Journal articles on the topic 'Acoustic-spectrographic method'

Background: The scalp-recorded frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory-evoked potential with putative neural generators in the rostral brainstem, provides a robust representation of the neurophysiologic encoding of complex stimuli. The FFR is rapidly becoming a valuable tool for understanding the neural transcription of speech and music, language-related processing disorders, and brain plasticity at initial stages of the auditory pathway. Despite its potential clinical and empirical utility, determining the presence of a response is still dependent on the subjective interpretation by an experimenter/clinician. Purpose: The purpose of the present work was to develop and validate a fully objective procedure for the automatic detection of FFRs elicited by complex auditory stimuli, including speech. Research Design: Mutual information (MI) was computed between the spectrographic representation of neural FFRs and their evoking acoustic stimuli to quantify the amount of shared time-frequency information between electrophysiologic responses and stimulus acoustics. To remove human subjectivity associated with typical response evaluation, FFRs were first simulated at known signal-to-noise ratios using a computational model of the auditory periphery. The MI at which model FFRs contained +3 dB Signal-to-noise ratio was taken as the criterion threshold (θMI) for the presence of a response. θMI was then applied as a binary classifier on actual neurophysiologic responses recorded previously in human participants (n = 35). Sham recordings, in which no stimulus was presented to participants, allowed us to determine the receiver operating characteristics of the MI metric and the capabilities of the algorithm to segregate true evoked responses from sham recordings. Results: Results showed high overall accuracy (93%) in the metric’s ability to identify true responses from sham recordings. The metric’s overall performance was considerably better than trained human observers who, on average, accurately identified only ˜75% of the true neural responses. Complementary results were found in the metric’s receiver operating characteristic test performance characteristics with a sensitivity and specificity of 97% and 85%, respectively. Additionally, MI increased monotonically and was asymptotic with increasing trials (i.e., sweeps) contributing to the averaged FFR and, thus, can be used as a stopping criteria for signal averaging. Conclusions: The present results demonstrate that the mutual information between a complex acoustic stimulus and its corresponding brainstem response can provide a completely objective and robust method for automated FFR detection. Application of the MI metric to evoked potential speech audiometry testing may provide clinicians with a more robust tool to quantitatively evaluate the presence and quality of speech-evoked brainstem responses ultimately minimizing subjective interpretation and human error.

Latar Belakang dan Tujuan: Makalah ini bertujuan menyerlahkan perbezaan penyuaraan bunyi frikatif Arab bersuara dan tak bersuara yang dihasilkan oleh penutur Melayu. Kajian lepas membuktikan bahawa penutur Melayu sering melakukan kesalahan pertuturan faringealisasi Arab.
 
 Metodologi: Analisis ciri-ciri akustik bunyi frikatif Melayu dan Arab di awal kata menggunakan parameter tempoh frikasi, justeru, dilaksanakan bagi menyerlahkan persamaan dan perbezaan bunyi konsonan berkenaan. Kaedah analisis spektrograf menerusi perisian Praat dimanfaatkan bagi membolehkan pengkaji memindahkan data rakaman ujaran dalam bentuk spektrogram dan melakukan penelitian akustik. Hasil dapatan analisis akustik dimanipulasikan menerusi SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). Data spektogram sebanyak 2960 diperoleh daripada rakaman ujaran subjek kajian seramai 24 orang pelajar ijazah Sarjana Muda Pengajian Bahasa Arab dan Tamadun Islam Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Proses rakaman terlebih dahulu dijalankan di studio rakaman Fakulti Sains Sosial dan Kemanusiaan, UKM menggunakan alat perakam TASCAM MP3/WAV. Senarai perkataan mengandungi bunyi frikatif di awal kata bagi kedua-dua bahasa dibaca oleh subjek kajian dengan keadaan tahap pertuturan yang selesa, iaitu tidak terlalu perlahan dan tidak terlalu laju. Subjek diminta mengulangi perkataan tersebut sebanyak lima kali.
 
 Dapatan Kajian: Hasil kajian ini mendapati bahawa bunyi frikatif tak bersuara /s/ adalah lebih panjang berbanding bunyi bersuara /z/. Dapatan kajian juga menunjukkan bahawa tiada hubungan signifikan antara bunyi /س/ dan /sˤ/ dan /ز/ dan /zˤ/. Secara khususnya, kajian ini mengesahkan bahawa tidak semua bunyi faringealisasi Arab dipengaruhi bahasa ibunda. Bunyi ini mampu juga dikuasai oleh bukan penutur natif Arab.
 
 Implikasi: Kajian ini memberi implikasi signifikan terhadap pembelajaran bahasa Arab sebagai bahasa kedua di Malaysia serta perkembangan ilmu fonetik akustik di Malaysia khususnya bagi menambah baik sebutan frikatif Arab dalam kalangan penutur natif Melayu.
 
 Kata kunci: Akustik, bahasa Arab, gangguan bahasa, pemindahan bahasa, tempoh frikasi.
 
 Abstract
 
 Background and Purpose: This paper aims to highlight the voicing contrast of Arabic and Malay fricatives produced by Malay native speakers. Previous studies show that Malay speakers often make mistakes on Arabic pharyngealisation.
 
 Methodology: This study, thus, analysed the frication duration characteristics of Malay and Arabic fricatives in initial word position and highlight their similarities and differences. The spectrographic analysis method via Praat software was utilized to enable the researcher to transfer speech recording data into a spectrogram and analysed acoustically. A total of 2960 spectrograms was obtained from the recording of 24 subjects’ utterences. The subjects are undergraduate students of Arabic Studies and Islamic Civilization of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The recording process was performed in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UKM recording studio using TASCAM MP3 / WAV recorder. A word list that contains the fricative sound at the beginning of each word in both languages was ​​read by subjects with comfortable speech level, i.e. neither slow nor too fast. Subjects were asked to repeat the word five times.
 
 Findings: The result of the acoustic analysis was manipulated using Statistical Package for Social Sciences. This study found that the fricative sound / s / is longer than the sound / z / for both languages. The findings also show that there is no significant relationship between sound / س / and / sˤ / and / ز / and / zˤ /. In particular, this study confirms that not all Arabic pharyngealisation are influenced by their native language. It can be mastered also by non-native speakers of Arabic.
 
 Contributions: This study provides significant implications for learning Arabic as a second language in Malaysia as well as the development of acoustic phonetics, particularly, in improving the fricative pronunciation of Arabic among native speakers of Malay.
 
 Keywords: Acoustic, Arabic, frication duration, language interference, language transfer.
 
 Cite as: Shahidi A. H., Radzi, M. P., Aman, R., CheLaeh, M., & Anwar, O. D. (2020). Ciri-ciri akustik kontras penyuaraan bunyi frikatif Arab berasaskan parameter tempoh frikasi [The acoustic properties of Arabic fricative voicing contrast based on the frication duration parameter]. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 5(1), 143-168. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol5iss1pp143-168

Background: Previous studies have assessed the capability of PRAAT for acoustic voice analysis in total laryngectomized (TL) patients, although this software was designed for acoustic analysis of laryngeal voice. Recently, we have witnessed the development of specialized acoustic analysis software, Tracheoesophageal Voice Analysis (TEVA). This study aims to compare the analysis with both programs in TL patients. Methods: Observational analytical study of 34 TL patients where a quantitative acoustic analysis was performed for stable phonation with vowels [a] and [i] as well as spectrographic characterization using the TEVA and PRAAT software. Results: The Voice Handicap Index (VHI-10) showed a mean score of 11.29 ± 11.16 points, categorized as a moderate handicap. TEVA analysis found lower values in the fundamental frequency vs. PRAAT (p < 0.05). A significant increase in shimmer values was observed with TEVA (>20%). No significant differences were found between spectrographic analysis with TEVA and PRAAT. Conclusions: Tracheoesophageal speech is an alaryngeal voice, characterized by a higher degree of irregularity and noise compared to laryngeal speech. Consequently, it necessitates a more tailored approach using objective assessment tools adapted to these distinct features, like TEVA, that are designed specifically for TL patients. This study provides statistical evidence supporting its reliability and suitability for the evaluation and tracking of tracheoesophageal speakers.

Abstract Purpose: There are a number of challenges in forensic speaker identification (FSI) due to the variations in recorded speech samples. Two major variations which uniformly spread in entire speech samples are as follows: variation due to (1) speaking style and (2) vowel environment. The present study is carried out in Tamil language, and here, we study variations in formant frequency due to different speaking styles, i.e., reading and natural spontaneous speech mode. Materials and Methods: Speech samples were recorded in both reading and natural speech mode from 11 persons known to the authors. The present study is based on auditory and spectrographic analysis, a conventional method followed in FSI. The spectrographic analysis and measurement of formant frequencies were carried out by using computerized speech lab. Results: The study was carried out on the basis of Euclidian distances and statistical analysis on formant frequencies, and it was observed that the formant frequencies do not vary significantly during reading mode; however, in natural speech mode, it vary significantly. A detailed study on the effect of change in vowel environment was carried out, and it was revealed that there is a significant variation in formant frequencies due to difference in realization. Conclusion: The results show that the vocal tract geometry of a speaker shall vary significantly due to the difference in speaking style and vowel environment. The results obtained in this study will be useful in modeling text-dependent and text-independent automatic speaker identification systems. Further, there is a scope for similar study in different languages and applications.

The article presents a review of Russian and foreign research devoted to the analysis of various components of oral speech of children with dysarthria. A systematic review of publications from 2000 to 2023 on the problem of diagnosing dysarthria in children using subjective and instrumental methods including a total of 215 studies identified the following analysis criteria: type of article; analyzed components of oral speech (breathing, articulation, phonation, prosody); research methods. The analysis showed that the predominant amount of research devoted to the study of oral speech of children with dysarthria is based on psychological and pedagogical observation, digitalized methods are used less often. Objective speech characteristics of children with dysarthria obtained using instrumental assessment methods are highlighted: kinematic analysis, acoustic spectrographic analysis of speech, electromyography, electromagnetic articulography, electropalatography, etc. Familiarization of speech therapists with modern instrumental methods of examination will expand the understanding of the possibilities of obtaining objective data in the study of speech in children with dysarthria. This will allow us to identify new areas of research involving instrumental methods for the development of modern diagnostic and therapy methodologies to overcome dysarthria in childre

We present the spectrographic description of the vocal repertoire of the Philippine tarsier (Tarsius syrichta fraterculus), a solitary living nocturnal primate for which a very limited information about acoustic communication exists to date. The majority of vocalizations were performed around sunset and, less frequently, at sunrise. We identified eight call types. Five calls recorded during communication between adults included three long-distance calls—loud call, smack-whistle, and whistle—then a soft locust-like chirp and a bird-like trill. Two other calls—cheep and twitter—were recorded during mother-infant communication. One distress call was emitted by adults during handling. All calls were performed in the 9752 Hz to more than 22 kHz frequency range. This study provides the first evidence of individual variation in the long-distance calls performed by tarsiers. Moreover, our study provides a basis for future comparison within as well as between tarsier species taxonomy. Bioacoustic methods can be used in monitoring of these cryptic species and determining their distribution range. Thus, bioacoustic studies can help to improve conservation strategies of different population/species.

Objectives: This study was performed to determine whether and how unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) affects the production and perception of voiced stop consonants as compared with unvoiced stops, and to analyze the phonetic effects of UVFP on the voicing feature. Methods: Phonetic constructs pronounced by 7 male patients with UVFP and 5 normal male subjects were recorded. The 432 speech tokens consisted of intervocalic, prevocalic, and postvocalic stop consonants (/p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/) in the vowel contexts / a/ and /i/. Perceptual consonant identification testing was performed with 5 voice and speech professionals as listeners. The type and frequency of errors made in consonant identification were analyzed. Spectrographic analysis was used to analyze acoustic cues. Results: The rate of correct consonant identification was significantly lower for tokens pronounced by patients with UVFP (77.3% versus 97.6%, p =.0001) because of incorrect identification of the voiced consonants, frequently perceived as their unvoiced homologues. Confusion between dental and alveolar place of articulation for unvoiced stops was also noted. Conclusions: Unilateral vocal fold paralysis alters the voiced-unvoiced stop consonant distinction and the dental-palatal stop consonant distinction in an experimental nonspeech context. This finding implies the existence of a phonetic handicap for patients with UVFP. Further studies should determine the effects of UVFP on global speech intelligibility.

This paper deals with the acoustic features of the Surgut Khanty consonants. The research is based on the data gathered during fieldwork in Kogalym town (2018) and the Ugut village (2019). The audio samples are provided by three native speakers of the Tromjegan, Malyi Yugan, and Bolshoi Yugan idioms. The total size of the sample database numbers more than six thousand isolated consonant pronouncements. The data for the research was obtained using oscillographic and spectrographic methods, formant locus analysis, spectral moment analysis. The analysis was performed via Praat and Emu-SDMS software. Oscillograghy and spectrography methods reveal that voiceless fricative phonemes may be voiced in intervocalic distribution. It is common for the sonants to become devoiced in the final and preconsonantal positions. Moreover, due to devoicing, different phonemes may acquire low-obstruent and obstruent consonant features. For the fricative, lateral-fricative consonants, affricates spectral moment analysis has been carried out. The spectral moments technique gives an opportunity to represent complex noise data as a relatively small set of numbers that can be processed statistically. According to the data on spectral moments, four types of noise have been defined: high-frequency low-dispersion noise resembling /s/, medium-frequency low-dispersion noise resembling /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /cc/, low-frequency medium-dispersed noise for phonemes /ɫ/, / /, low-frequency dispersed noise for phonemes /w/, /γ/. The forman analysis is used o es ima e onsonan resonan frequen ies. As shown by he formant locus analysis, the smallest values of the second formant locus are associated with the labial and velar phonemes. Larger values are associated with the coronal phonemes. The largest ones are specific to the palatal phonemes. At the same time, the acoustic features make it possible to stably distinguish the nasal /n/ - /ɲ/, wherein the opposition of the middle and fron lingual ar i ula ions is observed only in some speakers’ re ordings for the pairs /ɫ/ - / /, /tʃ/ - /cc/.

PURPOSE: The primary purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between pharyngoesophageal segment (PES) configuration and narrow-band spectrogram of tracheoesophageal voices. METHODS: This study included 30 total laryngectomees tracheoesophageal speakers. Patients were assessed by videofluoroscopy (VF), during deglutition and voicing, and the vowel /a/ was recorded for spectrographic analysis. The evaluation of VF recording consisted of visual perceptual rating of degree of contact between the prominence of PES and its anterior wall, defined as absent/mild (hypo contact), moderate (normo contact) and intense (hyper contact); and quantitative measures of PES: anteroposterior distance (APD) and length of the PES (lenPES); PES surface area in swallowing (areaSw), and phonation (areaPh), and the area of the air reservoir (areaAir). Visual inspection of a narrow-band spectrogram was made and four different acoustic signal typing were defined as Type I, II, III or IV. RESULTS: Type I-II is correlated with moderate contact; Type III, with intense and Type IV, with absent/mild contact. Type I-II has bigger APD and PES with lower length than Type IV. There is a correlation between bigger APD and shorter PES. CONCLUSION: The group with I-II signal typing has PES with normo contact; Type III with hyper contact and Type IV has PES with hypo contact. The best tracheoesophageal voices are achieved by PES with moderate contact of the prominence and with shorter and larger anteroposterior PES distances. What differentiates the PES with hyper contact from PES with normal one is only the degree of contact between the prominence of the PES and its anterior wall.

The paper explores a subtype of the phonological process of lenition, more precisely, the phe- nomenon of spirantization in the Serbian-English interlanguage system. During the process of spirantization, plosive sounds transform into fricatives and the factors causing altered realiza- tions may stem from various sources, the most prominent being mother tongue interference. For example, due to the specific pronunciation of alveolar stops and fricatives in L1, Spanish learners of English as a foreign language tend to transfer the feature into their L2, causing thus all voiced plosives, regardless of the place of articulation, to transform into fricatives (Zampini 2008). However, the phonological system of Serbian is not characterized by the same processes, hence, the occasional spirantization in the interlanguage system, we argue, cannot be derived from mother tongue interference, yet may be the result of other factors, such as, qualitative hypercorrection. The analyzed corpus was obtained from the recordings of a spontaneous speech by 15 Serbian English-major students at the tertiary level of education. We investigated the instances of spirantization using the methods of acoustic analysis and spectrographic illustra- tions via Praat, version 6.2.04. The findings indicated that only alveolar plosives (both voiced and voiceless) were spirantized, most frequently in accented position. Regarding the phonetic environment, the word-initial pre-vocalic position, as well as the word-final post-vocalic and post-consonantal position, triggered the highest frequency of spirantization occurrence. Acous- tic measurements confirm the initial assumptions regarding the specific nature of spirantized variants [dz], [ts], [ð] and [θ]. The results have important pedagogical implications and provide insights into the complexity of cross-linguistic influence.

The paper deals with acoustic-spectrographic voice identification method in terms of its performance in non-native language speech. Performance evaluation is conducted by comparing the result of the analysis of recordings containing native language speech with recordings that contain foreign language speech. Our research is based on Tajik and Russian speech of Tajik native speakers due to the character of the criminal situation with drug trafficking. We propose a pilot experiment that represents a primary attempt enter the field.

ABSTRACT Purpose: to verify contributions of acoustic spectrographic analysis in the forensic identification of speakers with auditorily similar voices, considering the distinctive behavior of acoustic parameters: formants of vowel “é”, of connected speech, mean fundamental frequency in Hz, linear prediction curve of vowel “é” and linear prediction curve area; and to propose an objective method to use the analyzed parameters. Methods: a quantitative, qualitative and descriptive study, conducted in Pernambuco on 16 pairs of male siblings, aged 18-60 years. The subjects recorded videos from which the audios were extracted, numbered and sent to three examiners, in two groups: older brothers and younger brothers, for perceptual-auditory pairing. The correct pairings, indicated by at least two examiners, were submitted to acoustic analysis. The statistical tests included Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis and Bonferroni, with p<0.05. Results: the results of analyses of formants and the mean fundamental frequency were not enough to distinguish similar voices. Unprecedentedly, in the measurements of areas generated by the linear prediction curve graphs, a distinctive statistical significance was observed. Conclusion: it was concluded that, among the parameters studied, the measurements of areas of the linear prediction curve objectively indicated effectiveness in distinguishing speakers with auditorily similar voices.

The Australian EEZ provides habitat for ten species of mysticete whales seasonally supporting critical life functions ranging from feeding to breeding. All of these species produce downsweeping calls, which may confound passive acoustic monitoring efforts. In an attempt to optimize a detector for Eastern Indian Ocean pygmy blue whale (EIOPBW) downsweeps, we tried a spectrogram correlator based on confirmed templates and a neural network trained on general blue whale D-calls followed by clustering algorithms. Outputs were manually validated by bioacousticians. We found that downsweeps exhibit significant variability and form a graded continuum of acoustic features, as opposed to clusters. Comparative analysis demonstrated parallels between EIOPBW call variants and downsweeps of other mysticete species, raising concerns about the reliability of assigning calls to species based solely on spectrographic features. Geographical and seasonal patterns of downsweeps were more conclusive for EIOPBW when aligned with known migratory routes and timings. Challenges in automated detection, variability in environmental noise, and human biases in manual classification were acknowledged. To improve species identification, we suggest integrating soft labeling, advanced acoustic transforms, sound propagation corrections, and cross-referenced databases. Until automated methods achieve higher reliability, passive acoustic monitoring will require a multidisciplinary approach incorporating regional ecological insights and manual validation.