Developmental study of the relationship between F0 and formant frequencies.

Abstract

There is a systematic relationship between fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies in natural speech across adult talkers, associated with anatomical differences in the length of the vocal tract and vocal folds. In the present study we examined developmental trends in this relationship using a database of vowel recordings from adults and children ranging from 5 to 18 years of age from the Dallas, Texas region. A moderate correlation was found between the geometric mean of the formant frequencies (F1–F3) across all of the vowels for a given speaker (a measure related to vocal tract length) and the geometric mean F0. Overall the correlation was higher in males (r=0.87) than in females (r=0.46) and increased as a function of age. The presence of systematic covariation between F0 and formant frequencies is consistent with studies showing a perceptual contribution of F0 to vowel identification.