• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.41-48
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• 2014

This study investigated the differences between emotional parameters BDI, VHI, STAI-X-I and STAI-X-II according to the menstrual cycles of the female and the relation between changes of the depression index and voice characteristics (jitter, shimmer, CPP, HNR, $pF0{\cdot}F1{\cdot}F2{\cdot}F3$, sF0, sF4, sB1, $H1_{c/u}$, $A1_u$, $A3_c$, $H1A3_{c/u}$, $H1A1_u$). Twenty three females ($30{\pm}4.4$ years old) living in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province were participated in this study to answer the questionnaires and record their voice. The participants prolonged /a/ vowel for 5 seconds in a natural condition for their voice recording. Voice data were analyzed using the Matlab and Praat program. A t-test and a correlation analysis were conducted by using SPSS for the statistical analysis. The results are as follows. First, the BDI is significantly higher in group I (lurear phase contrast the menstrual period) and group II (follicular phase against the menstrual period) than group III (luteal phase for follicular phase) (p<.05). Second, shimmer, CPP, pF0 showed a statistically high correlation regarding the BDI in group I (lurear phase contrast the menstrual period). Voice parameters may be useful as supplement in evaluating the emotional change in the phase of menstrual cycle.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.119-123
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• 1999

Background and Objectives : Conditions such as muscle atrophy, stretching of strap muscles, and continued craniofacial growth factors have been cited as contributing to the changes observed in the vocal tract structure and function in elderly speakers. The purpose of the present study is to compare F$_1$ and F$_2$ frequency levels in elderly and young adult male and female speakers producing a series of vowels ranging from high-front to low-back placement. Material and Methods : The subjects were two groups of young adults(10 males, 10 females, mean age 21 years old range 19-24 years) and two groups of elderly speakers(10 males, 10 females, mean age 67 years : range 60-84 years). Each subject participated in speech pathologist to be a speaker of unimpared standard Korean. The headphone was positioned 2 cm from the speakers lips. Each speaker sustained the five vowels for 5 s. Formant frequency measures were obtained from an analysis of linear predictive coding in CSL model 4300B(Kay co). Results : Repeated measure AVOVA procedures were completed on the $F_1$ and $F_2$ data for the male and female speakers. $F_2$ formant frequency levels were proven to be significantly lower fir elderly speakers. Conclusions : We presume $F_2$ vocal cavity(from the point of tongue constriction to lip) lengthening in elderly speakers. The research designed to observe dynamic speech production more directly will be needed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.29-40
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• 2019

The paper investigates the minimal pair of Korean phonemes quantitatively. To achieve this goal, I calculated the number of consonant minimal pairs in the syllable-initial position as both raw counts and relative counts, and analyzed the part of speech relations of the two words in the minimal pair. "Urimalsaem" was chosen as the object of this study because it was judged that the minimal pair analysis should be done through a dictionary and it is the largest among Korean dictionaries. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, there were 153 types of minimal pairs out of 337,135 examples. The ranking of phoneme pairs from highest to lowest was 'ㅅ-ㅈ, ㄱ-ㅅ, ㄱ-ㅈ, ㄱ-ㅂ, ㄱ-ㅎ, ${\ldots}$, ㅆ-ㅋ, ㄸ-ㅋ, ㅉ-ㅋ, ㄹ-ㅃ, ㅃ-ㅋ'. The phonemes that played a major role in the formation of the minimal pair were /ㄱ, ㅅ, ㅈ, ㅂ, ㅊ/, in that order, which showed a high proportion of palatals. The correlation between the raw count of minimal pairs and the relative count of minimal pairs was found to be quite high r=0.937. Second, 87.91% of the minimal pairs shared the part of speech (same syntactic category). The most frequently observed type has been 'noun-noun' pair (70.25%), and 'vowel-vowel' pair (14.77%) was the next ranking. It can be indicated that the minimal pair could be grouped into similar categories in terms of semantics. The results of this study can be useful for various research in Korean linguistics, speech-language pathology, language education, language acquisition, speech synthesis, and artificial intelligence-machine learning as basic data related to Korean phonemes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.71-77
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• 2020

Background and Objectives OperaVOXTM (Oxford Wave Research Ltd.) is a portable voice analysis software package designed for use with iOS devices. As a relatively cheap, portable and easily accessible form of acoustic analysis, OperaVOXTM may be more clinically useful than laboratory-based software in many situations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the agreement between OperaVOXTM and Multi-Dimensional Voice Program (MDVP; Computerized Speech Lab) to assess voice quality before and after laryngeal microsurgery in patient with vocal polyp. Materials and Method Twenty patients who had undergone laryngeal microsurgery for vocal polyp were enrolled in this study. Preoperative and postoperative voices were assessed by acoustic analysis using MDVP and OperaVOXTM. A five-seconds recording of vowel /a/ was used to measure fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer and noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR). Results Several acoustic parameters of MDVP and OperaVOXTM related to short-term variability showed significant improvement. While pre-operative value of F0, jitter, shimmer, NHR was 155.75 Hz (male: 125.37 Hz, female: 183.37 Hz), 2.20%, 6.28%, 0.16, post-operative values of these parameter was 164.34 Hz (male: 129.42 Hz, female: 199.26 Hz), 2.15%, 5.18%, 0.14 Hz in MDVP. While pre-operative value of F0, jitter, shimmer, NHR was 168.26 Hz (male: 135.16 Hz, female: 201.37 Hz), 2.27%, 6.95%, 0.26, post-operative values of these parameters was 162.72 Hz (male: 128.267 Hz, female: 197.18 Hz), 1.71%, 5.36%, 0.20 in OperaVOXTM. There was high intersoftware agreement for F0, jitter, shimmer with intraclass correlation coefficient. Conclusion Our results showed that the short-term variability of acoustic parameters in both MDVP and OperaVOXTM were useful for the objective assessment of voice quality in patients who received laryngeal microsurgery. OperaVOXTM is comparable to MDVP and has high intersoftware reliability with MDVP in measuring the F0, jitter, and shimmer

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.55-65
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• 2022

This study aimed to compare acoustic measurements by the high, middle, and low laryngeal heights of male musical theater students. Furthermore, the correlation between the relative height of the larynx and the acoustic measurements was examined, along with the predictability of the relative height (vertical position) of the larynx from acoustic measurements. The participants included five male students majoring in musical theater singing, and acoustic analysis was performed by having them produce the /a/ vowel 10 times each at the laryngeal positions of high, middle, and low. The relative vertical positions of the laryngeal prominence in each position were measured based on the resting position. Results indicated that the relative position of the larynx varied significantly according to laryngeal height, such that as the larynx descended, the first three formant frequencies decreased while the spectral energy at the same frequencies increased. Formant frequencies showed a weak to moderate positive correlation with the relative height of the larynx, while the spectral energy showed a moderate negative correlation. The relative height of the larynx was predicted by eight acoustic measures (adjusted R² = .829). In conclusion, the predictability of the relative height of the larynx was partially confirmed in a non-invasive manner.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.49-58
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• 2024

This study aimed to compare the acoustic measurements of speech samples recorded from individuals with normal voices using various devices: the Computerized Speech Lab (CSL), a unidirectional wired pin-microphone (WIRED) suitable for smartphones, the built-in omnidirectional microphone (SMART) of smartphones, and Bluetooth-connected wireless earphones, specifically the Galaxy Buds2 Pro (WIRELESS). This study included 40 normal adults (12 males and 28 females) who had not visited an otolaryngologist for respiratory diseases within the past three months. Participants performed sustained vowel /a/ phonation for four seconds and reading tasks with sentences ("Walk") and paragraphs ("Autumn") in a sound-treated booth. Recordings were simultaneously conducted using the four different devices and synchronized based on the CSL-recorded samples for analysis using the MDVP, ADSV, and VOXplot programs. Compared with CSL, the Cepstral Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID_V, CSID_S) and Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) values were lower in the WIRED and higher in the SMART. The opposite trend was observed for the L/H spectral ratios (SR_V and SR_S), and the WIRELESS demonstrated task-specific discrepancies. Furthermore, both the fundamental frequency (F0) and the cepstral peak prominence of the vowel samples (CPP_V) had intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values above 0.9, indicating high reliability. These variables, F0 and CPP_V were considered highly reliable for voice recordings across different microphone types. However, caution should be exercised when analyzing and interpreting variables such as the SR, CSID, and AVQI, which may be influenced by the type of microphone used.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.87-101
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• 2022

In addition to administering a questionnaire (J-survey), which questions individuals on subjective vocal fatigue, voice samples were collected before and after speech-language pathology sessions from 50 female speech-language pathologists in their 20s and 30s in the Daejeon and Chungnam areas. We identified significant differences in Korean Vocal Fatigue Index scores between the fatigue and non-fatigue groups, with the most prominent differences in sections one and two. Regarding acoustic phonetic characteristics, both groups showed a pattern in which low-frequency band energy was relatively low, and high-frequency band energy was increased after the treatment sessions. This trend was well reflected in the low-to-high ratio of vowels, slope LTAS, energy in the third formant, and energy in the 4,000-8,000 Hz range. A difference between the groups was observed only in the vowel energy of the low-frequency band (0-4,000 Hz) before treatment, with the non-fatigue group having a higher value than the fatigue group. This characteristic could be interpreted as a result of voice abuse and higher muscle tonus caused by long-term voice work. The perturbation parameter and shimmer local was lowered in the non-fatigue group after treatment, and the noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR) was lowered in both groups following treatment. The decrease in NHR and the fall of shimmer local could be attributed to vocal cord hypertension, but it could be concluded that the effective voice use of speech-language pathologists also contributed to this effect, especially in the non-fatigue group. In the case of the non-fatigue group, the rhamonics-to-noise ratio increased significantly after treatment, indicating that the harmonic structure was more stable after treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.110-116
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• 2003

Background and Objectives : Laryngeal cancer discrimination using voice signals is a non-invasive method that can carry out the examination rapidly and simply without giving discomfort to the patients. n appropriate analysis parameters and classifiers are developed, this method can be used effectively in various applications including telemedicine. This study examines voice analysis parameters used for laryngeal disease discrimination to help discriminate laryngeal diseases by voice signal analysis. The study also estimates the laryngeal cancer discrimination activity of the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifier based on the statistical modelling of voice analysis parameters. Materials and Methods : The Multi-dimensional voice program (MDVP) parameters, which have been widely used for the analysis of laryngeal cancer voice, sometimes fail to analyze the voice of a laryngeal cancer patient whose cycle is seriously damaged. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop a new method that enables an analysis of high reliability for the voice signals that cannot be analyzed by the MDVP. To conduct the experiments of laryngeal cancer discrimination, the authors used three types of voices collected at the Department of Otorhinorlaryngology, Pusan National University Hospital. 50 normal males voice data, 50 voices of males with benign laryngeal diseases and 105 voices of males laryngeal cancer. In addition, the experiment also included 11 voices data of males with laryngeal cancer that cannot be analyzed by the MDVP, Only monosyllabic vowel /a/ was used as voice data. Since there were only 11 voices of laryngeal cancer patients that cannot be analyzed by the MDVP, those voices were used only for discrimination. This study examined the linear predictive cepstral coefficients (LPCC) and the met-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) that are the two major cepstrum analysis methods in the area of acoustic recognition. Results : The results showed that this met frequency scaling process was effective in acoustic recognition but not useful for laryngeal cancer discrimination. Accordingly, the linear frequency cepstral coefficients (LFCC) that excluded the met frequency scaling from the MFCC was introduced. The LFCC showed more excellent discrimination activity rather than the MFCC in predictability of laryngeal cancer. Conclusion : In conclusion, the parameters applied in this study could discriminate accurately even the terminal laryngeal cancer whose periodicity is disturbed. Also it is thought that future studies on various classification algorithms and parameters representing pathophysiology of vocal cords will make it possible to discriminate benign laryngeal diseases as well, in addition to laryngeal cancer.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.101-113
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• 2020

This study aimed to explore how effective explicit form-focused instruction (FFI) is in teaching the schwa vowel /ə/ to EFL students in a classroom setting. The participants were 25 female high school students, who were divided into the experimental group (n=13) and the control group (n=12). One female American also participated in the study for a speech sample as a reference. The treatment, which involves shadowing model pronunciation by the researcher and a free text-to-speech software and the researcher's feedback in a private session, was given to the control group over a month and a half. The speech samples, for which the participants read the 14 polysyllabic stimulus words followed by the sentences containing the words, were collected before and after the treatment. The paired-samples t test and non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used for analysis. The results showed that the participants of the experimental group in the post-test reduced the duration of the schwa by around 40 percent compared to the pre-test. However, little effect was found in approximating the participants' distribution patterns of /ə/ measured by the F1/F2 formant frequencies to the reference point, which was 539 Hz (F1) by 1797 Hz (F2). The findings of this study suggest that explicit FFI with multiple repetitions and corrective feedback is partly effective in teaching pronunciation.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.517-523
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• 2000

Nasopharyngeal closure is a sphincter mechanism between the activities of the soft palate, lateral pharyngeal wall and the posterior pharyngeal wall, which divides the oral cavity and the nasal cavity. It participates in physiological activities such as swallowing, breathing and pronunciation. In case of an error in this mechanism, it is called a nasopharyngeal incompetence. The causes of this error are defects in (1) length, function, posture of the soft palate (2) depth and width of the nasopharynx, (3) activity of the posterior and lateral pharyngeal wall. The purpose of this study is to analyze the nasopharynx of cleft palate patients using lateral cephalograms and at the same time, evaluate the degree of hypernasality of each vowels to find its relationship with nasopharyngeal incompetence. The following results were obtained: 1. The length of the soft palate was markedly short than normal. 2. The adequate ratio was smaller than the normal value. 3. As the adequate ratio decreased, when articulating vowels, anatomic mVPI increased. 4. When articulating each vowels, anatomic VPI was in proportion with the degree of hypernasality. 5. The degree of hypernasality was greater in high vowels(/i/, /u/) than low vowel(/a/). From the above results, it can be concluded that in cleft palate patients, lateral cephalograms can be used effectively in diagnosing and evaluating nasopharyngeal incompetence. The anatomic structure of the nasopharynx has close relation to the degree of hypernasality.