Search

The smart home’s functional requirements should include the capability to differentiate between various user categories, such as gender and voice recognition. The data-driven Internet of Things (IoT) can present challenges for the elderly and people with disabilities, but voice recognition technology could offer an effective solution. In addition, developing an accurate gender prediction model for voice recognition is still challenging due to the large time variation and randomness. Therefore, we propose gender classification and detection models based on voice frequency using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) with ResNet50 and ResNet101 architectures to enhance smart home functionality. We also introduce an algorithm for converting voice frequencies into images to speed up the recognition and detection processes. The research method involves converting voice frequencies into images to expedite the recognition and detection processes. The CNN models were trained and tested with various learning rates using audio datasets. Performance was evaluated through simulations that measured training accuracy, validation accuracy, recall, precision, and F1 scores. The simulation results show high training accuracy: ResNet50 achieved 99.67% and ResNet101 achieved 99.82%. The validation accuracy of the models also exceeded the accuracy of traditional CNN models in previous studies. The simulation results based on recall, precision, and F1 score for each proposed model are 99.3%, 100%, and 99.65%, respectively. Finally, we successfully used the ResNet50 model to create a low-latency smart home prototype. Thus, this paper significantly contributes to the practical applications of voice-based gender recognition in smart home environments with high accuracy and efficiency in detection.

How managers evaluate employees' ideas and when they endorse or reject them have always been concerns. Based on categorization theory, we theorize that middle managers with multiple responsibilities and limited resources tend to label excessive voices as threats instead of opportunities. We thus propose an inverted U‐shaped relationship between voice frequency and voice endorsement that sequentially influences job performance. Further, perceived task interdependence, related to how an individual makes sense of issues in the team, will influence voice content and moderate the curvilinear relationship between voice frequency and job performance through voice endorsement. A three‐wave time‐lagged survey of Chinese firms, including 299 employees and 37 supervisors, provided convergent support for this theoretical model. Our research contributes to the voice literature by exploring how middle managers' limited resources and multiple responsibilities influence their voice evaluation process. This research thus has practical implications for both organizations and employees, as it suggests organizations allocate resources to facilitate managers' implementation of voice and provides suggestions for effective voice experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrodermal activity (EDA) represents changes in the electrical properties of the skin due to the opening of sweat pores and sweat secretion. EDA responses are classified into specific and nonspecific responses. Nonspecific EDA responses (NS.EDRs) are EDA responses without external stimuli or motor activity and are shown to be a good measure of psychophysiological states and traits. Studies investigating NSEDRs are rare, especially on responses, which occur following specific responses at resting periods. This study aimed to investigate variations in NS.EDRs (in terms of frequency and amplitude) at a sequence of resting periods (pre and post of various stimuli). NS.EDRs parameters were recorded from 20 subjects simultaneously in the same skin area. They were computed at resting periods before and following specific responses due to five external stimuli. The study results indicated that there were differences in the frequency and amplitude of NS.EDRs recorded at different resting periods. Additionally, the frequency of NS.EDRs obtained before stimuli were more than those detected at other resting periods, whereas amplitudes of NS.EDRs following sound stimulus were higher than those computed before and after other stimuli; however, these results were statistically nonsignificant (p>0.05). This study suggests that nonspecific skin potential responses (NS.SPRs) are very sensitive to capture variations in the frequency and amplitude of NS.EDRs, whereas nonspecific skin susceptance responses (NS.SSRs) are the least sensitive compared to nonspecific skin conductance responses (NS.SCRs) and NS.SPRs. NS.EDRs may be an important indicator for tracking arousal, emotional behavior, psychophysiological variables, and goal-directed thinking in clinical applications due to their sensitivity to such responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Variation in the speech of speakers is a crucial issue for the forensic system. The main reason behind incorrect speaker identification is greater intra-speaker fluctuation. In the forensic state of play, a lot of research has been carried out on speaker identification. However inter variations and intra fluctuations in speakers for the Punjabi language is still a grey area. Aims and Objectives: Our aim is to study acoustic analysis of fluctuations for inter and intra speaker variability in speech sounds. In our study, we will consider Punjabi vowel with consonants. The Statistical methods will be applied to analyze the data; firstly, the Shapiro-Wilk test will be checked for normality and then Levene's Test to assess the equality of variances. Materials and Method: Five vowels were selected with different consonants. They were combined to make meaningful words. Then these meaningful words were embedded in sentences. Ten speakers participated voluntarily. All are students of A.S College at Khanna in Punjab. The individuals were aged between 20-22 years with no hearing or speech disorder. The voice samples were recorded with help of good quality microphone and by Goldwave software in the sound proof lab. Samples were introduced directly into PRAAT software by the use of a Sony microphone and with sampling rate of 44100 Hz frequency. Acoustic Analysis has been done with help of Goldwave software in form of spectrograms. Results and Conclusion: Each formant shows a different value for inter variations and inter speaker fluctuations. F1 and F2 shows lesser speaker variation than the high-frequency region in F3 and F4, so we can say that in comparison with the lower part, high-frequency regions are more valuable. The assumptions for TWO-WAY ANOVA is violated and hence, we have used the non-parametric Friedman Test and performed its Post hoc analysis. From Posthoc analysis, we can say that F1 and F2 (p >0.05) and F2 and F3 (p>0.05) gave the same type of results. Hence, from the results of these statistical tests, we can conclude that F1 is recommended over F2, F3, and F4. As the frequency of F1 is high as well as in line with the results of statistical tests. Because we prefer more variation among frequencies so that we can easily distinguish different speakers and it would be more beneficial for inter variations and intra fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Using naturalistic synthesized speech, we determined the relative importance of acoustic cues in voice gender and age perception in cochlear implant (CI) users. Method: We investigated 28 CI users’ abilities to utilize fundamental frequency (F0) and timbre in perceiving voice gender (Experiment 1) and vocal age (Experiment 2). Parameter-specific voice morphing was used to selectively control acoustic cues (F0; time; timbre, i.e., formant frequencies, spectral-level information, and aperiodicity, as defined in TANDEM-STRAIGHT) in voice stimuli. Individual differences in CI users’ performance were quantified via deviations from the mean performance of 19 normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Results: CI users’ gender perception seemed exclusively based on F0, whereas NH listeners efficiently used timbre. For age perception, timbre was more informative than F0 for both groups, with minor contributions of temporal cues. While a few CI users performed comparable to NH listeners overall, others were at chance. Separate analyses confirmed that even high-performing CI users classified gender almost exclusively based on F0. While high performers could discriminate age in male and female voices, low performers were close to chance overall but used F0 as a misleading cue to age (classifying female voices as young and male voices as old). Satisfaction with CI generally correlated with performance in age perception. Conclusions: We confirmed that CI users’ gender classification is mainly based on F0. However, high performers could make reasonable usage of timbre cues in age perception. Overall, parameter-specific morphing can serve to objectively assess individual profiles of CI users’ abilities to perceive nonverbal social-communicative vocal signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Gradual and sudden perturbations of vocal fundamental frequency (fo), also known as adaptive and reflexive fo perturbations, are techniques to study the influence of auditory feedback on voice fo control mechanisms. Previous vocal fo perturbations have incorporated varied setup-specific feedback delays and amplifications. Here, we investigated the effects of feedback delays (10–100 ms) and amplifications on both adaptive and reflexive fo perturbation paradigms, encapsulating the variability in equipment-specific delays (3–45 ms) and amplifications utilized in previous experiments. Method: Responses to adaptive and reflexive fo perturbations were recorded in 24 typical speakers for four delay conditions (10, 40, 70, and 100 ms) or three amplification conditions (−10, +5, and +10 dB relative to microphone) in a counterbalanced order. Repeatedmeasures analyses of variance were carried out on the magnitude of fo responses to determine the effect of feedback condition. Results: There was a statistically significant effect of the level of auditory feedback amplification on the response magnitude during adaptive fo perturbations, driven by the difference between +10- and −10-dB amplification conditions (hold phase difference: M = 38.3 cents, SD = 51.2 cents; after-effect phase: M = 66.1 cents, SD = 84.6 cents). No other statistically significant effects of condition were found for either paradigm. Conclusions: Experimental equipment delays below 100 ms in behavioral paradigms do not affect the results of fo perturbation paradigms. As there is no statistically significant difference between the response magnitudes elicited by +5- and +10-dB auditory amplification conditions, this study is a confirmation that an auditory feedback amplification of +5 dB relative to microphone is sufficient to elicit robust compensatory responses for fo perturbation paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposed an unsupervised segment-based method for robust voice activity detection. • Proposed modified rVAD that uses computationally fast spectral flatness calculation. • Evaluated rVAD in terms of VAD performance using RATS and Aurora-2 databases. • Evaluated rVAD in terms of speaker verification performance using RedDots 2016. • rVAD showed favorable performance on various difficult tasks over existing methods. This paper presents an unsupervised segment-based method for robust voice activity detection (rVAD). The method consists of two passes of denoising followed by a voice activity detection (VAD) stage. In the first pass, high-energy segments in a speech signal are detected by using a posteriori signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) weighted energy difference and if no pitch is detected within a segment, the segment is considered as a high-energy noise segment and set to zero. In the second pass, the speech signal is denoised by a speech enhancement method, for which several methods are explored. Next, neighbouring frames with pitch are grouped together to form pitch segments, and based on speech statistics, the pitch segments are further extended from both ends in order to include both voiced and unvoiced sounds and likely non-speech parts as well. In the end, a posteriori SNR weighted energy difference is applied to the extended pitch segments of the denoised speech signal for detecting voice activity. We evaluate the VAD performance of the proposed method using two databases, RATS and Aurora-2, which contain a large variety of noise conditions. The rVAD method is further evaluated, in terms of speaker verification performance, on the RedDots 2016 challenge database and its noise-corrupted versions. Experiment results show that rVAD is compared favourably with a number of existing methods. In addition, we present a modified version of rVAD where computationally intensive pitch extraction is replaced by computationally efficient spectral flatness calculation. The modified version significantly reduces the computational complexity at the cost of moderately inferior VAD performance, which is an advantage when processing a large amount of data and running on low resource devices. The source code of rVAD is made publicly available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alignment is a key step before learning a mapping function between a source and a target speaker's spectral features in various state-of-the-art parallel data Voice Conversion (VC) techniques. After alignment, some corresponding pairs are still inconsistent with the rest of the data and are considered outliers. These outliers shift the parameters of the mapping function from their true value and hence, negatively affect the learning of mapping function during the training phase of the VC task. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the effect of outliers (and hence, their removal) on quality of the converted voice has not been much explored in the VC literature. Recent research has shown the effectiveness of the outlier removal as a pre-processing step in the VC. In this paper, we extend this study with a detailed theory and analysis. The proposed method uses a score distance that is estimated using Robust Principal Component Analysis (ROBPCA) to detect the outliers. In particular, the outliers are determined using a fixed cut-off on the score distances, based on the degrees of freedom in a chi-squared distribution, which is speaker-pair independent. The fixed cut-off is due to the assumption that the score distances follow the normal (i.e., Gaussian) distribution. However, this is a weak statistical assumption even in the cases where quite many samples are available. Hence, in this paper, we propose to explore speaker-pair dependent cut-offs to detect the outliers. In addition, we have presented our results on two state-of-the-art databases, namely, CMU-ARCTIC and Voice Conversion Challenge (VCC) 2016 by developing various state-of-the-art methods in the VC. In particular, we have presented the effectiveness of the outlier removal on Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), and Deep Neural Network (DNN)-based VC techniques. Furthermore, we have presented subjective and objective evaluations using a 95% confidence interval for the statistical significance of the tests. We obtained an average 0.56% relative reduction in Mel Cepstral Distortion (MCD) with the proposed outlier removal approach as a pre-processing step. In particular, with the proposed speaker-pair dependent cut-off, we have observed relative improvement of 12.24% and 30.51% in the speech quality, and 39.7% and 4.27% absolute improvement in the speaker similarity for the CMU-ARCTIC and the VCC 2016, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Our aim was to make audible for normal-hearing listeners the Mickey Mouse? sound quality of cochlear implants (CIs) often found following device activation. Method: The listeners were 3 single-sided deaf patients fit with a CI and who had 6 months or less of CI experience. Computed tomography imaging established the location of each electrode contact in the cochlea and allowed an estimate of the place frequency of the tissue nearest each electrode. For the most apical electrodes, this estimate ranged from 650 to 780 Hz. To determine CI sound quality, a clean signal (a sentence) was presented to the CI ear via a direct connect cable and candidate, and CI-like signals were presented to the ear with normal hearing via an insert receiver. The listeners rated the similarity of the candidate signals to the sound of the CI on a 1- to 10-point scale, with 10 being a complete match. Results: To make the match to CI sound quality, all 3 patients need an upshift in formant frequencies (300-800 Hz) and a metallic sound quality. Two of the 3 patients also needed an upshift in voice pitch (10-80 Hz) and a muffling of sound quality. Similarity scores ranged from 8 to 9.7. Conclusion: The formant frequency upshifts, fundamental frequency upshifts, and metallic sound quality experienced by the listeners can be linked to the relatively basal locations of the electrode contacts and short duration experience with their devices. The perceptual consequence was not the voice quality of Mickey Mouse but rather that of Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz for whom both formant frequencies and voice pitch were upshifted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to extend the knowledge and understanding of how engaging with young children's voices in a meaningful way, can alter practitioners' pedagogical practice and thus create environments for learning that are more inclusive. It draws on the findings of a research study that explored practitioners' (teachers, nursery nurses and teaching assistants) views about engaging with young children's voices of perceived notions of inclusion in pedagogical activities in the early years classes of two schools in the North of England. It adopted a qualitative methodological approach that operates within constructivist and interpretivist paradigms. The study revealed that practitioners retain some resistance to responding to the voices of young children and that internal and external pressures influence their decision-making. Moreover, it signifies the necessity for greater emphasis on the importance of engaging with children's voices in the training of newly qualified teachers, and the ongoing professional development for all practitioners in early childhood education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has potential for the assessment of excessive laryngeal tension and vocal effort associated with functional and neurological voice disorders. This study presents an analysis of the test-retest reliability of RFF in individuals with healthy voices and a comparison of reliability between RFF and conventional measures of voice. Method: Acoustic and aerodynamic measurements and Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) were performed on 28 individuals with healthy voices on 5 consecutive days. Participants produced RFF stimuli, a sustained /a/, and a reading passage to allow for extraction of acoustic measures and CAPE-V ratings; /pa/ trains were produced to allow for extraction of aerodynamic measures. Results: Moderate reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = .64-.71) were found for RFF values. Mean vocal fundamental frequency, smoothed cepstral peak prominence, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and mean airflow rate exhibited good-to-excellent reliabilities (ICC = .76-.99). ICCs for jitter and phonation threshold pressure were moderately reliable (ICC = .67-.74). ICCs for subglottal pressure estimates and all CAPE-V parameters showed poor reliabilities (ICC = .31-.58). Conclusion: RFF has comparable reliability to conventional measures of voice. This expands the potential for clinical application of RFF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residual hearing loss in cochlear implant users is investigated using the mechanical-human-cochlear model. Hearing loss due to stiffening of the round window increases significantly as input frequencies decrease from 3 kHz to 1 kHz but remains constant at lower frequencies, whereas loss due to the presence of an electrode insert becomes significantly higher at lower frequencies ($<\text{1}$  kHz). The latter also shifts the characteristic frequency map toward the basal end of the cochlea. In the region away from the end of the electrode insert, cochlear function recovers, but the user still suffers from hearing loss caused by round window stiffening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental frequency differences (ΔF0) between competing talkers aid in the perceptual segregation of the talkers (ΔF0 benefit), but the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. A model of ΔF0 benefit based on harmonic cancellation proposes that a masker's periodicity can be used to cancel (i.e., filter out) its neural representation. Earlier work suggested that an octave ΔF0 provided little benefit, an effect predicted by harmonic cancellation due to the shared periodicity of masker and target. Alternatively, this effect can be explained by spectral overlap between the harmonic components of the target and masker. To assess these competing explanations, speech intelligibility of a monotonized target talker, masked by a speech-shaped harmonic complex tone, was measured as a function of ΔF0, masker spectrum (all harmonics or odd harmonics only), and masker temporal envelope (amplitude modulated or unmodulated). Removal of the masker's even harmonics when the target was one octave above the masker improved speech reception thresholds by about 5 dB. Because this manipulation eliminated spectral overlap between target and masker components but preserved shared periodicity, the finding is consistent with the explanation for the lack of ΔF0 benefit at the octave based on spectral overlap, but not with the explanation based on harmonic cancellation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Frequency lowering in hearing aids can cause listeners to perceive [s] as [ʃ]. The S-SH Confusion Test, which consists of 66 minimal word pairs spoken by 6 female talkers, was designed to help clinicians and researchers document these negative side effects. This study's purpose was to use this new test to evaluate the hypothesis that these confusions will increase to the extent that low frequencies are altered. Method: Twenty-one listeners with normal hearing were each tested on 7 conditions. Three were control conditions that were low-pass filtered at 3.3, 5.0, and 9.1 kHz. Four conditions were processed with nonlinear frequency compression (NFC): 2 had a 3.3-kHz maximum audible output frequency (MAOF), with a start frequency (SF) of 1.6 or 2.2 kHz; 2 had a 5.0-kHz MAOF, with an SF of 1.6 or 4.0 kHz. Listeners' responses were analyzed using concepts from signal detection theory. Response times were also collected as a measure of cognitive processing. Results: Overall, [s] for [ʃ] confusions were minimal. As predicted, [ʃ] for [s] confusions increased for NFC conditions with a lower versus higher MAOF and with a lower versus higher SF. Response times for trials with correct [s] responses were shortest for the 9.1-kHz control and increased for the 5.0- and 3.3-kHz controls. NFC response times were also significantly longer as MAOF and SF decreased. The NFC condition with the highest MAOF and SF had statistically shorter response times than its control condition, indicating that, under some circumstances, NFC may ease cognitive processing. Conclusions: Large differences in the S-SH Confusion Test across frequency-lowering conditions show that it can be used to document a major negative side effect associated with frequency lowering. Smaller but significant differences in response times for correct [s] trials indicate that NFC can help or hinder cognitive processing, depending on its settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Frequency of sound affects the error in judging the angle of orientation. • Source-to-subject distance and cue of source affects sound localization. • Results are applicable to acoustic design for the hearing-impaired users. Abstract This study investigated the effects of frequency of the sound source, source-to-subject distance, orientation angle of the sound source, and cue of source on the error in judging the angle of orientation. Three levels of frequency of sound: 0.125, 1.0, and 6.0 kHz; three levels of source-to-subject distance: 1-, 2-, and 3-m; eight levels of angled orientation of sound: from 0° (in the front of subject) to 315°, in which every level is 45°, 180° represent behind the subject; two cues of source: two-ear (i.e., binaural hearing) and single-ear (i.e., better-hearing ear) were tested. A 3 (frequency of sound source) × 8 (angled orientation of the sound source) × 3 (source-to-subject distance) repeated-measures design was used. Results indicated that all four independent variables had significant effects on the error in judging the angle of orientation. The error in judging the angle of orientation for 6.0 kHz was greater than those for 0.125 kHz and 1.0 kHz. For the source-to-subject distance, 3-m resulted in the greater error in judging the angle of orientation. For the angled orientation of sound source, 315°, 90°, or 270° resulted in best localization performance; however, 0° and 180° resulted in the worst localization performance. The error in judging the angle of orientation for binaural hearing was smaller than for the better-hearing ear. The interaction effects of frequency of the sound × source-to-subject distance and frequency of the sound × angled orientation of sound source were statistically significant. In conclusion, the error in judging the angle of orientation was best with binaural hearing, 0.125 kHz, 45°, and 1-m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Microperforated panel (MPP) absorbers are one of the most promising alternatives to porous sound absorbing materials. However, these structures cannot achieve high and broadband absorption at low frequencies. To be effective, once defined the material properties the geometrical parameters of the absorber need to be optimized to match the prescribed absorption level. This paper presents a multiple layer MPP absorber with a high sound absorption coefficient and broadband absorption at low frequencies. An electro-acoustical equivalent circuit model was used for a parametric analysis to study the relationships between the absorption mechanism and the absorbers geometrical parameters in the proposed multilayer MPP. A prototype of this absorber was machined and tested in an impedance tube test ring and the experimental acoustical properties in terms of absorption coefficient were extracted using the transfer function method. It was demonstrated that the five-layer MPP absorber was capable of guaranteeing a high absorption (constantly over 90%) in a frequency range from 400 to 2000 Hz. The results indicate that the proposed multilayer MPP absorber provides a good alternative for sound absorption applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Speech Intelligibility Index includes a series of frequency importance functions for calculating the estimated intelligibility of speech under various conditions. Until recently, techniques to derive frequency importance required averaging data over a group of listeners, thus hindering the ability to observe individual differences due to factors such as hearing loss. In the current study, the "random combination strategy" [Bosen and Chatterjee (2016). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 140, 3718–3727] was used to derive frequency importance functions for individual hearing-impaired listeners, and normal-hearing participants for comparison. Functions were measured by filtering sentences to contain only random subsets of frequency bands on each trial, and regressing speech recognition against the presence or absence of bands across trials. Results show that the contribution of each band to speech recognition was inversely proportional to audiometric threshold in that frequency region, likely due to reduced audibility, even though stimuli were shaped to compensate for each individual's hearing loss. The results presented in this paper demonstrate that this method is sensitive to factors that alter the shape of frequency importance functions within individuals with hearing loss, which could be used to characterize the impact of audibility or other factors related to suprathreshold deficits or hearing aid processing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have reported that exposure to lead and cadmium can damage the inner ear receptor, which perceives high-frequency sounds. However, few studies have used the pure-tone average (PTA), including high-frequency ranges, for the estimation of hearing loss caused by lead and cadmium exposure. We estimated hearing loss using the PTA test, in low-frequency, speech frequency, and high-frequency ranges and compared the differences in the results using 3 PTA calculation methods. We analyzed the data of 2,387 participants, between the ages of 19 and 85 years, that were obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) of 2010-2012. A dose-response relationship between hearing loss and heavy metal exposure was observed in the high-frequency method after adjustment for confounding factors. When using the high-frequency PTA, it was found that doubling of the levels of lead and cadmium in the blood was associated with a 1.88- (95% CI 1.11-3.17) and 1.89-fold (95% CI 1.02-3.50) increase in the OR for hearing loss. In the case of the low-frequency and speech frequency PTA, however, there were no significant relationships between hearing loss and the concentrations of lead and cadmium in the blood. The outcomes of the present study suggest that the estimation of hearing loss caused by environmental exposure to lead and cadmium is affected by the frequencies used in the PTA calculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Recent research on the signal value of masculine physical characteristics in men has focused on the possibility that such characteristics are valid cues of physical strength. However, evidence that sexually dimorphic vocal characteristics are correlated with physical strength is equivocal. Consequently, we undertook a further test for possible relationships between physical strength and masculine vocal characteristics. Methods: We tested the putative relationships between White UK (N = 115) and Chinese (N = 106) participants' handgrip strength (a widely used proxy for general upper‐body strength) and five sexually dimorphic acoustic properties of voices: fundamental frequency (F0), fundamental frequency's SD (F0‐SD), formant dispersion (Df), formant position (Pf), and estimated vocal‐tract length (VTL). Results: Analyses revealed no clear evidence that stronger individuals had more masculine voices. Conclusions: Our results do not support the hypothesis that masculine vocal characteristics are a valid cue of physical strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many bird species produce temporally coordinated duets and choruses, requiring the rapid integration of auditory perception and motor production. While males and females of some species are known to participate in these displays for sex-specific purposes, few studies have identified perceptual features that trigger sex-specific contributions of coordinated song. Especially little is known about perception and production in duetting suboscine passerines, which are thought to have innate songs and largely static, rather than dynamic, vocal behavior. Here, we used synthetic stimuli in a playback experiment on chestnut-backed antbirds (Myrmeciza exsul) to (1) test whether differences in song frequency (Hz) can trigger sex-specific vocal behavior in a suboscine passerine (2) test for the functions of duetting in males and females of this species, and (3) determine whether these suboscines can dynamically adjust the temporal and spectral features of their songs. We found sex-specific responses to synthetic playback manipulated in song frequency (Hz), providing evidence that in this context males sing in duets for general territory defense and females join in for mate guarding purposes. In addition, we found that the birds altered the frequency, duration, and timing of their songs depending on the frequency of the playback songs. Thus, we show that these birds integrate spectral and temporal information about conspecific songs and actively modulate their responses in sex-specific ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I will try to shed light on some of the questions which emerge as a result of an attention to the vocal and sonorous as a perspective for investigation: questions regarding the relationship between the vocal and the visual, between saying and doing, between logos and phonè. The route we will follow in investigating the vocal aspect of the production of the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio is paved by Chiara Guidi's ongoing work on vocality in the company, both as an actress and as a composer of vocal scores. Developing an invented notation for the actor, Guidi has given voice to the dramatis personae of many of the company's pieces. The vocal scores of Voyage au bout de la nuit (1999), indicate pauses, timbres, rhythms and atmosphere, giving shape to the dramatic rhythm or the dramaturgy of the performance. The Sound is a Physical Body inhabiting the Stage: the idea of Dwelling of Women’s Voices (audio) is to put up vocal extracts of performances where some Italian actress can express both the tone of the show and the peculiarity of her own voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the changes in transfer characteristics of the vocal tract when closed by a mask, i.e. a chamber. The analysis was performed in two ways: by analytical estimation and by measurements in the vocal tract physical model for the case of mask with inner volume V = 430 cm³, corresponding to the oxygen masks used in combat airplanes. It was shown that closing the vocal tract with a mask cavity increases the first formant frequency by about 10% in front and high vowels (/e/, /i/, and /u/) and the frequencies of the first two formants by about 5% in the remaining two vowels (/a/ and /o/). It was also revealed that longitudinal and transversal resonances in the mask chamber can lead to errors in the recognition of the vowel formant frequencies. The results point to the need for additional knowledge about resonances in mask application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When speaking to infants, mothers often alter their speech compared to how they speak to adults, but findings for fathers are mixed. This study examined interactions (N = 30) between fathers and infants (Mage  ± SD = 7.8 ± 4.3 months) in a small-scale society in Vanuatu and two urban societies in North America. Fundamental frequency (F0 ) and speech rate were measured in infant-directed and adult-directed speech. When speaking to infants, fathers in both groups increased their F0 range, yet only Vanuatu fathers increased their average F0 . Conversely, North American fathers slowed down their speech rate to infants, whereas Vanuatu fathers did not. Behavioral traits can vary across distant cultures while still potentially solving similar communicative problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In voice communication in windy outdoor conditions, complex velocity gradients appear in the flow field around the source, the receiver, and also in the atmosphere. It is commonly known that voice emanates stronger towards the downstream direction when compared with the upstream direction. In literature, the atmospheric effects are used to explain the stronger emanation in the downstream direction. This work shows that the wind also has an effect to the directivity of voice also favouring the downstream direction. The effect is addressed by measurements and simulations. Laboratory measurements are conducted by using a large pendulum with a loudspeaker mimicking the human head, whereas practical measurements utilizing the human voice are realized by placing a subject through the roof window of a moving car. The measurements and a simulation indicate congruent results in the speech frequency range: When the source faces the downstream direction, stronger radiation coinciding with the wind direction is observed, and when it faces the upstream direction, radiation is not affected notably. The simulated flow gradients show a wake region in the downstream direction, and the simulated acoustic field in the flow show that the region causes a wave-guide effect focusing the sound in the direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined adaptive responses to auditory perturbation of fundamental frequency (fo) in speakers with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and control speakers. Method: Sixteen speakers with PD and nineteen control speakers produced sustained vowels while they received perturbed auditory feedback (i.e., fo shifted upward or downward). Speakers’ pitch acuity was quantified using a just-noticeable-difference (JND) paradigm. Twelve listeners provided estimates of the speech intelligibility for speakers with PD. Results: Fifteen responses from each speaker group for each shift direction were included in analyses. While control speakers generally showed consistent adaptive responses opposing the perturbation, speakers with PD showed no compensation on average, with individual PD speakers showing highly variable responses. In the PD group, the degree of compensation was not significantly correlated with age, disease progression, pitch acuity, or intelligibility. Conclusions: These findings indicate reduced adaptation to sustained fo perturbation and higher variability in PD compared to control participants. No significant differences were seen in pitch acuity between groups, suggesting that the fo adaptation deficit in PD is not the result of purely perceptual mechanisms. Significance: These results suggest there is an impairment in vocal motor control in PD. Building on these results, contributions can be made to developing targeted voice treatments for PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parametric head-related transfer function (HRTF) recomposed of only a spectral peak (P1) and two spectral notches (N1 and N2), which are respectively generated by the first resonance and the first and second anti-resonances of the pinna, has been reported to provide approximately the same localization performance as the measured HRTF for the front and rear directions. However, for the upper direction, the localization performance for some of the subjects decreased. In the present study, we conducted two localization tests with four listeners and seven target angles in the upper median plane (0–180°) to investigate whether adding a spectral peak (P2), generated by the second resonance of the pinna, can resolve this performance decrease. The results suggested that (1) the mean vertical localization error of the parametric HRTF recomposed of N1, N2, and P1 was significantly larger than that of the measured HRTFs at the target vertical angles of 30° and 120°; (2) by adding P2 to N1N2P1, the mean vertical localization error decreased at the target vertical angles of 0°, 30°, 90°, and 120°, and no statistically significant difference was observed between N1N2P1 + P2 and the measured HRTFs at any target vertical angle; and (3) a sound image was hardly perceived in the upper direction by reproducing only P2, but the presence of P2 to improve the salience of N1 was discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vocal sequences - utterances consisting of calls produced in close succession - are common phenomena in animal communication. While many studies have explored the adaptive benefits of producing such sequences, very little is known about how the costs and constraints involved in their production affect their form. Here, we investigated this issue in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) pant hoot, a long and structurally complex vocal sequence comprising four acoustically distinct phases - introduction, build-up, climax and let-down. Results: We found that in each of these phases, and for the sequence as a whole, there was a negative relationship between the number of calls produced and their average duration. There was also a negative relationship between the total duration of some adjacent phases. Significant relationships between the fundamental frequency of calls and their number or duration were found for some phases of the sequence, but the direction of these relationships differed between particular phases. Conclusions: These results indicate that there are trade-offs in terms of signal duration at two levels in pant-hoot production: between call number and duration, and between the relative durations of successive phases. These trade-offs are likely to reflect biomechanical constraints on vocal sequence production. Phase-specific trade-offs also appear to occur between fundamental frequency and call number or duration, potentially reflecting that different phases of the sequence are associated with distinct types of information, linked in different ways to call pitch. Overall, this study highlights the important role of costs and constraints in shaping the temporal and acoustic structure of animal vocal sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binaural hearing confers many beneficial functions but our understanding of its underlying neural substrates is limited. This study examines the bilateral synaptic assemblies and binaural computation (or integration) in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICc) of the auditory midbrain, a key convergent center. Using in-vivo whole-cell patch-clamp, the excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs/IPSPs) of single ICc neurons to contralateral, ipsilateral and bilateral stimulation were recorded. According to the contralateral and ipsilateral EPSP/IPSP, 7 types of bilateral synaptic assemblies were identified. These include EPSP-EPSP (EE), E-IPSP (EI), E-no response (EO), II, IE, IO and complex-mode (CM) neurons. The CM neurons showed frequency- and/or amplitude-dependent EPSPs/IPSPs to contralateral or ipsilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation induced EPSPs/IPSPs that could be larger than (facilitation), similar to (ineffectiveness) or smaller than (suppression) those induced by contralateral stimulation. Our findings have allowed our group to characterize novel neural circuitry for binaural computation in the midbrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speaker de-identification approaches must accomplish three main goals: universality, naturalness and reversibility. The main drawback of the traditional approach to speaker de-identification using voice conversion techniques is its lack of universality, since a parallel corpus between the input and target speakers is necessary to train the conversion parameters. It is possible to make use of a synthetic target to overcome this issue, but this harms the naturalness of the resulting de-identified speech. Hence, a technique is proposed in this paper in which a pool of pre-trained transformations between a set of speakers is used as follows: given a new user to de-identify, its most similar speaker in this set of speakers is chosen as the source speaker, and the speaker that is the most dissimilar to the source speaker is chosen as the target speaker. Speaker similarity is measured using the i-vector paradigm, which is usually employed as an objective measure of speaker de-identification performance, leading to a system with high de-identification accuracy. The transformation method is based on frequency warping and amplitude scaling, in order to obtain natural sounding speech while masking the identity of the speaker. In addition, compared to other voice conversion approaches, the proposed method is easily reversible. Experiments were conducted on Albayzin database, and performance was evaluated in terms of objective and subjective measures. These results showed a high success when de-identifying speech, as well as a great naturalness of the transformed voices. In addition, when making the transformation parameters available to a trusted holder, it is possible to invert the de-identification procedure, hence recovering the original speaker identity. The computational cost of the proposed approach is small, making it possible to produce de-identified speech in real-time with a high level of naturalness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of local damage detection is widely discussed in the literature. There are many methods which can be applied, however there is still a need for new techniques addressing specific diagnostic issues. In particular, the case of complex multiple-component vibration signal is a challenging problem. In this paper we focus on such a problem related to a gearbox operating in industrial conditions. Our method consists of several stages. First we transform signal to time-frequency domain using spectrogram. Then for each frequency bin we apply a novel procedure which indicates location of cyclic impulses in given time series. This algorithm is based on the periodically distributed local maxima detection and quantification of their significance. Such procedure requires a priori known fault frequency. If the machine might reveal multiple fault, the procedure has to be calculated separately for each fault frequency. A time-varying filter is designed using the indicated local maxima comprised in the score matrix. Then, signals representing each fault frequency are obtained using inverse short-time Fourier transform algorithm. The method is illustrated with application to simulated and real data from complex mining machine - heavy duty gearbox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voice activity detection (VAD) is a vital process in voice communication systems to avoid unnecessary coding and transmission of noise. Most of the existing VAD algorithms continue to suffer high false alarm rates and low sensitivity when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is low, at 0 dB and below. Others are developed to operate in offline mode or are impractical for implementation in actual devices due to high computational complexity. This paper proposes the upper envelope weighted entropy (UEWE) measure as a means to enable high separation of speech and non-speech segments in voice communication. The asymmetric nonlinear filter (ANF) is employed in UEWE to extract the adaptive weight factor that is subsequently used to compensate the noise effect. In addition, this paper also introduces a dual-rate adaptive nonlinear filter (DANF) with high adaptivity to rapid time-varying noise for computation of the decision threshold. Performance comparison with standard and recent VADs shows that the proposed algorithm is superior especially in real-time practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public telephone systems transmit speech across a limited frequency range, about 300-3400 Hz, called narrowband (NB) which results in a significant reduction of quality and intelligibility of speech. This paper proposes a fully backward compatible novel method for bandwidth extension of NB speech. The method uses magnitude spectrum data hiding technique to provide a perceptually better wideband speech signal. The spectral envelope parameters are extracted from the down-sampled frequency shifted version of the high-frequency components of speech signal existing above NB, which are then encoded and spread by using spreading sequences, and are embedded in the low-amplitude high-frequency regions of the magnitude spectrum of NB speech signal. The embedded information is extracted at the receiving end to reconstruct the wideband speech signal. Theoretical and simulation analyses show that the proposed method is robust to quantization and channel noises. The comparison category rating listening and log spectral distortion tests clearly show that the reconstructed wideband signal gives a much better performance in terms of speech quality when compared to the conventional speech bandwidth extension methods employing data hiding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Tympanic membrane perforation is a relatively common problem that predisposes patients to varying degrees of conductive hearing loss. Objective The objective of this study is to evaluate and analyze the frequency dependence hearing loss in tympanic membrane perforation based on the size and the site of perforation. Methods For the study, I selected 71 patients' (89) ears for the cross-sectional study with tympanic membrane perforations; I examined the size and the site of perforations under the microscope and classified them into small, moderate, large, and subtotal perforations, and into anterior central, posterior central, malleolor central, and big central perforations. I measured mean level of speech frequencies hearing loss, and its relation with the site and the size of the perforation analyzed. Results The mean hearing loss at different sizes of the perforation at all speech frequencies was 37.4 dB, with ABG of 26.6 dB, and its maximum loss was detected in subtotal perforation of 42.3 dB, with ABG of 33.7 dB, at 500 Hz frequency, while in relation to the sites, it was 38.2 dB, with ABG of 26.8 dB, and its maximum loss was detected in big central site perforation of 42.1 dB, with ABG of 33.6 dB, at 500 Hz frequency. Conclusions The hearing loss was proportionally related with the sizes of the perforations, and the posterior site had greater impact on the hearing than anterior site perforations. This was also applied to the frequency dependence hearing level, as was detected to be worse at lower frequencies as 500 Hz, than those of 1000-2000 Hz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the role that law enforcement officer experience has on the probability of punishment, using a unique data set of tickets issued by the Idaho State Police linked to human resource records. All else equal, officers issue fewer tickets earlier in their career than later in their career. Quasi-exogenous shocks to an officer’s task-specific experience, generated by law changes, cause a temporary reduction in the frequency with which a subset of troopers “use” those laws, creating disparities in the likelihood that individual citizens are cited for law violations. The reduction in ticketing in response to a law change is largest for newer troopers, and law changes later in a trooper’s career have a smaller effect on his use of that law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]