Voice Pitch Research Articles

Unraveling the Associations Between Voice Pitch and Major Depressive Disorder: A Multisite Genetic Study.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) often goes undiagnosed due to the absence of clear biomarkers. We sought to identify voice biomarkers for MDD and separate biomarkers indicative of MDD predisposition from biomarkers reflecting current depressive symptoms. Using a two-stage meta-analytic design to remove confounds, we tested the association between features representing vocal pitch and MDD in a multisite case-control cohort study of Chinese women with recurrent depression. Sixteen features were replicated in an independent cohort, with absolute association coefficients (beta values) from the combined analysis ranging from 0.24 to 1.07, indicating moderate to large effects. The statistical significance of these associations remained robust, with P-values ranging from 7.2 × 10-6 to 6.8 × 10-58. Eleven features were significantly associated with current depressive symptoms. Using genotype data, we found that this association was driven in part by a genetic correlation with MDD. Significant voice features, reflecting a slower pitch change and a lower pitch, achieved an AUC-ROC of 0.90 (sensitivity of 0.85 and specificity of 0.81) in MDD classification. Our results return vocal features to a more central position in clinical and research work on MDD.

Voice pitch and gender in autism.

It is has often been observed that autistic individuals have higher-pitched voices than non-autistic ones, but no clear explanation for this difference has been put forth. However, autistic males are still dramatically over-represented in published research, including the acoustic studies that report higher pitch in autistic participants. In this study, we collected speech samples from a group of autistic and neurotypical adults that, unlike in most studies, was perfectly balanced between groups and genders. In this gender-balanced sample, pitch was significantly higher in autistic versus neurotypical men, but lower in autistic versus neurotypical women. Overall, women tend to have higher-pitched voices than men, but the magnitude of this difference is culture dependent and may be significantly influenced by the internalisation of normative expectations towards one's gender. We propose that higher pitch in autistic males and lower pitch in autistic females could be due, at least in part, to a lesser integration of sociolinguistic markers of gender. Our report shows that speech atypicality should not be operationalised in terms of systematic and unidirectional deviation from the neurotypical baseline.

Pupillometry reveals effects of pitch manipulation within and across words on listening effort and short-term memory.

For individuals with hearing loss, even successful speech communication comes at a cost. Cochlear implants transmit degraded information, specifically for voice pitch, which demands extra and sustained listening effort. The current study hypothesized that abnormal pitch patterns contribute to the additional listening effort, even in non-tonal language native speaking normally hearing listeners. We manipulated the fundamental frequency (F0)within and across words, while participants listen and repeat (simple intelligibility task), or listen, repeat, and later recall (concurrent encoding task) the words. In both experiments, the F0 manipulations resulted in small changes in intelligibility but no difference in free recall or subjective effort ratings. Pupillary metrics were yet sensitive to these manipulations: pupil dilations were larger when words were monotonized (flat contour) or inverted (the natural contour flipped upside-down), and larger when successive words were organized into a melodic pattern. The most likely interpretation is that the natural or expected F0 contour of a word contributes to its identity and facilitate its matching and retrieval from the phonological representation stored in long-term memory. Consequently, degrading words' F0 contour can result in extra listening effort. Our results call for solutions to improve pitch saliency and naturalness in future development of cochlear implants' signal processing strategies, even for non-tonal languages.

Behave Yourself! Behavioral Indicators of Trust in Human-Agent Teams

As advancements in artificial intelligence accelerate, there is a rise in the complexity and number of autonomous agents placed in human-agent teams (HATs). With this expansion, it is important to understand how trust in agent teammates evolves and is influenced by contextual events. In support of this, significant research has focused on the factors that influence human trust in an agent and elements that negatively impact this trust. In this research, human trust in agent teammates is typically measured via self-report surveys. Although a reliable format, surveys are not without limitations, as they can be disruptive and lack the temporal resolution needed to capture nuanced and dynamic changes in trust. As a result, researchers are adopting alternative measurement approaches that aim to unobtrusively capture measures that correlate with trust using behavioral and physiological sensors that capture measures such as voice pitch and eye tracking. However, most of these studies utilize only one unobtrusive measure, which can be indicative of various states (e.g., heart rate varies with psychological and physical responses). Given the lack of selectivity in such measures, it may be necessary to utilize multiple unobtrusive measures at once, such as real-time recorded behavioral indicators, to effectively capture changes in these indicators that are due to changes in trust over time. This paper investigated the following research questions: (1) do multiple unobtrusive indicators provide a more holistic picture of trust compared to a single behavioral indicator, and (2) are certain behavioral indicators more indicative of self-reported trust at different times during a mission (e.g., before/after a trust violation event)? Results indicated that following a significant event, changes in self-reported trust are associated with specific behaviors related to improving or mitigating perceived deficiencies in their agent teammates. These insights highlight the opportunity to integrate dynamic behavioral measures in trust assessment frameworks, specifically in scenarios where a significant event compromises trust.

Exploring the impact of word prediction assistive features on smartphone keyboards for blind users

Assistive technologies have been developed to enhance blind users’ typing performance, focusing on speed, accuracy, and effort reduction. One such technology is word prediction software, designed to minimize keystrokes required for text input. This study investigates the impact of word prediction on typing performance among blind users using an on-screen QWERTY keyboard. We conducted a comparative study involving eleven blind participants, evaluating both standard QWERTY input and word prediction-assisted typing. Our findings reveal that while word prediction slightly improves typing speed, it does not enhance typing accuracy and increases both physical and temporal workload compared to the default keyboard. We conclude with recommendations for improving word prediction systems, including more efficient editing methods and the integration of voice pitch variations to aid error recognition.

The effect of sexual orientation on voice acoustic properties.

Previous research has investigated sexual orientation differences in the acoustic properties of individuals' voices, often theorizing that homosexuals of both sexes would have voice properties mirroring those of heterosexuals of the opposite sex. Findings were mixed, but many of these studies have methodological limitations including small sample sizes, use of recited passages instead of natural speech, or grouping bisexual and homosexual participants together for analyses. To address these shortcomings, the present study examined a wide range of acoustic properties in the natural voices of 142 men and 175 women of varying sexual orientations, with sexual orientation treated as a continuous variable throughout. Homosexual men had less breathy voices (as indicated by a lower harmonics-to-noise ratio) and, contrary to our prediction, a lower voice pitch and narrower pitch range than heterosexual men. Homosexual women had lower F4 formant frequency (vocal tract resonance or so-called overtone) in overall vowel production, and rougher voices (measured via jitter and spectral tilt) than heterosexual women. For those sexual orientation differences that were statistically significant, bisexuals were in-between heterosexuals and homosexuals. No sexual orientation differences were found in formants F1-F3, cepstral peak prominence, shimmer, or speech rate in either sex. Recommendations for future "natural voice" investigations are outlined.

Choices and Voices: The Influence of Voice Pitch on the Voting Preference of Barangay Tubod, Iligan City

Choices and Voices: The Influence of Voice Pitch on the Voting Preference of Barangay Tubod, Iligan City

Close approximations to the sound of a cochlear implant.

Cochlear implant (CI) systems differ in terms of electrode design and signal processing. It is likely that patients fit with different implant systems will experience different percepts when presented speech via their implant. The sound quality of speech can be evaluated by asking single-sided-deaf (SSD) listeners fit with a cochlear implant (CI) to modify clean signals presented to their typically hearing ear to match the sound quality of signals presented to their CI ear. In this paper, we describe very close matches to CI sound quality, i.e., similarity ratings of 9.5 to 10 on a 10-point scale, by ten patients fit with a 28 mm electrode array and MED EL signal processing. The modifications required to make close approximations to CI sound quality fell into two groups: One consisted of a restricted frequency bandwidth and spectral smearing while a second was characterized by a wide bandwidth and no spectral smearing. Both sets of modifications were different from those found for patients with shorter electrode arrays who chose upshifts in voice pitch and formant frequencies to match CI sound quality. The data from matching-based metrics of CI sound quality document that speech sound-quality differs for patients fit with different CIs and among patients fit with the same CI.

"Alexa, Cycle The Blood Pressure": A Voice Control Interface Method for Anesthesia Monitoring.

Anesthesia monitors and devices are usually controlled with some combination of dials, keypads, a keyboard, or a touch screen. Thus, anesthesiologists can operate their monitors only when they are physically close to them, and not otherwise task-loaded with sterile procedures such as line or block placement. Voice recognition technology has become commonplace and may offer advantages in anesthesia practice such as reducing surface contamination rates and allowing anesthesiologists to effect changes in monitoring and therapy when they would otherwise presently be unable to do so. We hypothesized that this technology is practicable and that anesthesiologists would consider it useful. A novel voice-driven prototype controller was designed for the GE Solar 8000M anesthesia patient monitor. The apparatus was implemented using a Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer, an external conference audio device, a Google Cloud Speech-to-Text platform, and a modified Solar controller to effect commands. Fifty anesthesia providers tested the prototype. Evaluations and surveys were completed in a nonclinical environment to avoid any ethical or safety concerns regarding the use of the device in direct patient care. All anesthesiologists sampled were fluent English speakers; many with inflections from their first language or national origin, reflecting diversity in the population of practicing anesthesiologists. The prototype was uniformly well-received by anesthesiologists. Ease-of-use, usefulness, and effectiveness were assessed on a Likert scale with means of 9.96, 7.22, and 8.48 of 10, respectively. No population cofactors were associated with these results. Advancing level of training (eg, nonattending versus attending) was not correlated with any preference. Accent of country or region was not correlated with any preference. Vocal pitch register did not correlate with any preference. Statistical analyses were performed with analysis of variance and the unpaired t -test. The use of voice recognition to control operating room monitors was well-received anesthesia providers. Additional commands are easily implemented on the prototype controller. No adverse relationship was found between acceptability and level of anesthesia experience, pitch of voice, or presence of accent. Voice recognition is a promising method of controlling anesthesia monitors and devices that could potentially increase usability and situational awareness in circumstances where the anesthesiologist is otherwise out-of-position or task-loaded.

Role of Non-verbal Communication Skills of Teachers and its Impact on Achieving Classroom Learning Objectives at Secondary Level

This descriptive study intends to investigate the influence of a teacher’s nonverbal communication on classroom learning objectives using a descriptive technique. This also determined the association between the unspoken behaviours of teachers working in various educational systems. The main objective of the research is to understand how non-verbal communication skills, including facial expressions, eye contact, pitch of voice, and physical appearance, collectively contribute to achieving classroom learning objectives. The quantitative survey method was used to present the study. This research was descriptive in nature. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed for data collection. This questionnaire was administered to a sample of 400 respondents who were randomly selected from 40 public and private secondary schools in Multan. Using SPSS software, the acquired data was tabulated and evaluated. The collected data was tabulated, analysed, and interpreted in the form of mean, frequency, percentage, and standard deviation. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to arrive at the conclusions. Frequencies and percentages were computed to illustrate the demographic items and questions, and one-way ANOVA and the independent sample t-test were utilized to illustrate the variations in teacher perspectives depending on various factors related to demographics.

The Impact of Visual and Audiovisual Inputs on Voice Perception and Production: Exploring the Role of Immersive Virtual Reality in Clinical Practice

Sensory feedback is crucial for regulating pitch, loudness and other aspects of voice and speech perception and production. (1) Auditory input is traditionally considered the primary signal in speech communication. One of many examples leading to this reasonable conclusion are studies showing that deaf infants exhibit delayed articulatory precision in babbling and phonological deficits during puberty. (2,3) Other studies have found that superior auditory skills enhance pitch accuracy in voice production, revealing the relationship between auditory input and voice production. (4) Interestingly, other evidence indicates that blind children may also experience phonological deficits. (5) Additionally, incongruent audiovisual input impacts speech perception. (6) Despite these findings, the influence of visual input on individuals’ voice perception and production has largely been overlooked.

No evidence that averaging voices influences attractiveness

Vocal attractiveness influences important social outcomes. While most research on the acoustic parameters that influence vocal attractiveness has focused on the possible roles of sexually dimorphic characteristics of voices, such as fundamental frequency (i.e., pitch) and formant frequencies (i.e., a correlate of body size), other work has reported that increasing vocal averageness increases attractiveness. Here we investigated the roles these three characteristics play in judgments of the attractiveness of male and female voices. In Study 1, we found that increasing vocal averageness significantly decreased distinctiveness ratings, demonstrating that participants could detect manipulations of vocal averageness in this stimulus set and using this testing paradigm. However, in Study 2, we found no evidence that increasing averageness significantly increased attractiveness ratings of voices. In Study 3, we found that fundamental frequency was negatively correlated with male vocal attractiveness and positively correlated with female vocal attractiveness. By contrast with these results for fundamental frequency, vocal attractiveness and formant frequencies were not significantly correlated. Collectively, our results suggest that averageness may not necessarily significantly increase attractiveness judgments of voices and are consistent with previous work reporting significant associations between attractiveness and voice pitch.

Genetic association analysis of human median voice pitch identifies a common locus for tonal and non-tonal languages

The genetic influence on human vocal pitch in tonal and non-tonal languages remains largely unknown. In tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, pitch changes differentiate word meanings, whereas in non-tonal languages, such as Icelandic, pitch is used to convey intonation. We addressed this question by searching for genetic associations with interindividual variation in median pitch in a Chinese major depression case-control cohort and compared our results with a genome-wide association study from Iceland. The same genetic variant, rs11046212-T in an intron of the ABCC9 gene, was one of the most strongly associated loci with median pitch in both samples. Our meta-analysis revealed four genome-wide significant hits, including two novel associations. The discovery of genetic variants influencing vocal pitch across both tonal and non-tonal languages suggests the possibility of a common genetic contribution to the human vocal system shared in two distinct populations with languages that differ in tonality (Icelandic and Mandarin).

Contextual Triggers of Family Conflicts in Folake Amanfo’s Celebrity Marriage and Caliph Uzar’s After Knot

This study investigates contextual triggers of family conflicts, as portrayed in Folake Amanfo’s Celebrity Marriage and Caliph Uzar’s After Knot. Aspects of pragmatic theory and context model served as the framework. Findings showed that six discursive contexts are foregrounded as triggers of family conflicts. The contexts – speculative assumption, rebuttal argument, communication gap, emotional insecurity, aggressive complaint and blame shift –realize verbal, physical, financial, and sexual family conflicts. Speculative assumption which enhances family conflict is realized through cognitive, linguistic, and social macro contexts. Rebuttal argument stimulates conflict through high voice pitch (VCE) and metaphor (MPH). Communication gap triggers conflict through (wrong) inference and linguistic context. Emotional insecurity necessitates family conflict through cognitive and linguistic contexts. Aggressive complaints and blame shift, as prompters of family conflict, are enhanced by metaphor, linguistic and social contexts. Participants within the family interactions make inferences to create and sustain family conflict.

Voice Pitch Shaping and Genderization: New Needs of Cosmetic Phonoplastic Surgery.

Voices can convey content, emotion, and essential information about an individual's gender and social information. Closely related to gender identification and sexual attraction, voices also positively affect many psychological factors of individuals. Surgeries have evolved from treating congenital diseases to fulfilling an individual's aesthetic needs for voice. Voice shaping is emerging as the next cosmetic surgery hotspot after skincare and appearance and body shaping. This paper summarizes the development of voice pitch shaping and genderization procedures out of the cosmetic need. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE IV: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these evidence-based medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors https://www.springer.com/00266 .

The Voice of Risk: Wall Street CEOs' Voice Pitch and the 2008 Financial Crisis*

AbstractThe pitch of a male voice is an honest signal of his threat potential coming from testosterone. Recognizing endogenous matches between firms and CEOs, we propose to use voice pitch of the CEO as a proxy for the unobservable risk‐taking strategy of the firm. Using digitally analyzed male CEO voice pitch in 167 CNBC interviews during the 2008 global financial crisis, we find that deep‐voiced Wall Street CEOs (i) managed riskier firms, (ii) received more equity‐based compensation before the crisis and (iii) were more likely to be fired after the crisis, controlling for economic incentives, overconfidence, and narcissism.

Ansa Cervicalis External Branch Anastomosis to Restore High Tone Voice in Thyroid Surgery.

Injury to the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve (EBSLN) causes low-pitch voice and voice fatigue, particularly in female subjects, and available treatments are limited. Here, we assess a novel surgical procedure to restore a high-tone voice: ansa cervicalis to EBSLN anastomosis (A-E anastomosis). Between November 2012 and April 2022, 13 patients (12 female) underwent unilateral EBSLN resection and A-E anastomosis, while 20 (16 female) underwent EBSLN resection during thyroid surgery. Patients (4494 women and 1025 men) with normal laryngoscopy scheduled for thyroid surgery served as normal controls. Phonatory function was examined using a Phonation Analyzer PA-1000 preoperatively and intermittently postoperatively. In patients who underwent A-E anastomosis, high-tone voice pitch decreased significantly postoperatively (673.9-471.5 Hz, p = 0.047), with restoration achieved within 5 months. The mean voice pitch in female patients who underwent A-E anastomosis, EBSLN resection, and controls were 580.4, 522.8, and 682.0 Hz, respectively, indicating a significant decrease in EBSLN resection patients than controls (p = 0.002). The (mean - 1SD) of high-tone voice pitch in female controls was 497 Hz; exceeding this may indicate recovery to a high-tone voice. Overall, 73% (8/11) of A-E anastomosis patients exceeded this value, which was marginally larger than the 43% (6/14) who underwent EBSLN resection. Data on male subjects are limited. There were no cases of adverse functional or cosmetic events. A-E anastomosis, a novel simple procedure, restored high-tone voice to some extent without any adverse events and thus warrants further investigation. 3 Laryngoscope, 134:3868-3873, 2024.

Perceptual weighting of acoustic cues to contrastive prosody for sentences in quiet and in noise

Prosody is used to mark important information in speech, yet despite this important role in everyday communication it is not a customary part of speech recognition testing in routine audiometry. Listeners might fail to perceive meaningful emphasis on a specific word signaled by prosodic cues despite repeating the words correctly. This study introduces a new paradigm for assessing perception of prosodic cues that are used to signify new/corrective information in a sentence. Stimuli consisted of spoken sentences where one word (in various sentence positions) was emphasized through acoustic modifications across the entire utterance, in a manner that corrected wrong information. Participants used a visual analog scale to mark the timing and degree of emphasis aligned with the target words. Perceptual data in this study are linked with acoustic measures of voice pitch contour, intensity, and duration to characterize how contrastive stress cues are recovered by listeners with and without cochlear implants, who are especially at risk for poorer pitch perception. Follow-up conditions used stimuli where acoustic cues (F0, duration, intensity) were manipulated independently to explore perceptual cue weighting, and the perseverance of these cues through background noise.

Visual cues influence prosody perception among individuals with cochlear implants

Understanding a talker’s intention conveyed through prosody is essential for successful speech communication. Although visual speech cues are typically characterized by lip movements, there are also visual gestures including head tilts and eyebrow raises that signal prosody. Listeners with cochlear implants (CIs) may rely on these visual cues to solidify their prosody perception and guard against misinterpretations, particularly because of their poor perception of voice pitch. This study used audio-visual recordings of sentences in which a talker sometimes focused one word to signify a change in meaning. After characterizing acoustic and visual prosody cues in this stimulus set, we made prosodically mismatched variants of the stimuli by transplanting prosodically focused audio onto broad focus (i.e., prosodically unfocused) video, and vice versa. Visual influences on prosody perception were measured using acoustic analysis of participant reproductions in a vocal mimicry task. Results show reproduction of F0 contour—a key acoustic marker of prosodic focus—is influenced by perception of visual prosody cues. Specifically, visual cues indicating a focused word led to higher peak F0 in vocal reproductions of that word in the sentence. These results underscore the importance of multisensory information in supporting prosody perception for listeners with hearing loss.

Exploring the Effects of Online Physician Voice Pitch Range and Filled Pauses on Patient Satisfaction in Mobile Health Communication

ABSTRACT The convenience of mobile devices has driven the widespread use of voice technology in mobile health communication, significantly improving the timeliness of online service. However, the issue of listening to therapeutic content, which requires great cognitive effort and may exceed the patient’s information processing capacity (i.e., information overload), is of concern. Based on information processing theory, this study reports how online physicians’ voice characteristics (pitch range and filled pauses) affect patient satisfaction. We obtained 10,585 mobile voice consultation records of 1,416 doctors from China’s largest mHealth platform and analyzed them using audio mining and empirical methods. Results showed that pitch range (β = 0.0539, p < .01) and filled pauses (β = 0.0365, p < .01) in doctors’ voice positively influenced online patient satisfaction. However, the effect of filled pauses becomes weaker for patients with higher health literacy and higher disease risk. This suggests that there is heterogeneity in the way different patients process audio information. This study provides important insights for guiding online physician behaviors, enhancing patient satisfaction, and improving mobile health platform management.