Acoustic Voice Analysis of Young Turkish Speakers

• Published in: Journal of voice Vol. 30; no. 3; pp. 378.e21 - 378.e25
• Main Authors: Demirhan, Erhan, Unsal, Elif Meryem, Yilmaz, Cemil, Ertan, Esra
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.05.2016; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Acoustic analysis; Acoustic measurements; Acoustics; Adolescent; Adult; Age Factors; Female; Fundamental frequency; Harmonics; Humans; Jitter; Larynx - anatomy & histology; Larynx - physiology; Male; Noise; Noise-to-harmonics ratio; Normal voice; Normative data; Otolaryngology; Phonation; Reference Values; Sex Factors; Shimmer; Speech Acoustics; Speech Production Measurement; Turkey; Turkish adults; Turkish language; Voice disorders; Voice Quality; Vowels; Young Adult; Noise-to-harmonics ratio; Turkish adults; Jitter; Acoustic measurements; Shimmer; Normal voice; Fundamental frequency
• ISSN: 0892-1997; 1873-4588
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2015.04.018

Summary Objective/Hypothesis One of the objective assessments of voice is acoustic analysis, particularly, the parameters fundamental frequency ( F0 ), jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR). Because the normative data for healthy native Turkish male and female speakers are lacking in the literature, this study aimed to obtain F0 , perturbation parameters, and NHR in three sustained vowels (/Λ/, /i/, and /u/) among young Turkish speaking adults. Methods The native Turkish speakers with normal voice aged between 18 and 32 years were included in the study (44 women, 39 men). Voice samples were recorded using Computerized Speech Lab , and data were analyzed with the statistics software SPSS Statistics 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results The F0 values of vowels /Λ/, /i/, and /u/ were greater for women (239.78 Hz, 251.97 Hz, and 250.29 Hz, respectively) than for men (127.11 Hz, 137.23 Hz, and 134.15 Hz, respectively). All shimmer values for all vowels and jitter values for /Λ/ and /u/ were found significantly low in men; however, no difference was found for jitter values of /i/ between genders. There is no effect of gender on NHR. Only in women, NHR of high vowels was found to be lower than that of vowel /Λ/. Conclusions There is a significant difference for F0 values between the genders as expected. Comparisons of perturbation values were significantly different for some pairs of vowels. There was no significant difference between NHR values between the genders. These findings can be compared with Turkish speakers who have different voice disorders for the further studies.