|
|
The
Speech Perception Laboratory
Institute
for Advanced Study of the Communication Processes (IASCP)
University of Florida
Project:
Perceptual correlates to vocal aging
Staff: James Harnsberger, Rahul
Shrivastav, W.S. Brown, Jr., Harry Hollien, Howard Rothman, Kelly Jones,
Melissa Iandoli, Dorothy Bourgeoise, Divya Gogoi
Funding:
None
Relevant
publications and conference presentations:
- Harnsberger,
J, D. “Voice, articulation, and prosodic correlates to chronologic
age in speakers of American English.” To be presented at the
Florida Chapter of the Acoustical Society of America, 2009.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Brown, W. S., Shrivastav, R., and Rothman, H. B. (accepted)
“Noise and tremor in the perception of vocal aging in
males.” Journal of Voice.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Shrivastav, R., Brown, W.S., Jr., Rothman, H., Hollien, H.
(2008). “Speaking
rate and fundamental frequency as cues to perceived age in speech.”
Journal of Voice 22: 58-69.
- Harnsberger,
J. D. “Exploring the consequences of the aging process on the
articulation and perception of speech.” Workshop on Vocal Aging
Explained by Vocal Tract Modeling, John Hopkins
University,
August, 2008.
- Harnsberger,
J, D. “Acoustic correlates to perceived age in American
English.” To be presented at the 157th Meeting of the Acoustical
Society of America, 2009.
- Bourgeoise,
D., Brown, W. S., Shrivastav, R., and Rothman, H. B., and Harnsberger,
J, D. “Perceived age in normal and pathological voices.”
Presented at the 156th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America,
2008.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Brown, W. S., Shrivastav, R., and Rothman, H. B. “Tremor
and Breathiness in the Perception of Vocal Aging in Males.”
Presented at the 37th Annual Symposium: Care of the professional voice,
The Voice Foundation, 2008.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Brown, W. S., Rothman, H. B., and Shrivastav, R. “The male-female coalescence
model as applied to nonsingers and trained singers.” Presented
at the 36th Annual Symposium: Care of the professional voice, The Voice
Foundation, 2007.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Shrivastav, R., Brown, W.S., Jr., Rothman, H., Hollien, H.
(2008). “Speaking rate and
fundamental frequency as cues to perceived age in speech.”
Journal of Voice Journal of Voice 22: 58-69.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Brown, W. S., Rothman, H. B., Morris, R. J. and Shrivastav, R.
“Vocal Aging in Male
and Female Singers and Nonsingers.” Presented at the 35th
Annual Symposium: Care of the professional voice, The Voice Foundation,
2006.
- Harnsberger,
J. D., Rothman, H. B., Brown, W. S.,
Shrivastav , R. and Hollien, H. “Cues to vocal aging in older and
middle-aged male voices.” Presented at the 34th Annual Symposium:
Care of the professional voice, The Voice Foundation, 2005.
- Rothman,
H. B., Shrivastav , R., H., Brown, W. S., Harnsberger, J. D. and
Hollien, “Fundamental
frequency and speaking rate as perceptual cues for aging in male
speakers.” Presented at the 33rd Annual Symposium: Care of the
professional voice, The Voice Foundation, 2004.
- Shrivastav
, R., Hollien, H., Brown, W. S., Rothman, H. B., and Harnsberger, J. D.
“Shifting
perceptions of age in voice.” Presented at the 146th Meeting
of the Acoustical Society of America, 2003.
This study has three aims. Our first aim was to
develop a database of a significant number of young,
middle-aged and old speakers of both sexes spanning a diverse range of spoken
materials. This database includes 1) read paragraphs, 2) phonetically
balanced sentences, 3) nonsense words that incorporate a range of
articulatory gestures and 4) sustained vowels. This database has provided
materials not only for the specific purposes of this study, but also for
subsequent experiments envisioned for an expanded research program beyond
this proposal. Our second aim is to measure a large set of candidate acoustic
cues for the perception of age in voices. Speakers will be selected from the
database who are both chronologically old/young and perceptually old/young
(as measured in an initial age estimation task). Our third aim is to investigate the
perceptual relevance of the cues identified in the acoustic analysis by
resynthesizing sentences from the database and systematically manipulating
these cues to observe their effect on perceived age. We expect to find at
least a subset of these cues to differentiate speakers by age, and we will be
able to rank order these cues by the magnitude of their effect on the
perception of age.
|
