Voice Science Research Articles

Walter Miles and his research on low dose alcohol (1914–1924): Shifting the emphasis from intoxication to impairment.

During his tenure (1914-1922) as a research scientist at Boston's Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory, Walter Miles (1885-1978) conducted important and methodologically sophisticated experiments on the psychological effects of low dose (2.75% by weight) alcohol. The research was important because it represented a shift in strategy away from examining the effects of large amounts of alcohol to determine the consequences of alcohol intoxication. Although the amount of alcohol ingested by his subjects was small, Miles was nonetheless able to demonstrate consistent deficits in several types of motor performance. Miles became an acknowledged national expert on the topic of alcohol and its behavioral consequences, and although he was unable to influence the debate that led to repealing National Prohibition in the early 1930s, his research had relevance for an issue that was emerging in the 1930s-the problem of the alcohol-impaired driver. Miles added a scientific and respected voice to the developing momentum for a societal response to the impaired driving question.

Moving On…

Moving On…

The role of the posterior cricoarytenoid muscle in phonation

The posterior cricoarytenoid muscle (PCA) is generally considered to be a respiratory muscle. Indeed, as the sole abductor of the glottis (i.e., the only laryngeal muscle with the capability of opening the true vocal folds), paralysis of the PCA may lead to asphyxiation. While the PCA muscle also appears to play a role in phonation, a consensus has not been reached among voice scientists regarding its precise role in the control of fundamental frequency, phonation threshold pressure, and other phonatory variables. Using a new developed method of graded stimulation to the laryngeal muscles, Chhetri, Neubauer, and Berry (2012) explored the role of the cricothyroid muscle (CT), thyroarytenoid muscle (TA), and the lateral cricoarytenoid and interarytenoid muscle complex (LCA + IA) on fundamental frequency, phonation threshold pressure and glottal posturing. The present study augments the previous study by also investigating the influence of the PCA muscle on these same phonatory variables. Similar to the adductor muscles, it is shown that the PCA muscle introduces new possibilities for achieving multiple phonation types at a given fundamental frequency.

Improving Scientific Voice in the Science Communication Center at UT Knoxville

Many science students believe that scientific writing is most impressive (and most professionally acceptable) when impersonal, dense, complex, and packed with jargon. In particular, they have the idea that legitimate scientific writing must suppress the subjectivity of the human voice. But science students can mature into excellent writers whose voices are clear, interesting, unburdensome, efficient, and accurate. To do this, they must abandon their ponderous scientific voices and use techniques that produce good style. When I teach for the Science Communication Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, I focus on helping students improve their scientific voice. I use workshop-style instruction, review of student writing, tutorial staff, and free online tutorials that I have developed. This article meditates upon the nature of good scientific voice as it analyzes examples of student writing to show improvements made through specific stylistic techniques.

PITCH PROFILE OF THE GLOTTAL WHISTLE (M4)

This paper presents a previously unreported method of laryngeal vocal sound production that is capable of producing pitches even higher than the whistle register (M3). Colloquially known as the glottal whistle (here referred to as M4), this method has a wider range than M3 and features frequent instances of biphonation, which is of interest for those involved with contemporary and improvised music. Pitch profile analyses of M4 have found the majority of fundamental frequency (f0) activity to be between 1 and 3 kHz, while the most frequently seen range was between 1000 to 1,500 Hz. Remarkably, multiple singers were able to produce f0 higher than the highest tone on the piano. (Keywords: glottal whistle, whistle register, M3, voice science, high fundamental frequency)

Scientists Clash Swords Over Future of GM Food Crops in India

Science sought to shed light on the future of GM food crops in India by bringing together two prominent scientific voices in a debate.

Gregorio Millett: an improbable journey

Gregorio Millett: an improbable journey

Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment of Voice Disorders

Vocal tremor is a common, troublesome disorder that is difficult to treat. Efficacy of deep brain stimulation (DBS) was reported more than a decade ago. Most laryngologists are not familiar with the technique or its potential. This review was undertaken to assemble relevant literature written over the past decade and assess the clinical implications of that literature. Literature review. PubMed search from 2002 through 2011. A small number of articles on the topic have been identified, some of which appear to provide information of potential clinical importance for voice patients. A review of the literature from 2002 through 2011 has revealed several studies supporting the efficacy of DBS as well as adverse consequences of specific technical approaches (such as high-frequency DBS). In the aging population, the prevalence of this voice tremor is likely to increase. We suspect that DBS may be underused; and laryngologists should collaborate with neurosurgeons, speech-language pathologists, and voice scientists to study more extensively the safety and efficacy of DBS for treatment of voice disorders.

Recognizing Green Chemistry Achievements

More environmentally friendly, less expensive, smarter chemistry—these attributes characterize the products and processes developed by researchers who are honored with the annual Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. This year’s winners received their awards during a ceremony held on June 18, appropriately enough in Rachel Carson Great Hall—also known as the “green room”—at the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The competitive awards program, now in its 17th year, is administered by EPA and sponsored in part by the American Chemical Society. The awards—divided into several categories—give national recognition to researchers who incorporate the principles of green chemistry and green engineering into the design, manufacture, and use of commercial chemical products and processes to help achieve federal pollution-prevention goals and promote sustainability. Known for her 1962 environmental awareness book “Silent Spring,” Carson was “a pioneering scientific voice who ...

Analysis of high-frequency energy in singing and speech

The human singing and speech spectrum includes energy above 5 kHz, but this portion of the spectrum is typically ignored in speech and voice science. Generally it has been assumed that this high-frequency energy (HFE) contributes to only qualitative percepts of singing and speech, but prior work shows HFE contributes to several non-qualitative percepts, including speech intelligibility. To begin an in-depth exploration of HFE, a database of multi-channel anechoic high-fidelity recordings of singers and talkers was created and analyzed. Third-octave band analysis from the long-term average spectra (LTAS) showed that production level (soft vs. normal vs. loud), production mode (singing vs. speech), and phoneme (for voiceless fricatives) all significantly affected HFE characteristics. Female HFE levels were significantly greater than male levels only above 11 kHz. As expected, HFE was found to be highly directional toward the front of the singer/talker. While this information resulted from a study initially focused on singing voice aesthetic, it is pertinent to various areas of acoustics, including vocal tract modeling, voice synthesis, augmentative hearing technology (hearing aids and cochlear implants), cell phone technology, and training/therapy for singing and speech. [Work supported by NIH-NIDCD.]

An Overview of Existing Research About Children’s Singing and the Implications for Teaching Children to Sing

The purpose of this investigation was to identify the findings of the studies devoted to the child voice, most of which have occurred in the past 25 years, and to present a synthesis of these findings with respect to the pedagogy, or art and science, of teaching children to sing. The data suggest that a philosophical disparity exists about singing, that is, teachers believe that it is an easy and natural process, whereas voice scientists support the contrary point of view. Data about children indicate that they have large ranges as infants, begin to sing with greater accuracy in pitch contour than to specific pitches, and gradually increase their range and pitch-matching accuracy as they mature. Many studies reported differences in accuracy with respect to sex, although the vocal mechanisms are virtually identical until puberty. While a variety of results exist for using text with pitch matching, for using accompaniment, for specific ranges at age levels, and for using certain vocal models, there are implications for teaching. Based on the majority of findings, it is suggested that teachers use particular activities with initial singers to help them hear their voices and learn to control the mechanism; that children learn to match one note, then short patterns, before progressing to songs; that the ranges of the children should determine the selected literature to create an effective match; and that vocal modeling be carefully done to assist in helping children match pitch and timbre. The most important element is that children can be taught to sing, suggesting that they have the mechanism in place and the teacher must properly develop their skills in singing.

Voice Disorders and Personality: Understanding Their Interactions

This article will address some of the theory and research in personality psychology that are used to answer questions associated with the relation between personality and voice disorders. The study of personality is important to consider in voice disorders, because personality determines the manner in which each person shapes and reacts to his or her environment. In this article, a review of personality psychology is presented along with research findings from voice science and personality. Implications for clinical practice in particular groups of individuals with voice disorders are discussed.

Dedication to Johan E. F. Sundberg.

Johan Sundberg: Eminent pioneer in voice sciences, longstanding scientist at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology with a personal Chair in Musical Acoustics; author of the seminal book The Science of the Voice and over 200 articles on singing; mentor and role model to dozens of students; sought after speaker; honored for scholarship, leadership, and inspirational passion for ideas. We dedicate to him this special double issue (Volume 21, No. 1 & No. 2) of Psychomusicology: Music, Mind & Brain entitled Singing and Psychomusicology. Johan Sundberg was born in 1936 in Sweden. A lifelong fascination with music acoustics emerged in his youth. Creative, curiosity-driven and interested in music and mathematics, he built a small pipe organ before the end of high school. His focus eventually changed from pipes of the organ to those of the singing voice. He obtained his university education at Uppsala University, one of the most influential universities in Scandinavia (and the oldest, founded in 1477) where he studied philosophy, aesthetics, math and musicology. In 1966, he received a doctoral degree in musicology on the acoustics of organ flue pipes. He also studied organ and liturgical music, leading to a cantor's degree. For over 20 years he sang in the Stockholm (Adolf Fredrik's) Bach Choir, and he served as its president for more than half of that time. He studied voice with the renowned Dagmar Gustafson between 1963 to 1988 and presented his one and only public solo concert on his 50th birthday. BEGINNINGS: KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY When writing his Ph.D. thesis on organ pipes, for Uppsala University, Johan Sundberg was in need of expert guidance in acoustical engineering and measurements. He made his way to the Speech Transmission Laboratory at Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan (KTH) in Stockholm, then headed by the great pioneer in speech communication, Gunnar Fant. (KTH in Sweden might be compared to MIT in the United States; it is at the same time responsible for one-third of Sweden's capacity for engineering studies and technical research at the post-secondary level). There Johan found Frasse Fransson, co-inventor with Erik Jansson of the Ionophone. Frasse, a retired engineer and a passionate flute player, had been welcomed by Gunnar Fant to pursue his interest in the acoustics of musical instruments at the KTH lab; and now he introduced Johan to the physics of music. Gunnar Fant saw Johan's special interests in the acoustics of singing and his application of the source-filter theory as a valuable contribution to the lab's activities. Indeed, much of Johan's work was highly relevant to speech, such as the APEX project on articulatory models with Bjorn Lindblom, that is still being developed today. Gunnar Fant soon recognized Sundberg's significance and potential in music acoustics, and in 1968 he encouraged Johan to develop a research group of his own. Johan began then to publish on his discoveries related to the singer's formant. Over the next decade he also published a textbook on musical acoustics that was later translated into English (Sundberg, 1991). In 1973 he initiated an annual series of intensive day-long seminars on music acoustics open to the Swedish public and leading to a series of nine edited volumes. This series is now available on-line (http://www.speech.kth.se/ music/publications/kma/), thanks to the initiative of Anders Friberg and Johan's other colleagues in the KTH Music Acoustics Group, who produced the collection in honor of Johan's 70th birthday in 2006. Sten Ternstrom, who followed Johan Sundberg as Head of the KTH Music Acoustics Group, said in the foreword to the collection: Johan Sundberg's contributions to science are extensive and profound. With hundreds of articles, books and prizes to his credit, he has long been recognised as a world authority on voice science and music acoustics. Significantly, his devotion to his discipline is coupled with a deep and generous commitment to its wide dissemination, not only among peers, but also to the interested public. …

Science for the public: Beyond the wow factor

We seem to be in a second golden age when it comes to sharing science. If this article has caught your eye, the chances are that you are involved in some kind of public outreach activity. Compared with just 7 short years ago, when we battled against an absence of scientific voices in civil society, Sense About Science now works in a much more ‘can do’ environment, where researchers embark on their careers with some expectation of a public interface, where research grants regularly stipulate it, colleagues often support it and institutions run science programmes and festivals. Yet, if we look at all of the sharing and engaging activity according to its purpose, we find that, as a society, we have barely begun to explore popularizing science as a tool for empowering the public.

Augmentation after microsurgical removal of vocal fold nodules

Innovative otolaryngologists, speech language pathologists, and voice scientists have continued to move forward in understanding the etiology and treatment of vocal nodules. The present article reviews the publications with respect to the advances in this area. There is support for the notion that there is a positive relationship between vocal nodules and the presence of a posterior glottic chink (PGC). Generalized tension in all the laryngeal muscle is often associated with the PGC due to persistent posterior cricoarytenoid muscle pull during phonation. This phenomenon leads to secondary mucosal change with formation of vocal nodules. Fat augmentation after microsurgical removal of vocal nodules can reduce both the occurrence of a PGC and posterior cricoarytenoid muscle activity and subsequently decrease vocal nodule recurrence. Therefore, the treatment efficiency and protocol are direct and fast. Finally, long-term outcomes studies have demonstrated improvements in vocal disability with both objective and subjective evaluation. Fat augmentation is an effective autogenous implant which may be considered in the management of patients after microsurgical removal of nodules.

Theatre and Psychoanalysis: or Jung on Martin Crimp's Stage: “100 Words”

This article explores Martin Crimp’s use of Jung’s word association test in his masterpiece Attempts on Her Life (1997). In scenario 11, the playwright reproduces the list of one hundred stimulus words devised in 1909 by the psychoanalyst to test a patient’s mental health. Our point is that this “collage” of disarticulated words inserted by Crimp into the dialogue of three anonymous art critics ironically emphasizes the absence of the main character, the suicidal artist, and her refusal to undergo “treatment.” Anne’s posthumous silence both ignores the psychoanalyst’s trigger words and mocks the critics’ conflicting opinions. By foiling these “attempts on her life”, her aphasia reflects the vain pretensions of language and points both at the failure of the scientific purpose of psychoanalysis and at the “pointlessness” of the intellectual debate. Crimp’s collage itself is a criticism of the temptation to make uncompromising statements about one’s life and motives. While the critics’ debate ends in disagreement, the scientific voice faces its own loneliness and becomes a pure dramatic event. A similar resort to psychoanalysis and psychiatry can be found in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis (2002): in these “theatres of the mental space,” both authors turn either the clinical voice of the doctor or the neurotic voice of the patient into a self-referential source of vocal stage poetry displaying the bare materiality of words and the disapearance of the subject.

Nuestra patria está en peligro: las cunas están vacías. Catolicismo y natalismo en la Argentina

<p>Los médicos católicos constituyeron una de las voces del amplio espectro político, ideológico, económico argentino que manifestó su alarmismo frente a la denatalidad, al neomaltusianismo, a la reproducción de los más pobres y a sus consecuencias sobre la “raza blanca” y la nación. Los católicos enrolados en el Consorcio de Médicos Católicos actuaron como la voz científica de la Iglesia, penalizando toda conducta pública o privada, amenazante de los presupuestos demográficos poblacionistas. Bajo premisas alarmistas, que señalaban a la denatalidad como una cuestión que vulneraba el interés y la seguridad nacional, condenaron el aborto, el control de la natalidad y la eugenesia negativa. El natalismo se constituyó en uno de los ejes de los médicos confesionales para criticar tanto a liberales como a estatistas.</p>

Efficient and Effective Extraction of Vocal Fold Vibratory Patterns from High-Speed Digital Imaging

High-speed digital imaging can provide valuable information on disordered voice production in voice science. However, the large amounts of high-speed image data with limited image resolutions produce significant challenges for computer analysis, and thus effective and efficient image edge extraction methods allowing for the batch analysis of high-speed images of vocal folds is clinically important. In this paper, a novel algorithm for automatic image edge detection is proposed to effectively and efficiently process high-speed images of the vocal folds. The method integrates Lagrange interpolation, differentiation, and Canny edge detection, which allow objective extraction of aperiodic vocal fold vibratory patterns from large numbers of high-speed digital images. This method and two other popular algorithms, histogram and active contour, are performed on 10 sets of high-speed video data from excised larynx experiments to compare their performances in analyzing high-speed images. The accuracy in computing glottal area and the computation time of these methods are investigated. The results show that our proposed method provides the most accurate and efficient detection, and is applicable when processing low-resolution images. In this study, we focus on developing a method to effectively and efficiently process high-speed image data from excised larynges. However, in addition we show the clinical potential of this method by use of example high-speed image data obtained from a patient with vocal nodules.The proposed automatic image-processing algorithm may provide a valuable biomedical application for the clinical assessment of vocal disorders by use of high-speed digital imaging.

Follow-Up Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) Survey: Who's Teaching What in Nonclassical Music

A previous study, published in the Journal of Voice in 2003, revealed that a majority of teachers of Music Theater (MT), a style of Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM), had little professional experience and little formal training in vocal pedagogy for this style. Those who did indicate that they had had training did not describe the training nor quantify it in any manner. To ascertain what type of training was available for CCM in general and MT, in particular, a follow-up study seemed warranted. A new questionnaire was developed which asked for further information from teachers of MT in several areas including performance experience, training methods, teaching philosophy, the use of terminology, knowledge of voice science and medicine, and other parameters. Responses were gathered from 145 singing teachers throughout the United States and several foreign countries. Statistical analysis obtained from the data may lead to both a better understanding of the kind of training available for teachers of CCM repertoire, and of its content and applicability.

Foresight in Laryngology and Laryngeal Surgery: A 2020 Vision

Laryngology and laryngeal surgery have been in the vanguard of minimally invasive human procedural interventions for approximately 150 years. The natural passages through the oral cavity, nose, and pharynx have provided an accessible gateway to the larynx that has allowed for rapid translation of a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic technologies. Transoral and transcervical laryngeal surgery have been further facilitated by progressive advancements in local, topical, intravenous, and general anesthesia. With rapid developments in engineering disciplines (ie, tissue, chemical, mechanical) and voice science, there are a variety of current and near-term opportunities to advance our field. This report represents a panel at the 2005 American Broncho-Esophagological Association meeting that sought to use present perspectives, combined with cutting-edge research insights, to provide foresight into key aspects of laryngology that we believe will be developed by the year 2020. We hope that aspiring laryngeal surgeons will find elements of this discussion valuable for devising a strategic roadmap for research initiatives in laryngology and laryngeal surgery.