Vocal Organ Research Articles

The Dynamic Effect of the Valleculae on Singing Voice – An Exploratory Study Using 3D Printed Vocal Tracts

The valleculae can be seen as a pair of side branches of the human vocal tract like the piriform fossae. While the acoustic properties of the piriform fossae have been explored in detail, there is little evidence of full exploration of the acoustic properties of the valleculae. A recent investigation (Vampola, Horáček, & Švec, 2015), using a finite element model of a single vowel /a/, suggests that the valleculae created two antiresonances and two resonances in the high frequency region (above 4kHz) along with those produced by the piriform sinuses. In the current study, we investigate, in multiple vowels, the acoustic influences of the valleculae in singing voice, using 3-D printed vocal tracts. MRI data were collected from an operatic tenor singing English vowels /a/, /u/, /i/. The images of each vowel were segmented and edited to create a pair of tracts, where one is the original and one had the valleculae digitally removed.The printed tracts were then placed atop a vocal tract organ loudspeaker, excited by white noise. Recordings were made with a microphone placed in front of the mouths of the tracts, to measure their frequency responses. Dimensional changes were observed in valleculae of different vowels, with the long-term average spectra of the recordings illustrating clear differences between the frequency responses of the va-nova (valleculae - no valleculae) pairs, which varies with vowels. The experiment demonstrates the dynamic1 nature of the shapes of the valleculae in the human vocal tract and its acoustic consequences. It provides evidence that the valleculae have similar acoustic properties to the piriform fossae but with larger variations, and in some cases can influence acoustically the frequency region below 4kHz. The results suggest that large volume valleculae have the potential to impede to some extent the acoustic effect of the singers formant cluster and small valleculae may do the reverse. Since the volume of the valleculae is observed to be largely dependent on tongue movement and also with changes to the uttered vowel, it can be assumed that the high frequency energy, including that within the singer's formant region, could be vowel dependent. Strategies to control valleculae volumes are likely to be highly relevant to voice pedagogy practice as well as singing performance.

Speech enhancement based on nonnegative matrix factorization in constant-Q frequency domain

The utterance can be easily affected by additive noise in a real environment. To decrease the additive noise, the noisy speech can be enhanced based on the spectrogram following with Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and sparse NMF(SNMF) algorithm. More information can be obtained at a high sampling rate. The range of objective human vocal organs is limited to a low-frequency value compared to the high sampling rate; thus, higher resolution is required to describe the low frequencies. Traditional spectrogram based on short-time Fourier transform (STFT) may lack frequency resolution at lower frequencies. To this end, we propose to use a constant Q transform (CQT) in this paper, which can give high resolution for the low frequencies. The backend algorithm remains the NMF/SNMF algorithm. We evaluate the proposed method with the Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ) and Short-Time Objective Intelligibility (STOI). The experimental results show that our proposed method shows better enhancement ability compared to the STFT baseline at low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR).

Application of vocal organ correction combined with language training in the rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy and language disorder.

BackgroundTo explore the effect of vocal organ correction combined with language training on the rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy (CP) and language disorder.MethodsA total of 98 children with CP and language disorder were divided into two groups (49 cases in each group) using a random number table: the control group and the test group. The control group was given language training alone, while the test group received vocal organ correction combined with language training. The changes in language function classification, efficacy, and family satisfaction before and after the treatments were compared.ResultsA significant difference was identified in language function classification between the two groups before and after treatment (P<0.05). The language function classification of the two groups was also significantly different after treatment (P<0.05), as was the distribution of clinical efficacy between the two groups (P<0.05). The total effective rate for the test group was 91.84%, which was higher than the 73.47% for the control group (P<0.05). Family satisfaction between the two groups differed significantly (P<0.05), and the total satisfaction rate of families in the test group was 87.76%, which was higher than the 69.39% in the control group (P<0.05).ConclusionsVocal organ correction combined with language training can improve the language function of children with CP and language disorder, has ideal efficacy, and can also enhance family satisfaction during rehabilitation.

Rapid evolution of the primate larynx?

Tissue vibrations in the larynx produce most sounds that comprise vocal communication in mammals. Larynx morphology is thus predicted to be a key target for selection, particularly in species with highly developed vocal communication systems. Here, we present a novel database of digitally modeled scanned larynges from 55 different mammalian species, representing a wide range of body sizes in the primate and carnivoran orders. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we demonstrate that the primate larynx has evolved more rapidly than the carnivoran larynx, resulting in a pattern of larger size and increased deviation from expected allometry with body size. These results imply fundamental differences between primates and carnivorans in the balance of selective forces that constrain larynx size and highlight an evolutionary flexibility in primates that may help explain why we have developed complex and diverse uses of the vocal organ for communication.

The hummingbird syrinx morphome: a detailed three-dimensional description of the black jacobin\u2019s vocal organ

BackgroundThe ability to imitate sounds depends on a process called vocal production learning, a rare evolutionary trait. In addition to the few mammalian groups that possess this ability, vocal production learning has evolved independently in three avian clades: songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. Although the anatomy and mechanisms of sound production in songbirds are well understood, little is known about the hummingbird’s vocal anatomy.ResultsWe use high-resolution micro-computed tomography (μCT) and microdissection to reveal the three-dimensional structure of the syrinx, the vocal organ of the black jacobin (Florisuga fusca), a phylogenetically basal hummingbird species. We identify three features of the black jacobin’s syrinx: (i) a shift in the position of the syrinx to the outside of the thoracic cavity and the related loss of the sterno-tracheal muscle, (ii) complex intrinsic musculature, oriented dorso-ventrally, and (iii) ossicles embedded in the medial vibratory membranes.ConclusionsThe extra-thoracic placement of the black jacobin’s syrinx and the dorso-ventrally oriented musculature likely aid to uncoupling syrinx movements from extensive flight-related thorax constraints. The syrinx morphology further allows for vibratory decoupling, precise control of complex acoustic parameters, and a large motor redundancy that may be key biomechanical factors leading to acoustic complexity and thus facilitating the occurrence of vocal production learning.

Pygmy mice whistle for the audience

It might just be squeaking to you and me, but to the ears of northern pygmy mice (Baiomys taylori), the shrill cries of their own can be a romantic serenade. Describing how the feisty little rodents rear up on their hindlegs to summon others, Bret Pasch from Northern Arizona University, USA, quotes from a research paper dating back to 1941, saying, ‘The staccato-like song of pygmy mice is described as a “high-pitched, barely audible squeal” produced with the head “thrust forward and upward, stretching the throat”’. But there is an additional ultrasonic component of the rodent's ardent aria, stretching well beyond the limits of our hearing. Explaining that many small rodents use either their vocal chords to produce lower pitched calls or whistles to hit ear-splitting highs, Tobias Riede from Midwestern University, USA, and Pasch, teamed up to find out how the most diminutive rodent in North America produces its extraordinary vocal range.‘Pygmy mice are relatively rare’, says Pasch, describing how the tiny animals live in the desert grasslands of Arizona and New Mexico, and recalling how he often encountered rattlesnakes when retrieving the mini rodents from traps. Once the mice were safe in the Northern Arizona University lab, it was simply a case of recording the obliging creatures’ serenades. ‘Mice routinely sing spontaneously or if they encounter the voices or odour of a potential mate’, says Pasch. However, when the duo analysed the pygmy mouse's vocal range, they were surprised that the voices of the 10 g rodents were much deeper than they had expected, ranging from 16 to 40 kHz. ‘Traditionally, our understanding is that vocal pitch is driven by the size of the vocal organ’, says Riede, explaining that the voices of smaller animals are always squeakier than the voices of larger creatures. Yet, the highest tones in the pygmy mouse's range were only as high as those of lab rats, which are 40 times larger.Then, the team played a trick on the squeaky pygmy mice, replacing the air in their cages with heliox – a mixture of oxygen and helium inhaled by deep-sea divers – which shifts the pitch of whistles without altering the pitch of calls produced by vibrating vocal chords, to distinguish the origins of different tones in the rodent's repertoire. And when the mice switched to breathing heliox, every tone in their vocal range became squeakier. The duo realised that instead of the voluble rodents using their vocal chords to make calls over the lower range of their repertoire, every syllable they articulated was a whistle. In addition, each syllable of the serenade became shorter, probably because the flow of the lighter gas through the animal's tiny voice box is different from that of air, making the puffs of gas they exhale to whistle less effective.But how were the bijou animals able to produce such deep whistles when their frames are so tiny? Riede examined the structure of the tiny creature's voice box. Dissecting the minute vocal organs, which are the smallest that Riede has ever investigated, he discovered that pygmy mice have an unexpectedly large pouch that expands the size of the voice box, allowing the tiny creatures to produce the deeper tones (∼16 kHz) by whistling, instead of using their short vocal chords like other rodents.So, pygmy mice produce ultrasonic squeals by whistling, to evade the hearing of predators. Having discovered the secret of the maverick mammal's relatively deep voices, Pasch and Riede are eager to discover how the mouse's voice compares with those of other rodents to learn about the evolution of their communication.

Dynamical model for the neural activity of singing Serinus canaria.

Vocal production in songbirds is a key topic regarding the motor control of a complex, learned behavior. Birdsong is the result of the interaction between the activity of an intricate set of neural nuclei specifically dedicated to song production and learning (known as the "song system"), the respiratory system and the vocal organ. These systems interact and give rise to precise biomechanical motor gestures which result in song production. Telencephalic neural nuclei play a key role in the production of motor commands that drive the periphery, and while several attempts have been made to understand their coding strategy, difficulties arise when trying to understand neural activity in the frame of the song system as a whole. In this work, we report neural additive models embedded in an architecture compatible with the song system to provide a tool to reduce the dimensionality of the problem by considering the global activity of the units in each neural nucleus. This model is capable of generating outputs compatible with measurements of air sac pressure during song production in canaries (Serinus canaria). In this work, we show that the activity in a telencephalic nucleus required by the model to reproduce the observed respiratory gestures is compatible with electrophysiological recordings of single neuron activity in freely behaving animals.

Male Sprague Dawley Rats use Deep Breaths for Ultrasonic Vocal Production

Rodents are highly vocal organisms. Vocal production must integrate breathing movements and movements of the vocal organ. This study was designed to investigate the role of deep breaths, also known as sighing, for vocal production. Sighing is a physiologically necessary breathing behavior conserved across all mammals. In ten awake and spontaneously behaving male rats breathing and vocal behavior was monitored. A tracheal implant measured subglottal pressure. The implant was connected to a pressure transducer mounted to a rodent jacket. Animals were tethered and allowed to move freely in the home cage. Subglottal pressure and sound were simultaneously recorded during five different contexts: anesthetic sleep, rest, noxious stimuli, exposure to another male, and exposure to a female. On average, sighs were produced between 15 and 40 times per hour. Exposure to a female Sprague‐Dawley rat was the only context with a small but significant increase in the sighing rate. Vocal activity increased in three contexts (female, male, noxious stimulus). On average 24% of all sighs contained vocalizations during those contexts but the rate of vocal sighs increased with vocal activity. Those findings confirm that vocal sighs are not only a regular fixture of rodent vocal behavior, but that sighs are recruited for vocal production if vocal activity increases. Both 22 kHz and 50 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations were observed in deep breaths. Sometimes multiple vocalizations were produced during the same exhalation. Finally, the pressure signal of the inhalation phase was modified when a vocalization was produced in the subsequent exhalation. This suggests preparation leading up to vocal production. In sum, we show that awake and spontaneously behaving rats use deep breaths for vocal production, and we present evidence that vocal production uses multiple breathing patterns to generate vocal signals. These observations inform our understanding of the physiology of vocal production in mammals and illustrates the value of the rat as model system.Support or Funding InformationMidwestern University

PRZEBIEG POWROTU FUNKCJI KRTANI U PACJENTA PO REKONSTRUKCJI NERWÓW KRTANIOWYCH WSTECZNYCH

BackgroundAccording to the literature, the rate of laryngeal paralysis after thyroid surgery is as high as several percent. For oncolog-ical operations the rate can reach 20%. The return of laryngeal function depends on the degree of nerve damage. Surgical procedures are required to increase the likelihood of nerve function recovery. Three methods of phonosurgery are currently used. The first is based on injecting auto or alloplastic materials into the vocal fold. The second interferes with the skeleton of the laryngeal cartilages; according to the Isshiki clas-sification, it includes type I thyreoplasty (medialisation thyreoplasty), optionally with complementary arytenoid adduction. The third method reconstructs the laryngeal nerves. Combinations of the three methods are increasingly used. Conservative treatment including phoniatric voice rehabilitation should be started as early as possible.Case reportThe paper presents a case report of a patient after thyroid surgery due to papillary carcinoma, complicated by bilateral laryn-geal paralysis and aphonia.ConclusionsFunctional Voice Therapy started just after healing of the postoperative wound in the neck eliminated abnormal compensatory mechanisms of phonation. Reconstruction of the laryngeal nerves is an opportunity to quickly return laryngeal function and prevents unwanted secondary functional mechanisms within the vocal organ.

The vocal organ of hummingbirds shows convergence with songbirds

How sound is generated in the hummingbird syrinx is largely unknown despite their complex vocal behavior. To fill this gap, syrinx anatomy of four North American hummingbird species were investigated by histological dissection and contrast-enhanced microCT imaging, as well as measurement of vocalizations in a heliox atmosphere. The placement of the hummingbird syrinx is uniquely located in the neck rather than inside the thorax as in other birds, while the internal structure is bipartite with songbird-like anatomical features, including multiple pairs of intrinsic muscles, a robust tympanum and several accessory cartilages. Lateral labia and medial tympaniform membranes consist of an extracellular matrix containing hyaluronic acid, collagen fibers, but few elastic fibers. Their upper vocal tract, including the trachea, is shorter than predicted for their body size. There are between-species differences in syrinx measurements, despite similar overall morphology. In heliox, fundamental frequency is unchanged while upper-harmonic spectral content decrease in amplitude, indicating that syringeal sounds are produced by airflow-induced labia and membrane vibration. Our findings predict that hummingbirds have fine control of labia and membrane position in the syrinx; adaptations that set them apart from closely related swifts, yet shows convergence in their vocal organs with those of oscines.

Synthesis of a Vocal Sound from the 3,000 year old Mummy, Nesyamun \u2018True of Voice\u2019

The sound of a 3,000 year old mummified individual has been accurately reproduced as a vowel-like sound based on measurements of the precise dimensions of his extant vocal tract following Computed Tomography (CT) scanning, enabling the creation of a 3-D printed vocal tract. By using the Vocal Tract Organ, which provides a user-controllable artificial larynx sound source, a vowel sound is synthesised which compares favourably with vowels of modern individuals.

Generation, Coordination, and Evolution of Neural Circuits for Vocal Communication.

In many species, vocal communication is essential for coordinating social behaviors including courtship, mating, parenting, rivalry, and alarm signaling. Effective communication requires accurate production, detection, and classification of signals, as well as selection of socially appropriate responses. Understanding how signals are generated and how acoustic signals are perceived is key to understanding the neurobiology of social behaviors. Here we review our long-standing research program focused on Xenopus, a frog genus which has provided valuable insights into the mechanisms and evolution of vertebrate social behaviors. In Xenopus laevis, vocal signals differ between the sexes, through development, and across the genus, reflecting evolutionary divergence in sensory and motor circuits that can be interrogated mechanistically. Using two ex vivo preparations, the isolated brain and vocal organ, we have identified essential components of the vocal production system: the sexually differentiated larynx at the periphery, and the hindbrain vocal central pattern generator (CPG) centrally, that produce sex- and species-characteristic sound pulse frequencies and temporal patterns, respectively. Within the hindbrain, we have described how intrinsic membrane properties of neurons in the vocal CPG generate species-specific vocal patterns, how vocal nuclei are connected to generate vocal patterns, as well as the roles of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators in activating the circuit. For sensorimotor integration, we identified a key forebrain node that links auditory and vocal production circuits to match socially appropriate vocal responses to acoustic features of male and female calls. The availability of a well supported phylogeny as well as reference genomes from several species now support analysis of the genetic architecture and the evolutionary divergence of neural circuits for vocal communication. Xenopus thus provides a vertebrate model in which to study vocal communication at many levels, from physiology, to behavior, and from development to evolution. As one of the most comprehensively studied phylogenetic groups within vertebrate vocal communication systems, Xenopus provides insights that can inform social communication across phyla.

Birdsong as a window into language origins and evolutionary neuroscience.

Humans and songbirds share the key trait of vocal learning, manifested in speech and song, respectively. Striking analogies between these behaviours include that both are acquired during developmental critical periods when the brain's ability for vocal learning peaks. Both behaviours show similarities in the overall architecture of their underlying brain areas, characterized by cortico-striato-thalamic loops and direct projections from cortical neurons onto brainstem motor neurons that control the vocal organs. These neural analogies extend to the molecular level, with certain song control regions sharing convergent transcriptional profiles with speech-related regions in the human brain. This evolutionary convergence offers an unprecedented opportunity to decipher the shared neurogenetic underpinnings of vocal learning. A key strength of the songbird model is that it allows for the delineation of activity-dependent transcriptional changes in the brain that are driven by learned vocal behaviour. To capitalize on this advantage, we used previously published datasets from our laboratory that correlate gene co-expression networks to features of learned vocalization within and after critical period closure to probe the functional relevance of genes implicated in language. We interrogate specific genes and cellular processes through converging lines of evidence: human-specific evolutionary changes, intelligence-related phenotypes and relevance to vocal learning gene co-expression in songbirds. This article is part of the theme issue 'What can animal communication teach us about human language?'

On an improvement of the old voice by the reflection of the amplified voice

When people get older, they lose their energy and get tired of everything. At this time, the voice utterance ages and gradually changes to bass, and the sounding frequency of the first resonance frequency decreases with age. Voice phonation is produced by the release of pressure from the lungs through the vocal folds, causing resonance in the vocal tract. In this study, we proposed a new method to improve the aging of vocal organs with their voices using the voice utterance characteristics. We have to hear the vocal organs of the experimenter as usual loudness over a cup that contains the sound recorded voice, the voice-aging properties were measured in one-minute increments. In this study, the average sound pressure level when the aging voice removal was restored to + 6.2dB spectrum of the high-frequency range is improved to the average size + 13.7dB. And the experimenter showed regained the confidence of the utterance to think that his voice clarity improvement over the ages.

Świadomość funkcjonowania głosu i możliwości jego terapii emisyjnej oraz fizjoterapeutycznej a stan zdrowia narządu głosu

Świadomość funkcjonowania głosu i możliwości jego terapii emisyjnej oraz fizjoterapeutycznej a stan zdrowia narządu głosu

Методи автоматичної ідентифікації диктора за голосом

Each person has individual voice characteristics, which are determined by the characteristics of the structure of his vocal organs. In the process of communication, people are able to discern the voices of other people on a subconscious level, but for computing technology this task is non-trivial and requires focused research. The purpose of the article is to analyze the existing methods of recognition of speech information, to identify their weak and strong points in order to justify the choice of the most receptive regarding the recognition of the speaker by voice. The growth of the global market for voice recognition devices depends on many factors. One of the main factors is the increase in demand for voice biometrics services. With the increasing complexity and frequency of security breaches, the latter continues to be one of the main requirements for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The high demand for voice biometrics, which is unique to any person, is crucial in determining a person’s identity. Military departments in most countries use extremely restricted areas to prevent intruders from entering. To ensure secrecy and security in this area, the military uses voice recognition systems. Any recognition system works in two modes: in the registration mode and the identification mode . In other words, you need to have an example voice. Currently, there are a number of methods that allow solving problems of text-independent speaker identification by voice, and each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, the most common method is the Gaussian Mixture Model. Models of Gaussian mixtures have proven themselves as a stochastic model for building recognition systems. They are convenient not only for modeling the characteristics of the speaker’s voice, but also for the recording channel and the environment. An effective speech recognition system should include the following steps in processing the input signal: noise removal, segmentation, selection of voiced sections, parameterization, recognition, and correction with a feedback dictionary.

The therapeutic effect of melodic intonation therapy on Broca′s aphasia after stroke

Objective To investigate the effect of melody intonation therapy on the language function of Chinese-speaking stroke survivors with Broca′s aphasia. Methods Forty patients with Broca′s aphasia after stroke were randomly divided into a treatment group and a control group, each of 20. The treatment group received melodic intonation training, while the control group received routine speech rehabilitation training including training of the vocal organs, oral expression, literal expression and listening comprehension 30 minutes a day, five days a week for 12 weeks. Before and after the treatment, the spontaneous speech, listening comprehension, retelling and naming of both groups were tested using the western aphasia battery. Results After the intervention, a significant increase was observed in the average aphasia quotient, speech, listening comprehension, retelling and naming scores of both groups. The average spontaneous speech, listening comprehension and naming scores and the aphasia quotient of the treatment group were then significantly better than those of the control group. Conclusion Melody intonation training and rhythm training can improve the speech and daily communication ability of stroke survivors effectively. Key words: Aphasia; Melody intonation therapy; Speech therapy; Intonation; Rhythm

The Shape of Sound: a Geometric Morphometrics Approach to Laryngeal Functional Morphology

Diversification of animal vocalizations plays a key role in behavioral evolution and speciation. Vocal organ morphology represents an important source of acoustic variation, yet its small size, complex shape, and absence of homologous landmarks pose major challenges to comparative analyses. Here, we use a geometric morphometric approach based on geometrically homologous landmarks to quantify shape variation of laryngeal cartilages of four rodent genera representing three families. Reconstructed cartilages of the larynx from contrast-enhanced micro-CT images were quantified by variable numbers of three-dimensional landmarks placed on structural margins and major surfaces. Landmark sets were superimposed using generalized Procrustes analysis prior to statistical analysis. Correlations among pairwise Procrustes distances were used to identify the minimum number of landmarks necessary to fully characterize shape variation. We found that the five species occupy distinct positions in morphospace, with variation explained in part by phylogeny, body size, and differences in vocal production mechanisms. Our findings provide a foundation for quantifying the contribution of vocal organ morphology to acoustic diversification.

Discrete Anatomical Coordinates for Speech Production and Synthesis

The sounds of all languages are described by a finite set of symbols, which are extracted from the continuum of sounds produced by the vocal organ. How the discrete phonemic identity is encoded in the continuous movements producing speech remains an open question for the experimental phonology. In this work, this question is assessed by using Hall-effect transducers and magnets -mounted on the tongue, lips and jaw- to track the kinematics of the oral tract during the vocalization of vowel-consonant-vowel structures. Using a threshold strategy, the time traces of the transducers were converted into discrete motor coordinates unambiguously associated with the vocalized phonemes. Furthermore, the signals of the transducers combined with the discretization strategy were used to drive a low-dimensional vocal model capable of synthesizing intelligible speech. The current work not only assesses a relevant inquiry of the biology of language, but also demonstrates the performance of the experimental technique to monitor the displacement of the main articulators of the vocal tract while speaking. This novel electronic device represents an economic and portable option to the standard systems used to study the vocal tract movements.

The evolution of the syrinx: An acoustic theory.

The unique avian vocal organ, the syrinx, is located at the caudal end of the trachea. Although a larynx is also present at the opposite end, birds phonate only with the syrinx. Why only birds evolved a novel sound source at this location remains unknown, and hypotheses about its origin are largely untested. Here, we test the hypothesis that the syrinx constitutes a biomechanical advantage for sound production over the larynx with combined theoretical and experimental approaches. We investigated whether the position of a sound source within the respiratory tract affects acoustic features of the vocal output, including fundamental frequency and efficiency of conversion from aerodynamic energy to sound. Theoretical data and measurements in three bird species suggest that sound frequency is influenced by the interaction between sound source and vocal tract. A physical model and a computational simulation also indicate that a sound source in a syringeal position produces sound with greater efficiency. Interestingly, the interactions between sound source and vocal tract differed between species, suggesting that the syringeal sound source is optimized for its position in the respiratory tract. These results provide compelling evidence that strong selective pressures for high vocal efficiency may have been a major driving force in the evolution of the syrinx. The longer trachea of birds compared to other tetrapods made them likely predisposed for the evolution of a syrinx. A long vocal tract downstream from the sound source improves efficiency by facilitating the tuning between fundamental frequency and the first vocal tract resonance.