PURPOSE To analyze the impact of body weight and body fat volume on selected parameters of vocal quality, phonatory range, and aerodynamics in females. METHODS Based on measurements of body mass index in combination with body fat volume, 29 normophonic female subjects were classified as normal weight, underweight, and obese. Voice quality was investigated via auditory-perceptual ratings of br...

Basic emotional states (such as anger, fear, and joy) can be similarly conveyed by the face, the body, and the voice. Are there human brain regions that represent these emotional mental states regardless of the sensory cues from which they are perceived? To address this question, in the present study participants evaluated the intensity of emotions perceived from face movements, body movements,...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to present our findings on the impact of the Blom tracheotomy tube with speech inner cannula on voice production abilities and speech intelligibility scores of ventilator-dependent patients requiring a fully inflated tracheotomy tube cuff. METHODS Prospective single group case-series design permitted consecutive accrual of 23 adult inpatients from acut...

BACKGROUND Supracricoid partial laryngectomy (SCPL) results in laryngeal preservation in more than 95% of patients with T2 glottic carcinoma. Postsurgical glottic function is characterized by an absence of vocal cords, and phonation quality is a key post-SCPL quality-of-life factor. OBJECTIVE This investigation was designed to enhance post-SCPL vocal function, study anatomic function of the p...

One of the ways to gauge your own exercise intensity while running, is to assess your capability of talking while running: if you can still speak comfortably, you are running within the recommended intensity guidelines. This subjective way of estimating one’s exercise intensity by talking (i.e. the Talk Test) motivated us to investigate how speech characteristics are affected during running and...

Data on emotion processing by individuals with ASD suggest both intact abilities and significant deficits. Signal intensity may be a contributing factor to this discrepancy. We presented low- and high-intensity emotional stimuli in a face-voice matching task to 22 adolescents with ASD and 22 typically developing (TD) peers. Participants heard semantically neutral sentences with happy, surprised...

Twelve schizophrenics with inner voices were examined and were compared to 12 - schizophrenics with external voices. The inner voices group was largely heterogenous. The inner voice group had shorter interval between onset of illness and onset of hallucinations, higher intensity of emotions outside the hallucinatory episodes but concerning the voices and longer duration of individual episodes o...