Acoustic-perceptual studies of aging voice in women

Abstract

The ability of listeners to judge the age of speakers from voice samples has been established in several studies (1-5). There are hints from these perceptual studies that fundamental frequency (Fo) stability may influence listeners' judgments of a speaker's age (3,5), and acoustic studies have provided evidence that older speakers demonstrate reduced stability of Fo in comparison with younger speakers (6,7). However, the precise relationship of Fo stability measures to listeners' age judgments has not been investigated previously. Similarly, the importance of vocal tract resonance information to perceived age judgments had not been established, despite the fact that anatomical and physiological evidence suggests that advancing age brings about changes in the supralaryngeal system (8-13). The purpose of this study was to examine acoustic measures of Fo stability and vocal tract resonance characteristics in women's voices in relation to actual speaker age well perceived age (14,15). Recordings of normally phonated and whispered / 8 / vowels were obtained from 75 women divided equally among three age groups (25-35, 45-55, and 70-80 years). Speakers were instructed to produce phonated vowels as steadily possible, and these vowels were analyzed acoustically for jitter and fundamental frequency standard deviation (FoSD). Jitter refers to small cycle-tocycle variations in the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds. FoSD refers to variations in Fo around the mean Fo of phonation. Resonance peaks (F1 and F2 frequency) were determined for both phonated and whispered / 8 / v o w e l s . Two groups of