• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.124-129
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• 2021

Background and Objectives This study compares Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) scores according to the presence or absence of external laryngeal tension in hyperfunctional voice disorder. And through this, it is to confirm the usefulness of VFI to hypertension of extrinsic laryngeal muscles. Materials and Method The subjects were 61 female diagnosed with hyperfunctional voice disorder (hypertension group 41, non-hypertension group 20). The author palpated extrinsic laryngeal muscles for evaluation of hypertension and classified them as the presence or absence. The voice measurements were jitter, shimmer, Korean-Voice Handicap Index-10 (K-VHI-10), and Korean-Vocal Fatigue Index (K-VFI). The voice compared were according to the diagnosis and presence of hypertension only for patients with hyperfunctional voice disorder. Results As a result of comparing the voice measurement according to the presence or absence of hypertension, there was no significant difference in the acoustic variables, K-VHI-10 and K-VFI-Total, K-VFI-Fatigue. Whereas, K-VFI-Physical (p=0.006) and K-VFI-Rest (p=0.022) were significantly higher in the hypertension group. Conclusion These results indicate that the hypertension group has more physical discomfort and less voice recovery than the group without hypertension. It means that K-VFI can measure the physical discomfort and limitations of voice recovery due to hypertension of the external laryngeal muscle. The VFI can be used as one of the methods to evaluate the hypertension of the external laryngeal muscle in Hyperfunctional voice disorder.

• 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.

• 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.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.77-86
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Sea Dong-Il's technique on voice quality in patients with vocal nodules and phonasthenia (vocal fatigue). Ten patients (4 nodules and 6 vocal fatigue) participated in the study. Each subject was assessed acoustically (Fo, Jitter, Shimmer, NNE) in the first and last session. Dr. Speech (version 3.4, Tiger-DRS) was used to compare acoustic parameters of pre-and post-treatment. Sea Dong-Il's technique consisted of breathing exercise, relaxation exercise, and phonation exercise. The results were as follows: First, Sea Dong- Il's technique tended to be effective on improving voice quality in patients with phonasthenia and vocal nodules. Second, the nature of improvements were as follows: there was a significant difference between pre-and post-treatment in shimmer (p < .01) and NNE (p < .001), while there was no significant difference between pre-and post-treatment in Fo and Jitter. Finally, given the fact that the number of subjects was only 10, the jitter might have shown a significant difference if more subjects participated in the experiment.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.3-10
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• 2013

This study proposes a method to measure mental fatigue using speech technology, which has not been used in previous research and is easier than existing complex and difficult methods. It aims at establishing a relationship between the human voice and mental fatigue based on experiments to measure the influence of mental fatigue on the human voice. Two monotonous tasks of simple calculation such as finding the sum of three one digit numbers were used to measure the feeling of monotony and two sets of subjective questionnaires were used to measure mental fatigue. While thirty subjects perform the experiment, responses to the questionnaire and speech data were collected. Speech features related to speech source and the vocal tract filter were extracted from the speech data. According to the results, speech parameters deeply related to mental fatigue are a mean and standard deviation of fundamental frequency, jitter, and shimmer. This study shows that speech technology is a useful method for measuring mental fatigue.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.27-34
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• 2023

This study aimed to provide knowledge helpful for understanding voice problems related to occupations in the clinical field through an investigation and comparison of subjective vocal symptoms of 12 professional actors and 12 speech-language pathologists Among the 11 symptoms, "Difficulty with high pitch when singing," "Hypertension in the neck when speaking," and "Feel voice fatigue" were the most frequent symptoms in both groups. Additionally, the professional voice users reported a higher frequency of "Difficulty with high pitch when singing" (p=.049), "Hoarse voice" (p=.021), "Difficulty (requiring effort) when speaking" (p=.032), "Pain in the neck when speaking" (p=.009), and "Feel vocal fatigue" (p=.018) than the elite vocal performer group. This may be due to the different voice-related environments and differences in voice demands during occupational activities between the two groups.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.31-41
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• 2012

Purpose : The purpose of the present study is to analyze the accuracy and fatigue felt by lay persons receiving CPR training when they perform hands only CPR (HOCPR) and traditional CPR (TCPR). The performance of CPR data will provide the criteria of dispatcher guidelines for the general public. Methods : For 2 minutes duration, HOCPR was conducted by 51 subjects and TCPR was conducted by 48 subjects. The accuracy measurement of chest compressions was based on the 2010 AHA guideline; the subjective fatigue level in before and after experiment was measured by a self-administered questionnaire. Results : There were no significant differences between the average depth, chest compression depth and chest compression location in terms of chest compression accuracy. However, there were significant differences between the two experimental groups in the accuracies for average speed and chest compression speed. The subjective fatigue level showed no significant difference. Conclusion : The experimental group performing HOCPR showed more accurate compression speed and lower fatigue level. These results suggested that HOCPR would be more effective in training the lay persons in accordance with the voice-instructed CPR.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.3-8
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• 2014

This paper deals with how mental fatigue has an effect on human voice. For this a monotonous task to increase the feeling of the fatigue and a set of subjective questionnaire for rating the fatigue were designed. From the experiments the designed task was proven to be monotonous based on the results of the questionnaire responses. To investigate a statistical relationship between speech features extracted from the collected speech data and fatigue, the T test for two-related-samples was used. Statistical analysis shows that speech parameters deeply related to the fatigue are the first formant bandwidth, Jitter, H1-H2, cepstral peak prominence, and harmonics-to-noise ratio. According to the experimental results, it can be seen that voice is changed to be breathy as mental fatigue proceeds.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.43-53
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to observe the effect of eating a raw egg by professional or nonprofessional voice users on their voice quality and the duration of the effect. 20 professional voice users and 20 nonprofessional voice users participated in the experiment and they had gone through stroboscopy to have no vocal or laryngeal diseases. The voice exam was performed three times: before eating a raw egg (1st period), right after eating it (2nd period), and 10 minutes later (3rd period). By using Multi-dimensional Voice Program which is a software of Computerized Speech Lab 4500 as a voice analysis instrument, the authors checked the F0, Jitter, Shimmer, Noise to harmonic ratio (NHR), and Voice Range Profile (VRP). Results showed as follows: Firstly, vocal hygiene was good in 57.5% of the total subjects and was poor in 42.5%. 40% of professional voice users and 75% of nonprofessional voice users hand good quality. 77.5% of the total subjects had the vocal fatigue while 22.5% of the subjects did not. 95% of the professional voice users and 60% of nonprofessional voice users complained the vocal fatigue. 60% of the total subjects reported a subjective vocal symptom. 65.0% professional voice users and 70.0% of nonprofessional voice users reported a voice symptom. From the results above, we suggest that eating a raw egg may lead to imporve voice quality of the professional voice users.

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.15-35
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• 2010

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to find out the correlation between the Vocal indicators and the 'Buzhongyiqi-Tang questionnaire' and the 'Chalder fatigue scale.' Methods : This study examined the mean value of each factor in the 'Buzhongyiqi-Tang Questionnaire,' 'Chalder fatigue scale' and the different voice indicators conducted on 81 healthy adult participants in relation to the results of the /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ pronunciation test. Results : There was significant correlation between the pronunciation of /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ vowels' F0 indexes and 'the Deficiency symptoms of Buzhongyiqi-Tang'. The results of the regression analysis showed the following significant findings for each pronouncing vowels: /i/ as a factor for 'the Deficiency symptoms of Buzhongyiqi-Tang'.; /a/ for 'the Consumptive fever of Buzhongyiqi-Tang'.; /i/ for 'the Vocal inflammation of Buzhongyiqi-Tang.; and /e/ as a factor of 'the Chadler physical fatigue'. Conclusions : The study showed a negative correlation between the Fundamental Frequency and the mean value of the questionnaire, which could be understood as higher the fatigue level, increased level of vocal vibration and higher pitch tone compared to the less fatigued group. We expect future studies to conduct research on methods to diagnose other illnesses using the vocal indicators based on the correlation between the vocal index and illnesses prescribed under traditional oriental medicine.