• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.139-144
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• 2013

Objective: The current study investigated a non-obtrusive measure for detecting physical fatigue based on the analysis of formant frequencies of human voice. Background: Fatigue has been considered as a main cause in industrial and traffic accidents. Therefore, it is critical to detect worker's fatigue for accident prevention. Method: After running exercises on a treadmill, participants were instructed to read a sentence and their voices were recorded under four different physical fatigue levels. Korean vowels of "아", "어", "오", "우", and "이" from the voice recorded were then used to collect formant 1 frequencies. Results: Results of separate ANOVAs showed a significant main effect of physical fatigue on formant 1 frequency of "아", "어", and "이". Furthermore, post-hoc comparisons revealed that formant 1 frequency of "아" was most sensitive to physical fatigue level employed in this experiment. Conclusion: Formant 1 frequencies of some vowels significantly decrease as the physical fatigue level increases. Application: Potential application of this study includes the development of a measure of physical fatigue state that is free from sensor attachment and requires little preparation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.98-111
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• 2004

Background and Objectives : The purpose of this study is to analyze the difference of Fundamental Frequency(Hz), Closed Quotient(Qx ; %), Intensity(dB), Vocal tract length and width(cm), formant frequency(Hz), level of formant frequency(dB) depending on the larynx position. Materials and Methods : One professional male singer(career : 28 years) produced sustained vowel /a/,/e/,/i/,/o/,/u/ in two larynx position (higher, lower) with Dr. Speech and video fluoroscopy was used to quantify the vocal tract morphology. Results : In lower larynx position, CQ is increased 9.8% and Intensity is increased about 10% and level of Formant Frequency is increased. And also Vocal tract length is longer 2.4cm, Vocal tract width(Anterior width : 0.4cm, lateral width : 0.2cm) is wider than in higher larynx position. Conclusions : Singer's formant has a prominent spectrum envelope peak near 2400-2600Hz by clustering of F3, F4 and F5 near 3400Hz in lower larynx position.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.529-534
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• 2009

One of the characteristics of the hearing impaired is that their frequency selectivity is poorer than that of the normal hearing. To compensate this, formant enhancement algorithms and spectral contrast enhancement algorithms have been developed. However in some cases, these algorithms fail to improve the frequency selectivity of the hearing impaired. One of the reasons is the acoustic masking among enhanced formants. In this study, we tried to enhance the formants based on the individual masking characteristic of each subject. The masking characteristic used in this study was minimum level difference (MLD) between the first formant to the second formant while acoustic masking was occurred. If the level difference between the two formants in each frame is larger than the MLD, the gain of the first formant was decreased to reduce the acoustic masking that occurred among formants. As a result of the speech discrimination test, using formant enhanced speeches, speech discrimination score (SDS) of the speeches having differently enhanced formants was significantly superior to SDS of the speeches having equally enhanced formants. It means that suppression of the acoustic masking among formants improve frequency selectivity of the hearing impaired.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2014

Mental fatigue is inevitable in the workplace. Since mental fatigue can lead to decreased efficiency and critical accidents, it is important to manage mental fatigue from the viewpoint of accident prevention. An experiment was performed to evaluate mental fatigue using the formant frequency analysis of human voices. The experimental task was to mentally add or subtract two one-digit numbers. After completing the tasks with four different levels of mental fatigue, subjects were asked to read Korean vowels and their voices were recorded. Five vowel sounds of "아", "어", "오", "우", and "이" from the voice recorded were then used to extract formant 1 frequency. Results of separate ANOVAs showed significant main effects of mental fatigue on formant 1 frequencies of all five vowels concerned. However, post-hoc comparisons revealed that formant 1 frequencies of "아" and "어" were most sensitive to mental fatigue level employed in this experiment. Formant 1 frequencies of "아" and "어" significantly decrease as the mental fatigue accumulates. The formant frequency extracted from human voice would be potentially applicable for detecting mental fatigue induced during industrial tasks.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.77-89
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• 2017

This study investigates the phonetic meaning of clarity and turbidity(淸濁) that has been used in psychoacoustics, musicology, and linguistics in both the East and the West. With a view to clarifying the phonetic meaning of clarity and turbidity, this study conducts three perception tests. First, 34 subjects were asked to take one of Clear and Turbid by forced choice for 5 pure and complex tones, respectively, ranging from A2 to A6 differing by octave. Second, they were asked to select between the two choices for 25 pure and complex tones, respectively, ranging from A2 to A4 differing by semitone. Third, they were asked to opt for one of the two choices for 8 different vowels of different formant and fundamental frequencies. Results showed that there is a certain range of tone which is perceived as clear, that clarity level increases as fundamental frequency increases, and that pure tones have a higher level of clarity than complex ones, fundamental frequency being equal. Results also showed that vocal tract resonance enhances clarity level on the whole, and that lower vowels have a higher level of clarity than higher ones. This study is significant in that it demonstrates that clarity level is proportional to fundamental frequency and the first formant frequency, all else being equal.

• MALSORI
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• no.60
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• pp.67-84
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to find some acoustic parameters on frequency domain to distinguish the Korean nasals, $/m,\;n,\;{\eta}/$ from each other. The new parameters are devised on the basis of LTAS (Long Term Average Spectrum). The maximum peak amplitude and the relevant formant frequency are measured in low and high frequency range, respectively. The frequency of spectral valley and its energy level are also obtained in the specific frequency range of the spectrum. Spectral slope, total energy value in specific frequency range, statistical distribution of spectral energy like centroid, skewness, and kurtosis are suggested as new parameters as well. The parameters that show statistically significant differences across nasals are summerized as follows. 1) in syllable initial positions: the total energy value from 1,500 to 2,200 Hz(zeroENG); 2) in syllable final positions: the peak amplitude of the first formant(peak1_a), the formant frequency with maximum peak amplitude from 4,000 to 8,000 Hz(peak2_f), the maximum peak amplitude of the formant frequency from 4,000 to 8,000 Hz(peak2_a), and the total energy value from 1,500 to 2,200 Hz(zeroENG).

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.65-80
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• 1998

Proceeding an objective Study of sasang constitution diagnosis by Sound Analysis which uses Computed Sound lab(CSL), we verified the confidence level of Questionnaire of Sasang Constitution classification II(QSCC II) and the first results of Sound Analysis for verifying correlation between the physical character and Sound character are as follows. 1. The confidence level of QSCC II is 70.8% to Soeumin, 60.8% to Soyangin, 74.5% to Taeumin, and 70.08% in total. But, the actual results of verifying the confidence level after making 100 persons an object of study, are that the confidence level of that is 55.10% to Soeumin, 30.77% to Soyangin, 80.00% to Taeumin, and 55.29% in total. So it doesn't coincide with the confidence lecel of QSCC II 70.8%. 2. The results of verifying the confidence level about other 134 persons after enough explanation before the constitutional diagnosis by QSCC II are that the confidence of that is 71.08 to Soeumin, 54.76% to Soyangin 81.82% to Taeumin, and 69.22% in total. 3. The results of verifying the correlation between B.M.I. and Sasang Costitution are that there are significant differences below P<0.001 between Taeumin and Soeumin, and between Taeumin and Soyangin. 4. Height and Weight influence on a fundamental frequency and formant frequency. 5. There are differences for every constitutions in a amplitude when we nave a Sound analysis. As aboves, it is considered that we can find the differences among the constitutional groups, if we have a Sound analysis of the constitutional Sound characters.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.52-58
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• 2002

The pitch range of the human voice is variable, extending from chest register to falsetto. Although numerous studies have investigated after laryngeal mechanism description of registers, systematic and objective studies were lack. The purpose of this study was to analyze and compare head register with chest register of singers acoustically. Fifteen healthy tenor major students were selected. Fifteen healthy untrained adults were the control group for this study. Long term average(LTA) power spectrum using the Fast Fourier transform(FFT) algorithm and Linear predictive coding (LPC) filter response were made during /a/ sustained in both head(G4, 392Hz) md chest registers (C3, 131Hz). Statistical analysis was performed using Mann-Whitney test. In the LTA power spectrum, head register of singer has increased level(energy gain) in the frequency band of 2.2-3.4kHz(p<0.01), and 7.5-8.4kHz(p<0.01, p<0.05). Chest register of singer has increased level in the frequency band of 2.2-3.1kHz(p<0.01), 7.8-8.4kHz(p<0.05) and around 9.6kHz(p<0.01). LTA power spectrum reveals a peak of acoustic energy around 2500Hz known as the singer's formant and another peak of acoustic energy around 8000Hz in singer's voice.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.99-109
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to analyze and compare head register with chest register of singers acoustically. Fifteen healthy tenor major students were participated. Fifteen healthy untrained adults were chosen as the control group for this study. Long term average (LTA) power spectrum using the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm and Linear predictive coding (LPC) filter response were made with /a/ sustained in both head (G4, 392 Hz) and chest registers (C3, 131 Hz). Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney test. In the LTA power spectrum, head register of singers increased in the level of energy gain within the frequency of 2.2-3.4 kHz (p<0.01), and 7.5-8.4 kHz (p<0.01, p<0.05). Chest register of singers increased in the frequency of 2.2-3.1 kHz (p<0.01), 7.8-8.4 kHz (p<0.05) and around 9.6 kHz (p<0.01). The LTA power spectrum revealed a peak of acoustic energy around 2,500 Hz, known as the singer's formant and another peak of acoustic energy around 8,000 Hz in the singer's voice.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.139-156
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• 2001

Speech intelligibility in patients with complete dentures is an important clinical problem depending on the material used. The objective of this study was to investigate the speech of two edentulous subjects fitted with a complete maxillary prosthesis made of two different palatal materials: chrome-cobalt alloy and acrylic resin. Three patients with complete dentures in the experiment group and ten people in the controls groups participated in the experiment. CSL, Visi-Pitch were used to measure speech characteristics. The test words consisted of a simple vowel /e/, meaningless three syllabic words containing fricative, affricated and stops sounds, and sustained fricative sounds /s/ and /$\int$/. The analysis speech parameters were vowel and lateral formants, VOT, sound durations, sound pressure level and fricative frequency. Data analysis was conducted by a series of paired T-test. The findings like the following: (1) Vowel formant one of patients with complete denture is higher than that of the control group (p<0.05), while lateral formant three of patients with complete denture is lower than that of the control group (p<0.0l). (2) Patients with complete denture produced lower speech intelligibility with low fricative frequency (/$\int$/) than control group (p<0.0). The speech intelligibility of patients with metal prosthesis was higher than that of those with resin prosthesis (p<0.05). (3) Fricative, lateral and stop sound durations of patients with complete denture were longer than those of the control group (p<0.01 and p<0.05), respectively. Total sound durations of patients with metal prosthesis were similar to that of the control group (p<0.05), while those with resin prosthesis had a shorter duration (p<0.01). This implied that those with metal prosthesis had higher speech intelligibility than those with resin prosthesis. (4) Patients with complete denture had higher sound pressure levels /t/ and /c/ than the control group (p<0.01). However, sound pressure levels for /c/ of patients with metal prosthesis or resin prosthesis was similar to the control group (p<0.05). (5) Patients with complete denture had higher fundamental frequency than the control group (p<0.01).