadic interaction), based on the persuasive goals inherent in each context and on the relative status of the listeners and speakers.

Short-Wavelength Light-Blocking Eyeglasses Attenuate Symptoms of Eye Fatigue.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether subjects who wear short wavelength-blocking eyeglasses during computer tasks exhibit less visual fatigue and report fewer symptoms of visual discomfort than subjects wearing eyeglasses with clear lenses.

Methods: A total of 36 healthy subjects (20 male; 16 female) was randomized to wearing no-block, low-blocking, or high-blocking eyeglasses while performing a 2-hour computer task. A masked grader measured critical flicker fusion frequency (CFF) as a metric of eye fatigue and evaluated symptoms of eye strain with a 15-item questionnaire before and after computer use.

Comparing Measures of Voice Quality From Sustained Phonation and Continuous Speech.

Purpose: The question of what type of utterance-a sustained vowel or continuous speech-is best for voice quality analysis has been extensively studied but with equivocal results. This study examines whether previously reported differences derive from the articulatory and prosodic factors occurring in continuous speech versus sustained phonation.

Method: Speakers with voice disorders sustained vowels and read sentences.

Impact of Vocal Tract Resonance on the Perception of Voice Quality Changes Caused by Varying Vocal Fold Stiffness.

Experiments using animal and human larynx models are often conducted without a vocal tract. While it is often assumed that the absence of a vocal tract has only small effects on vocal fold vibration, it is not actually known how sound production and quality are affected. In this study, the validity of using data obtained in the absence of a vocal tract for voice perception studies was investigated.