• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.51-59
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• 2016

The purpose of present study is to examine differences between habitual speech (HS) and clear speech (CS) in individuals with mild dysarthria. Twelve speakers with mild dysarthria and twelve healthy control speakers read sentences in two speaking styles. Formant and intensity related values, triangular area, and center of gravity of /a/, /i/, and /u/ were measured. In addition, formant-ratio variables such as vowel space area(VSA), vowel articulatory index (VAI), formant centralization ratio (FCR) and F2i/F1u ratio (F2 ratio) were calculated. The results of repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant difference in F2 of vowel /i/ and F2 energy of vowel /a/ between groups. Regarding formant energy, F2 energy of vowel /a/ were observed as meaningful variables between speaking styles. There were significant speaking style-by-group interactions for F2 energy of vowel /a/. These findings indicated that current parameters could discriminate healthy group and mild dysarthria group meaningfully and that speaker with dysarthria had larger clear speech benefit than healthy talkers. We also claim that various acoustic changes of clear speech may contribute to improving vowel intelligibility.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.11-17
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• 2022

English vowels play an important role in verbal communication. However, Korean students tend to experience difficulty pronouncing a certain set of vowels despite extensive education in English. The aim of this study is to apply speech recognition software to evaluate Korean students' pronunciation of English vowels in minimal pair words and then to examine acoustic characteristics of the pairs in order to check their pronunciation problems. Thirty female Korean college students participated in the recording. Speech recognition rates were obtained to examine which English vowels were correctly pronounced. To compare and verify the recognition results, such acoustic analyses as the first and second formant trajectories and durations were also collected using Praat. The results showed an overall recognition rate of 54.7%. Some students incorrectly switched the tense and lax counterparts and produced the same vowel sounds for qualitatively different English vowels. From the acoustic analyses of the vowel formant trajectories, some of these vowel pairs were almost overlapped or exhibited slight acoustic differences at the majority of the measurement points. On the other hand, statistical analyses on the first formant trajectories of the three vowel pairs revealed significant differences throughout the measurement points, a finding that requires further investigation. Durational comparisons revealed a consistent pattern among the vowel pairs. The author concludes that speech recognition and analysis software can be useful to diagnose pronunciation problems of English-language learners.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.69-81
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• 2004

The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate characteristics of Korean vowels uttered by Japanese speakers. Eight Korean Vowels were uttered three times by ten male Korean and Japanese, female Korean and Japanese, respectively. Formant Frequencies were measured from sound spectrograms made by the Pitch Works. Results showed that female Japanese speakers uttered Korean vowels more similar to those uttered by Korean native speakers than did male Japanese speakers.. In particular, male Japanese speakers have articulatory problems pronouncing the back vowels(/ㅓ/, /ㅡ/, /ㅜ/). It appears that the width of male speakers' articulatory movements is comparatively narrower than those of female speakers.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.7-16
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• 1972

By analyzing the frequency of the speech under test to be affected the effect of a co-articulation, we find out the fact that a conversational speech is far from the collective sound continued by a monotone, and define also the frequency range of a Formant at the Korean conversational speech.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.55-58
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• 2003

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the effects of nasalization on vowels. Ten males and 7 females produced 5 vowels (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) in conditions: normal and nasalized. In this study we compared normal vowels' formant with nasalized vowels' and examined nasal-formant in the nasalized vowels. The results was as follows: First, there was a significant difference between normal vowels and nasalized in terms of F1 and F2. Second, the nasal formants were observed in nasalized vowels more frequently in females than males. Third, N1 appeared to influence F1 of vowels whereas N2 seemed to have an impact on F2 and/or F3.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2003

In this study, we examined the acoustic characteristics of Korean vowels through a production test under three conditions of speaking rates (slow, normal, fast). The effects of a change in speaking .ate on vowel duration were found to be very strong. The faster speaking rate was, the shorter the total duration of vowels was. But the duration ratio of two components of diphthong was not changed significantly according to changes in speaking rate. But unlike the temporal aspects, the formant value of vowels at their steady-state and change ratio of formant of semivowels were not affected strongly by the change in speaking rate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.525-531
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• 2015

Driving sound is an effective element to promote the product identity of a vehicle by providing customers with attractive sound which reflects the concept of a vehicle. Recently, major automakers are focusing on the target sound setting so that the sound can represent the brand image as well as the unique concept of a vehicle. In this study, a new method of target setting for the driving sound will be introduced based on using formant filter and musical harmonics characteristics. In addition, a target sound suggested from this method will be realized and verified by using active noise control in vehicle.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.285-294
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• 2000

In this paper the acoustic characteristics of pathological voice, which are measured before and after surgical operation, are compared. This experiment is conducted for the purpose of predicting patients' speech after operation. The voices are recorded from the same patients. Jitter, shimmer and other parameters are. computed and their statistical characteristics are compared. Also spectral changes, such as formant frequency shift and spectral slope change, are compared. From the experimental results, it is verified that not only source characteristics but also vocal tract components vary. And this indicates that the modification of source parameters are not enough for the prediction. Also the result indicates that the operation causes change to both the physical shape of vocal folds and the manner of articulation.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.47-57
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• 2007

The aim of this study was to investigate the pitch and formant characteristics of vowels produced by monolingual and bilingual children. We collected sustained phonation of single vowels, /a/, /i/, /u/, from children aged 6 through 10 and compared their acoustic characteristics, fo, F1, F2. Results showed a significant difference between the groups in fo and F1 in the sustained phonation /a/, but not in F2. In the sustained phonation /i/, F2 revealed a significant difference but fo and F1 showed no significant difference. The F2 showed a significant difference in the sustained phonation /u/, but fo and F1 revealed no significant difference between the groups. It is needed to study further on the acoustic characteristics of bilingual children so that we can make a proper language intervention strategy for them.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.203-212
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• 2007

This study was to compare some acoustic characteristics of vowels produced by children with cochlear implant (CI) and the children with normal hearing. 20 subjects under ten years old were further classified into two groups (one group of CI children under four years old and the other group of CI children over four years old). For the normal hearing group, 20 subjects are participated in the experiment. Some acoustic parameters including fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies (F1, F2) were measured in the two groups according to the age of cochlear implant operation. For the CI group, three comer vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/) were recorded five times in isolation and analyzed with Multi-Speech (Kay Elemetrics, model 3700), and two independent t-tests on their formant data were conducted using SPSS 11.5. The result showed that the implanted group over four years had a significant difference in F0 and F1 comparing with the implanted group under four years of age as well as the normal hearing group. Those values of the children with the implanted group under four years old were closer to those of the children with the normal hearing. As to the F2, there was no significant difference among implanted groups. However, it was shown that the vowel space for the implanted groups regardless the operation age indicated much smaller than that for the normal hearing children. This acoustic results suggest that CI surgery would be much more effective if it is done under the age of four years old.