The final quality of a concatenation synthesis system is directly related to the continuity of the spectrum at the concatenation point. Due to the subjective auditory masking, if we minimize the spectral distortion in the formant frequencies, the quality will increase significantly. In this paper we present, along with results concerning pitch marking, an algorithm capable of modifying the LPC ...

High-pitched productions present difficulties in formant frequency analysis due to wide harmonic spacing and poorly defined formants. As a consequence, there is little reliable data regarding children's spoken or sung vowel formants. Twenty-nine 11-year-old Swedish children were asked to produce 4 sustained spoken and sung vowels. In order to circumvent the problem of wide harmonic spacing, F1 ...

A sinusoidal replica of a sentence evokes a clear impression of intonation despite the absence of the primary acoustic correlate of intonation, the fundamental frequency. Our previous studies employed a test of differential similarity to determine that the tone analog of the first formant is a probable acoustic correlate of sinusoidal sentence intonation. Though the typical acoustic and percept...

We know that formants typically differ between voice categories. It is reasonable to assume that differences exist also regarding the glottal voice source. The purpose of the present investigation was to map such voice source differences in representatives of three different male voice categories. Data are presented on subglottic pressure (as estimated from oral pressure during /p/-ccclusion) o...

Formant frequency estimation and tracking are among the most fundamental problems in speech processing. In the former task the input is a stationary speech segment such as the middle part of a vowel and the goal is to estimate the formant frequencies, whereas in the latter task the input is a series of speech frames and the goal is to track the trajectory of the formant frequencies throughout t...

OBJECTIVE To report the formant characteristics of English-speaking Lebanese men during steady prolongation of vowels /a/ and /i/. DESIGN Cross-sectional study involving volunteer participants. PARTICIPANTS Fifty healthy English-speaking males with a mean age of 32 ± 4.027 years and a range of 42 years (18-60). MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 50 healthy males between the age of 18 and 60...

Voices can be characterized by their fundamental frequency as well as by speech timbre characteristics, such as formant frequencies. While infants’ responses to fundamental frequency characteristics are well established, very little is known about how infants respond to changes in formant frequencies. This study tested whether 6-month-old infants prefer listening to speech with raised formant f...

Fundamental frequency (F(0)) and intensity are known to be important variables in the communication of emotions in speech. In singing, however, pitch is predetermined and yet the voice should convey emotions. Hence, other vocal parameters are needed to express emotions. This study investigated the role of voice source characteristics and formant frequencies in the communication of emotions in m...