Movies of Vocal Cord Speech and Voice Quality Vocal Cord Function

Abstract

These are the first moving picture experiments to be obtained, bearing on the fundamental problems involved in a consideration of speech and voice quality vocal cord function. Most of our theories of speech have heretofore assumed a harmonic complexity of tones produced by the actuator or vocal cords. The moving picture photographs of the heretofore inaccessible interior larynx interior and lower throat now show for the first time that this is an impossible postulate. Speech and voice quality differences have heretofore been ascribed to a function of the total air volume cavity capacities above the vocal cords—in other words to a cavity tone modificatory influence. These pictures likewise prove that these theories are untenable and that a large part of the voice quality and many vowel quality differences may be traced to a function of the interior larynx.