Fundamental Frequency Patterns Research Articles

Fundamental frequency patterns across gender, task, and language in Spanish-English bilinguals

Speaking fundamental frequency (SFF) patterns are known to vary by language and speaker gender. Relatively little data exist for SFF patterns among cisgender and transgender speakers, especially those who speak languages other than English. Further, speaking task (e.g., read versus spontaneous speech) may impact SFF patterns. This study examined SFF patterns in Spanish-English bilinguals of varying gender identities. Twenty-four speakers (8 cisgender men, 8 cisgender women, and 8 transgender women) recorded a read passage and spontaneous speech in Spanish and English. SFF measures of minimum, maximum, range, and median were found to be stable across speech tasks and languages. A significant effect of gender was found. Cisgender women on average produced the highest values of minimum, maximum, and median SFF and largest SFF range. Cisgender men produced the lowest values and smallest range. Transgender women produced SFF measures within an intermediate range of cisgender men and women. Compared to monolingual English speakers, Spanish-English bilingual cisgender women had a larger SFF mean for both Spanish and English, cisgender men had similar SFF means for both Spanish and English, and transgender women had a slightly larger SFF mean for both Spanish and English.

An quantitative analysis of Punjabi tones

Punjabi has three tones, the falling and the rising tones developed due to the historically lost voiced aspirated consonants and word-final glottal fricative /ɦ/, and the default tone occurred elsewhere. While there has been some experimental research on Punjabi tones, there have been limitations due few stimuli and speakers. The main aim of the current study was to provide a phonetic examination of the fundamental frequency (f0) patterns across a large number of Punjabi words produced by multiple speakers. The experiment was conducted online using 24 native speakers (9F, 15M) of Indian Punjabi. The list of stimuli contained 66 monosyllabic words (default = 18, falling = 15, rising = 33) with either /a/ or /ə/. The speakers were recorded producing the stimuli in carrier and natural sentence environments. Linear mixed effects analyses were conducted on six f0 measures: the onset, mid, and offset of the vowel, the f0 range (MaxF0-MinF0), and the f0 trajectory in the first (MidF0-BegF0) and final (EndF0-MidF0) halves of the vowel. The results confirmed three distinct pitch curves for the three tones. Each of the three tones were distinguished from one another for the onset f0 and the EndF0-MidF0 measures. Vowel quality influenced tone realization. Between-speaker and word variation was observed.

Klasifikasi Rentang Usia Dan Gender Dengan Deteksi Suara Menggunakan Metode Deep Learning Algoritma Cnn (Convolutional Neural Network)

The research discusses the identification of human voices based on gender by utilizing the differences in voice characteristics between males and females. In addition to differences in vocal tract size, factors such as length, thickness, and stiffness of the vocal cords also play a role in producing the differences in fundamental frequency between the two genders. Fundamental frequency serves as an indicator used in acoustic analysis to classify gender based on voice. In the automatic classification of voices, sound processing techniques and machine learning are key in system development. Gender recognition methods based on voice involve acoustic analysis using voice features such as fundamental frequency, formants, duration, intensity, and intonation patterns. Diverse voice datasets containing recordings of both male and female voices are used to train gender recognition models. From the results of research from modeling using CNN on audio to get 92% accuracy and for testing results it is good enough in classifying.
 Keywords – Deep Learning, Voice Recognition, Audio Classification, CNN, Gender

Exploring the mechanics of fundamental frequency variation during phonation onset.

Fundamental frequency patterns during phonation onset have received renewed interest due to their promising application in objective classification of normal and pathological voices. However, the associated underlying mechanisms producing the wide array of patterns observed in different phonetic contexts are not yet fully understood. Herein, we employ theoretical and numerical analyses in an effort to elucidate the potential mechanisms driving opposing frequency patterns for initial/isolated vowels versus vowels preceded by voiceless consonants. Utilizing deterministic lumped-mass oscillator models of the vocal folds, we systematically explore the roles of collision and muscle activation in the dynamics of phonation onset. We find that an increasing trend in fundamental frequency, as observed for initial/isolated vowels, arises naturally through a progressive increase in system stiffness as collision intensifies as onset progresses, without the need for time-varying vocal fold tension or changes in aerodynamic loading. In contrast, reduction in cricothyroid muscle activation during onset is required to generate the decrease in fundamental frequency observed for vowels preceded by voiceless consonants. For such phonetic contexts, our analysis shows that the magnitude of reduction in the cricothyroid muscle activation and the activation level of the thyroarytenoid muscle are potential factors underlying observed differences in (relative) fundamental frequency between speakers with healthy and hyperfunctional voices. This work highlights the roles of sometimes competing laryngeal factors in producing the complex array of observed fundamental frequency patterns during phonation onset.

Effects of cricothyroid and thyroarytenoid interaction on voice control: Muscle activity, vocal fold biomechanics, flow, and acoustics.

An MRI-based three-dimensional computer model of a canine larynx was used to investigate the effect of cricothyroid (CT) and thyroarytenoid (TA) muscle activity on vocal fold pre-phonatory posturing and glottic dynamics during voice production. Static vocal fold posturing in the full activation space of CT and TA muscles was first simulated using a laryngeal muscle mechanics model; dynamic flow-structure-acoustics interaction (FSAI) simulations were then performed to predict glottal flow and voice acoustics. The results revealed that TA activation decreased the length and increased the bulging, height, and contact area of the vocal fold. CT activation increased the length and contact area and decreased the height of the vocal fold. Both CT and TA activations increased the vocal fold stress, stiffness, and closure quotient; and only slightly affected the flow rate and voice intensity. Furthermore, CT and TA showed a complex control mechanism on the fundamental frequency pattern, which highly correlated with a combination of the stress, stiffness, and stretch of the vocal fold.

Role of f0 alignment in distinguishing intonation categories: evidence from American english

Under the autosegmental-metrical (AM) theory of intonation, the temporal alignment of fundamental frequency (F0) patterns with respect to syllables has been claimed to distinguish pitch accent categories. Several experiments test whether differences in F0 peak or valley alignment in American English phrases would produce evidence consistent with a change from (1) a H* to a H+L* pitch accent, and (2) a L* to a L+H* pitch accent. Four stimulus series were constructed in which F0 peak or valley alignment was shifted across portions of short phrases with varying stress. In Experiment 1, participants discriminated pairs of stimuli in an AX task. In Experiment 2, participants classified stimuli as category exemplars using an AXB task. In Experiment 3, participants imitated stimuli; the alignment of F0 peaks and valleys in their productions was measured. Finally, in Experiment 4, participants judged the relative prominence of initial and final syllables in stimuli to determine whether alignment differences generated a stress shift. The results support the distinctions between H* and H+L* and between L+H* and L*. Moreover, evidence consistent with an additional category not currently predicted by most AM theories was obtained, which is proposed here to be H*+H. The results have implications for understanding phonological contrasts, phonetic interpolation in English intonation, and the transcription of prosodic contrasts in corpus-based analysis.

Role of Stroboscope in Injury of External Branch of Superior Laryngeal Nerve During Thyroid Surgery.

Role of stroboscope in injury of External branch of superior laryngeal nerve during thyroid surgery. Study conducted in a tertiary care hospital. 40 patients were selected and divided into two groups as Group A and B. Benign thyroid swellings were included, excluding preoperative vocal cord pathology by performing videolaryngoscope and videostroboscope. After thyroidectomy procedure stroboscopic fundamental frequency, symmetry, periodicity, glottic closure and mucosal wave pattern were assessed in both the groups and compared. The mean difference in fundamental frequency between pre operative and postoperative in Group A was 37.85 (SD = 33.69) and in Group B was 58.40 (SD = 77.55) with p-value of 0.287. Symmetry of cords in Group A was 90% and asymmetry was 10%, while in Group B symmetry of cords was 75% and asymmetry of 25% with p-value of 0.407. Other parameters like regular periodicity, complete glottic closure, normal mucosal pattern was 95% in Group A and 75% in Group B. Irregular periodicity, incomplete glottis closure, decreased mucosal wave pattern was 5% in Group A and 25% in Group B. Stroboscope is an essential and useful tool in diagnosing EBSLN injury. It is useful in assessing pre operative voice assessment before and after thyroid surgery than a video laryngoscope.

Hyper-articulation effects in Korean glides by heritage language learners

Aims and objectives: Hyper-articulation effects in glide sounds and heritage production are unexplored areas. Thus, this study examines how the Korean glide /we/ is phonetically implemented in hyper-articulated speech by English-speaking heritage learners of Korean. Language-specific fundamental frequency (F0) patterns and methodological issues involving inconsistent data in heritage research are also addressed. Methodology: Korean-American students enrolled in an intermediate-low Korean language course for Korean heritage students at a university in the US read four isolated sentences, once in casual speech and once in hyper-articulated (or clear) speech. They repeated this sequence five times. Data and analysis: The syllable duration of the glide more than doubled and the upward transitional feature of /w/ was significantly expanded with a steeper slope in clear speech compared to casual speech. The expansion of vowel space of /e/ in clear speech was also attested for second formant (F2). Although pitch did not vary between the two speaking styles at syllable onset or vowel midpoint, it exhibited a significant increase at syllable offset in clear speech. The strong intra- and inter-speaker variations frequently observed in heritage language research were not found in this study. Conclusions: The results generally echo the hyper-articulated speech changes observed in native Korean speakers. The pitch pattern outcomes suggest that heritage learners’ enhancement corresponds more to that of their heritage language than their dominant language. Although the data generally supports the idea that heritage learners’ enhancement strategies emulate those of native speakers in terms of exaggerated acoustic features, the same is not true regarding absolute acoustic values; their acoustic values are more exaggerated than native speakers’ in clear speech. Originality and implications: The findings present new hyper-articulation effects regarding glide sounds and an additional enhancement strategy of end-of-syllable pitch raising in hyper-articulated speech. This study also suggests that controlling for confounding population variables mitigates the methodological challenges of heritage language research.

The antiquity and evolution of the neural bases of rhythmic activity.

The evolution of the anatomy and neural circuits that regulate the rhythm of speech can be traced back to the Devonian age, 400 million years ago. Epigenetic processes 100 million years later modified these circuits. Natural selection on similar genetic processes occurred during the evolution of archaic hominins and humans. The lungs and larynx-anatomy that produces the rhythmic fundamental frequency patterns of speech-have a deep evolutionary history. Neural circuits linking the cortex, basal ganglia, and other subcortical structures plan, sequence, and execute motor as well as cognitive acts. These neural circuits generate the rhythm of speech, singing, and chanting. The human form of the transcription factor FOXP2 increased synaptic connectivity and plasticity in basal ganglia circuits, enhancing motor control and cognitive and linguistic capabilities in humans as well as Neanderthals. The archeological record also suggests that Neanderthals passed spoken language. Homologous circuits existed in amphibians. In songbirds, the avian form of FOXP2 acted on similar neural circuits allowing birds to learn and produce new songs. Current studies point to natural selection on genetic events enhancing these and other neural circuits to yield fully human rhythmic speech, and motor, cognitive, and linguistic capabilities, rather than the saltation proposed by Noam Chomsky.

Influence of vocal fold cover layer thickness on its vibratory dynamics during voice production.

The influence of vocal fold cover layer thickness on the flow-induced vibration and voice production was studied by using a continuum-mechanics based computational model. The cover-body thickness ratio of a three-layer vocal fold was systematically varied. The effect on the vocal fold stiffness, eigenfrequencies and eigenmodes, fundamental frequencies, glottal flow rate, vocal fold vibratory dynamics, and synchronization of the eigenmodes were analyzed by using the structure eigen analysis and flow-structure interaction simulations. It was found that the cover-body layer thickness ratio significantly affected the strength and synchronization of the eigenmodes during flow-structure interactions, and ultimately affected the fundamental frequency and vibration pattern. With the increasing cover-body thickness ratio, the strength of the wave-type higher-eigenfrequency modes increased, and that resulted in a nonlinear bifurcation of the system in which the system evolved from a regular periodic vibration to a periodic doubling vibration and then back to a regular periodic vibration with increased fundamental frequencies. During the transition, the system vibrated chaotically. Because of the increased strength of the wave-type modes, the maximum divergent angle of the glottis was also increased with the increasing cover-body thickness ratio.

The effects of ethnicity, musicianship, and tone language experience on pitch perception.

Language and music are intertwined: music training can facilitate language abilities, and language experiences can also help with some music tasks. Possible language-music transfer effects are explored in two experiments in this study. In Experiment 1, we tested native Mandarin, Korean, and English speakers on a pitch discrimination task with two types of sounds: speech sounds and fundamental frequency (F0) patterns derived from speech sounds. To control for factors that might influence participants' performance, we included cognitive ability tasks testing memory and intelligence. In addition, two music skill tasks were used to examine general transfer effects from language to music. Prior studies showing that tone language speakers have an advantage on pitch tasks have been taken as support for three alternative hypotheses: specific transfer effects, general transfer effects, and an ethnicity effect. In Experiment 1, musicians outperformed non-musicians on both speech and F0 sounds, suggesting a music-to-language transfer effect. Korean and Mandarin speakers performed similarly, and they both outperformed English speakers, providing some evidence for an ethnicity effect. Alternatively, this could be due to population selection bias. In Experiment 2, we recruited Chinese Americans approximating the native English speakers' language background to further test the ethnicity effect. Chinese Americans, regardless of their tone language experiences, performed similarly to their non-Asian American counterparts in all tasks. Therefore, although this study provides additional evidence of transfer effects across music and language, it casts doubt on the contribution of ethnicity to differences observed in pitch perception and general music abilities.

Perceiving changes of sound-source size within musical tone pairs.

Although the perception of sound-source is among the many facets of pitch and timbre, the role of hearing cues within the context of music perception is relatively unknown. Size information, primarily encoded within fundamental frequency and resonance patterns, is salient in many types of sounds, including animal communication (Fitch, 1994; Morton, 1977), speech (Smith, Patterson, Turner, Kawahara, & Irino, 2005), and musical instrument sounds (Chiasson, Traube, Lagarrigue, & McAdams, 2017). Chiasson et al., for example, found that sound extensity ratings by listeners using both ordinal and ratio scales could be related to the notion of (which may be roughly translated as from the French term) as predicted by the French composer and orchestration treatise writer Charles Koechlin (1954). Similarly to Koechlin, but in the sphere of psychoacoustics, S. S. Stevens and colleagues have also proposed that be defined as apparent largeness and extensiveness. Stevens and Davis (1938) and Terrace and Stevens (1962) conducted studies on the perception of volume for pure tones and observed that volume increased when loudness increased and pitch decreased. Within speech, sound-source (source size hereafter) is useful for both comprehending what a given message means and determining who is speaking (Patterson, Gaudrain, & Walters, 2010). However, within music perception, the implications of perceiving the of a given sound source, and especially the ability to perceive changes in source size, have received little attention.The literature on auditory reports numerous examples of our capacity to hear size. Lakatos, McAdams, and Causse (1997) found evidence that listeners can decode spatial dimensions of metal and wooden bars from sound cues alone. Kunkler-Peck and Turvey (2000) reported that listeners successfully infer size, shape, and material information from the sounds of plates being struck by a pendular hammer. Other research reports the capacity to infer the of animals (Vestergaard et al., 2009), humans (Ives, Smith, & Patterson, 2005; Smith, Patterson, Turner, Kawahara, & Irino, 2005), and musical instruments (Chiasson et al., 2017; van Dinther & Patterson, 2006). Further, neurological evidence suggests that both adults and newborn infants can hear changes of musical instrument size, suggesting that this ability could possibly be innate (Vestergaard et al., 2009).The psychophysical basis of auditory perception involves two key acoustic features: fundamental frequency and acoustic scale/resonance (Cohen, 1993; Fitch, 1994; Smith et al., 2005). Relatively lower frequencies originate from larger, or more massive, sound sources, and therefore, fundamental frequency is often considered to be an important cue for perceiving affective information (Huron, 2012). There are, however, a few exceptional cases in which sound sources can produce sounds that are much lower in frequency than would be expected from their size, as is the case with the low-pitched mating call of male koalas (Charlton et al., 2013). Resonance information, the reinforcement of certain frequencies above a fundamental frequency, also plays an important role in determining the of many types of sounds. Within speech, vowels have distinctive resonance patterns (i.e., formant placements). For a given vowel, ratios between formants remain relatively constant from speaker to speaker, but the absolute placement of these formants differ depending on the given sound source. The absolute placement of formants is therefore thought to be useful for differentiating among multiple sound sources (Fitch, 1997; Patterson et al., 2010). Similar factors are at play when discriminating different musical instruments within a given instrument family. For example, one of the primary differences between a violin and a viola sounding the same fundamental frequency is the absolute placement of the resonances; the larger-sized viola typically exhibits resonant peaks at lower frequencies (van Dinther & Patterson, 2006). …

Evaluation of electrolarynx controlled by real-time statistical F0 prediction

One of the major speaking methods for laryngectomees is a speaking method using an electrolarynx to generate artificial excitation sounds, instead of vocal fold vibration. Although electrolaryngeal (EL) speech is relatively intelligible, its naturalness is quite low owing to the artificial excitation sounds. To make it possible to produce more naturally sounding EL speech, we have proposed an automatic control method of the fundamental frequency (F0) patterns of the excitation sounds generated from the electrolarynx based on real-time statistical F0 prediction. In this method, a vibration of the electrolarynx to generate the excitation sounds is controlled not according to additional signals consciously provided by the laryngectomees but using only their produced EL speech signals. In the previous report, we have developed a prototype system by implementing our proposed method to the electrolarynx and have evaluated its performance objectively through a simulation. In this paper, we evaluate its performance subjectively in terms of naturalness and intelligibility. The experimental results demonstrate that the prototype system can produce more natural EL speech while maintaining its high intelligibility compared to the conventional electrolarynx. [This research was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Nos. 15J10727 and 26280060.]

Transfer of L1 tone knowledge to L2 vowel quantity contrasts as a secondary cue: The case of Cantonese learners of Japanese

Distinguishing vowel quantities in Japanese is problematic for Cantonese-speaking learners. Vowel length is lexically contrastive in Japanese but not in Cantonese. Apart from duration, fundamental frequency (F0) patterns are secondary cues to vowel length distinction. As tone is lexically contrastive in Cantonese (particularly rising vs. high level), learners would likely be able to transfer this phonological knowledge to help themselves acquire vowel length contrast in Japanese. A perception experiment was conducted in which learners listened to Japanese disyllabic words. The first syllable of which was lengthened according to the within-word vowel duration ratio in eight steps. A level or dynamic (rising or falling) F0 pattern was then imposed on the first vowel. Similar to other L2 learners, Cantonese-speaking learners did not perceive the long vs. short contrast categorically, but gradiently. While both dynamic F0 patterns signal a long vowel, they only exploited the rising pattern to recognise a long vowel. Our study suggests that learners have assimilated the falling contour to high level, both of which belong to the same tonal category in Cantonese. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Ensemble framework based real-time respiratory motion prediction for adaptive radiotherapy applications

Successful treatment of tumors with motion-adaptive radiotherapy requires accurate prediction of respiratory motion, ideally with a prediction horizon larger than the latency in radiotherapy system. Accurate prediction of respiratory motion is however a non-trivial task due to the presence of irregularities and intra-trace variabilities, such as baseline drift and temporal changes in fundamental frequency pattern. In this paper, to enhance the accuracy of the respiratory motion prediction, we propose a stacked regression ensemble framework that integrates heterogeneous respiratory motion prediction algorithms. We further address two crucial issues for developing a successful ensemble framework: (1) selection of appropriate prediction methods to ensemble (level-0 methods) among the best existing prediction methods; and (2) finding a suitable generalization approach that can successfully exploit the relative advantages of the chosen level-0 methods. The efficacy of the developed ensemble framework is assessed with real respiratory motion traces acquired from 31 patients undergoing treatment. Results show that the developed ensemble framework improves the prediction performance significantly compared to the best existing methods.

Metrical expectations from preceding prosody influence perception of lexical stress.

Two visual-world experiments tested the hypothesis that expectations based on preceding prosody influence the perception of suprasegmental cues to lexical stress. The results demonstrate that listeners' consideration of competing alternatives with different stress patterns (e.g., 'jury/gi'raffe) can be influenced by the fundamental frequency and syllable timing patterns across material preceding a target word. When preceding stressed syllables distal to the target word shared pitch and timing characteristics with the first syllable of the target word, pictures of alternatives with primary lexical stress on the first syllable (e.g., jury) initially attracted more looks than alternatives with unstressed initial syllables (e.g., giraffe). This effect was modulated when preceding unstressed syllables had pitch and timing characteristics similar to the initial syllable of the target word, with more looks to alternatives with unstressed initial syllables (e.g., giraffe) than to those with stressed initial syllables (e.g., jury). These findings suggest that expectations about the acoustic realization of upcoming speech include information about metrical organization and lexical stress and that these expectations constrain the initial interpretation of suprasegmental stress cues. These distal prosody effects implicate online probabilistic inferences about the sources of acoustic-phonetic variation during spoken-word recognition.

Speech intonation in children with autism spectrum disorder

Objective: The prosody of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has several abnormal features. We assessed the speech tone of children with ASD and of children with typical development (TD) by using a new quantitative acoustic analysis. Methods: Our study participants consisted of 63 children (26 with ASD and 37 with TD). The participants were divided into 4 groups based on their developmental features and age. We assessed the variety of the fundamental frequency (F0) pattern quantitatively, using pitch coefficient of variation (CV), considering the different F0 mean for each word. Results: (1) No significant difference was observed between the ASD and TD group at pre-school age. However, the TD group exhibited significantly greater pitch CV than the ASD group at school age. (2) In pitch CV, range and standard deviation of the whole speech of each participant, no significant differences were observed between the type of participants and age. (3) No significant correlation was found between the pitch CV of each word and the Japanese Autism Screening Questionnaire total score, or between the pitch CV of each word and the intelligence quotient levels in the ASD group. A significant correlation was observed between the pitch CV of each word and social reciprocal interaction score. Conclusions: We assessed the speech tone of children with ASD by using a new quantitative method. Monotonous speech in school-aged children with ASD was detected. The extent of monotonous speech was related to the extent of social reciprocal interaction in children with ASD.

On the intonation of German intonation questions: the role of the prenuclear region.

German questions and statements are distinguished not only by lexical and syntactic but also by intonational means. This study revisits, for Northern Standard German, how questions are signalled intonationally in utterances that have neither lexical nor syntactic cues. Starting from natural productions of such 'intonation questions', two perception experiments were run. Experiment 1 is based on a gating paradigm, which was applied to naturally produced questions and statements. Experiment 11 includes two indirect-identification tasks. Resynthesized stimuli were judged in relation to two context utterances, each of which was compatible with only one sentence mode interpretation. Results show that utterances with a finally falling nuclear pitch-accent contour can also trigger question perception. An utterance-final rise is not mandatory. Also, question and statement cues are not restricted to the intonational nucleus. Rather, listeners can refer to shape, slope, and alignment differences of the preceding prenuclear pitch accent to identify sentence mode. These findings are in line with studies suggesting that the utterance-final rise versus fall contrast is not directly related to sentence modality, but represents a separate attitudinal meaning dimension. Moreover, the findings support that both prenuclear and nuclear fundamental frequency (F0) patterns must be taken into account in the analysis of tune meaning.

Interaction between resonant scaling and fundamental frequency on codings in auditory system

It has been modeled that the auditory system encodes acoustic signals into two independent informations. One is tonotopic information reflecting the frequency response characteristics of the basilar membrane, and another is periodicity information reflecting the temporal patterns of phase-locked auditory nerve firing. Based on the previous study about size perception of sound source, a hypothesis can be proposed that the tonotopic and periodicity information are combined into an internal representational The current study tested that this hypothesis by conducting an experiment to recognize the transition of vowel-like sounds on the plane. Listeners were able to recognize the transition patterns on the axes of tonotopic and periodicity information exclusively. However, they were unable to follow the trajectories of sounds in the two-dimensional representational plane. The vowel-like sounds were simulated by a computational model of auditory system, AIM. While the excitation pattern displayed transition patterns corresponding to the manipulation of resonant scaling (RS) only, summary SAI displayed both of patterns of fundamental frequency (F0) and RS. It suggests the need to confirm whether RS represented in periodicity information is used for size perception.

Speech tempo and fundamental frequency patterns: A case study of male monozygotic twins and an age- and sex-matched sibling

This case study describes an investigation into the speaking characteristics of a set of male monozygotic (MZ) twins (T1 and T2) and an age- and sex-matched sibling (S). Measures of speech tempo and fundamental frequency (F0) were analysed in the speech samples of a reading passage. Results showed significant between-sibling differences for sentence durations and F0 parameters; however, Euclidean distance (ED) measures revealed the smallest distances between the F0 parameters of the MZ twins. The smallest ED values were also observed between T1 and T2 for word durations, pause durations, all-voiced sample durations, and all the all-voiced sample F0 parameters. Greater similarities were observed across all three siblings for the speech tempo and dynamic F0 parameters.