• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.85-91
• /
• 2011

Sasang constitution medicine utilizes voice characteristics to diagnose a person's constitution. To classify Sasang constitutional groups using speech information technology, this study aims at establishing the relationship between Sasang constitutional groups and their corresponding voice characteristics by investigating various speech feature variables. The speech variables include features related to speech source and vocal tract filter. Experimental results show that statistically significant correlation between voice characteristics and some speech feature variables is observed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.91-97
• /
• 2017

This study categorizes several voice characteristics by subjective listening assessment, and investigates correlation between voice characteristics and speech feature parameters. A model was developed to classify voice characteristics into the defined categories using SVM algorithm. To do this, we extracted various speech feature parameters from speech database for men in their 20s, and derived statistically significant parameters correlated with voice characteristics through ANOVA analysis. Then, these derived parameters were applied to the proposed SVM model. The experimental results showed that it is possible to obtain some speech feature parameters significantly correlated with the voice characteristics, and that the proposed model achieves the classification accuracies of 88.5% on average.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.87-94
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the speech characteristics and speech therapy of Parkinson disease (PD). This study selected 28 papers published in Korea from 1998 to 2018 after searching the terms 'Parkinson voice' and 'Parkinson speech therapy.' Literature review had been conducted in the two aspects of speech characteristics and speech therapy. The speech characteristics were divided into respiration, phonation, articulation, prosody, vowel production, and voice questionnaire. Speech therapy was divided into Lee Sliverman voice treatment (LSVT) and other voice therapy. PD patients did not differ in respiration function compared to normal elderly people, but their speech and articulation function were poorer. There was also a difference in the speech rate, frequency of pause, and accuracy of vowel production compared with normal elderly people. PD had a lower VHI score and their voice related quality of life was a little poorer. The LSVT was typically used in speech therapy for PD. The methods of speech therapy for PD have been shown to improve respiration and phonation. It is necessary to establish voice norms in PD patients and develop effective speech therapy in the following study.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.17-24
• /
• 2013

This study is aimed at finding out different types of speech characteristics categorized based on voice rehabilitation techniques used on twenty-six patients (all-male) with total or partial laryngectomees. The speech intelligibility of standard esophageal (SE), tracheoesophageal speech (TE), and electriclarynx (EL) was measured by using the CSL and eleven listeners were instructed to rate the speech on a 5-point scale. The vowel space parameters such as vowel space, VAI, FCR, and F2 ratio were measured by averaging 5 repeats of each vowel (/a/, /e/, /i/, /u/) and the results were put into the parameter formula. The results showed significant statistical differences in speech intelligibility and vowel space between SE and TE. The speech intelligibility and vowel space of TE were higher than those of SE or EL and there was a high correlation between speech intelligibility and some parameters (vowel space, VAI, F2 ratio). The results also showed that TE's speech characteristics were most similar to normal groups comparing with SE and EL, but still very deviant in laryngeal speech. This was due to insufficient airflow intake into the esophagus when producing sounds, and because articulation movement was carried out differently among groups. Therefore, these findings will contribute to establishing a baseline related to speech characteristics in voice rehabilitation for patients with alaryngeal speech.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.55-62
• /
• 2015

It is widely accepted that Parkinson's disease(PD) is the most common cause of hypokinetic dysarthria, and its characteristics of 'short rushes of speech' have become more evident along with the severity of motor disorders. Speech alternate motion rates (AMRs) are particularly useful for observing not only rate abnormalities but also deviant speech. However, relatively little is known about the characteristics of 'short rushes of speech' in terms of AMRs of PD except for the perceptual characteristics. The purpose of this study was to examine which acoustic features of 'short rushes of speech' in terms of AMRs are a robust indicator of Parkinsonian speech. Numbers of syllabic repetitions (/pə/, /tə/, /kə/) in AMR tasks were analyzed through acoustic methods observing a spectrogram of the Computerized Speech Lab in 9 patients with PD. Acoustically, we found three characteristics of 'short rushes of speech': 1) Vocalized consonants without closure duration(VC) 76.3%; 2) No consonant segmentation(NC) 18.6%; 3) No vowel formant frequency(NV) 5.1%. Based on these results, 'short rushes of speech' may affect the failure to reach and maintain the phonatory targets. In order to best achieve the therapeutic goals, and to make the treatment most efficacious, it is important to incorporate training methods which are based on both phonation and articulation.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.187-192
• /
• 2019

Background and Objectives: Clear speech is an effective communication strategy used in difficult listening situations that draws on techniques such as accurate articulation, a slow speech rate, and the inclusion of pauses. Although too slow speech and improperly amplified spectral information can deteriorate overall speech intelligibility, certain amplitude of increments of the mid-frequency bands (1 to 3 dB) and around 50% slower speech rates of clear speech, when compared to those in conversational speech, were reported as factors that can improve speech intelligibility positively. The purpose of this study was to identify whether amplitude increments of mid-frequency areas and slower speech rates were evident in Korean clear speech as they were in English clear speech. Subjects and Methods: To compare the acoustic characteristics of the two methods of speech production, the voices of 60 participants were recorded during conversational speech and then again during clear speech using a standardized sentence material. Results: The speech rate and longterm average speech spectrum (LTASS) were analyzed and compared. Speech rates for clear speech were slower than those for conversational speech. Increased amplitudes in the mid-frequency bands were evident for the LTASS of clear speech. Conclusions:The observed differences in the acoustic characteristics between the two types of speech production suggest that Korean clear speech can be an effective communication strategy to improve speech intelligibility.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.57-62
• /
• 2014

The present study was performed to investigate and discuss the aerodynamic characteristics of whispered and normal speech during reading paragraph tasks. 39 normal females(18-23 yrs.) read 'Autumn' paragraph with whispered and normal phonation. Their readings were recorded and analyzed by 'Running Speech' in Phonatory Aerodynamic System(PAS) instrument. As results, during whispered speech, the total duration was longer and the numbers of inspiration were more frequently shown than normal speech. The Peak expiratory and inspiratory rate were higher in normal speech, but the expiratory and inspiratory volume were higher in whispered speech. By correlation analysis, both whispered and normal speech showed significantly high correlation between total duration and expiratory/inspiratory airflow duration; numbers of inspiration and inspiratory airflow duration; expiratory and inspiratory volume. These results show that whispered speech needs more respiratory effort but shows poorer aerodynamic efficacy during phonation than normal speech.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.131-138
• /
• 2016

This study analyzes the characteristics of good impression using speech manipulation scripts and investigates the characteristics of preferred speech voice. Fourty male and female college students participated in this study. They have been exposed to the Gyeongsang dialect spoken by their friends and family for more than 15 years. Two sample voices(1 male and 1 female), considered as giving good impression, were subject to voice analysis. Two students were asked to read the sample paragraph of 'Walking' and their voice samples were analyzed through Praat. The collected speech data were manipulated into 4 different sets by changing pitch level, degree of loudness and speech rate. First, both men and women received good impression more from pitch-lowered sound than from the original one. Second, men tended to receive good impression more from slightly louder voice than from the natural-pitched one. Third, it was shown that men often felt more drowned to a voice at slightly faster speech rate than at the original speech rate. Overall, both male and female listeners favored lower pitch over the original pitch. Men tended to prefer louder voice sound while women preferred less loud one. Men received better impression at a lower speech rate but women at a faster speech rate.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.40 no.8
• /
• pp.782-791
• /
• 1991

In the fields of pattern recognition such as speech recognition, several new techniques using Artifical Neural network Models have been proposed and implemented. In particular, the Multilayer Perception Model has been shown to be effective in static speech pattern recognition. But speech has dynamic or temporal characteristics and the most important point in implementing speech recognition systems using Artificial Neural Network Models for continuous speech is the learning of dynamic characteristics and the distributed cues and contextual effects that result from temporal characteristics. But Recurrent Multilayer Perceptron Model is known to be able to learn sequence of pattern. In this paper, the results of applying the Recurrent Model which has possibilities of learning tedmporal characteristics of speech to phoneme recognition is presented. The test data consist of 144 Vowel+ Consonant + Vowel speech chains made up of 4 Korean monothongs and 9 Korean plosive consonants. The input parameters of Artificial Neural Network model used are the FFT coefficients, residual error and zero crossing rates. The Baseline model showed a recognition rate of 91% for volwels and 71% for plosive consonants of one male speaker. We obtained better recognition rates from various other experiments compared to the existing multilayer perceptron model, thus showed the recurrent model to be better suited to speech recognition. And the possibility of using Recurrent Models for speech recognition was experimented by changing the configuration of this baseline model.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.808-817
• /
• 2016

This study aims at reviewing differences of awareness toward speech-language therapy according to background variables of child-care teachers, and establishing a basic data necessary for special education support programs afterwards based on child-care centers and its characteristics with the results. Researcher carried out a survey by objecting child-care teachers of Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea, and looked into existence of some differences through SPSS 20.0 for Window, independent sample t-Test, ANOVA, Scheffe post verification on background characteristics such as level of education, working career, license grade, whether or not to have objects of speech-language objects in the class. Research results are same as follows. First, significant differences in awareness of child-care teachers toward speech-language therapy appeared from license grade among characteristics like level of education, license grade, whether or not to have objects of speech-language therapy in the class. Second, significant differences were displayed from whether or not to have objects of speech-language therapy in the class among characteristics such as level of education, working career, license grade, and whether or not to have objects of speech-language therapy. When putting these results together, a conclusion could be made such like awareness of child-care teachers toward speech-language therapy and therapists is able to be different a little according to background variables of teachers.