A Longitudinal Study of Speech Acoustics in Older French Females: Analysis of the Filler Particle euh across Utterance Positions

Aging in speech production is a multidimensional process. Biological, cognitive, social, and communicative factors can change over time, stay relatively stable, or may even compensate for each other. In this longitudinal work, we focus on stability and change at the laryngeal and supralaryngeal levels in the discourse particle euh produced by 10 older French-speaking females at two times, 10 years apart. Recognizing the multiple discourse roles of euh, we divided out occurrences according to utterance position. We quantified the frequency of euh, and evaluated acoustic changes in formants, fundamental frequency, and voice quality across time and utterance position. Results showed that euh frequency was stable with age. The only acoustic measure that revealed an age effect was harmonics-to-noise ratio, showing less noise at older ages. Other measures mostly varied with utterance position, sometimes in interaction with age. Some voice quality changes could reflect laryngeal adjustments that provide for airflow conservation utterance-finally. The data suggest that aging effects may be evident in some prosodic positions (e.g., utterance-final position), but not others (utterance-initial position). Thus, it is essential to consider the interactions among these factors in future work and not assume that vocal aging is evident throughout the signal.

Comparative Study between Healthy Young and Elderly Subjects: Higher-Order Statistical Parameters as Indices of Vocal Aging and Sex

The objective of this study was to test higher-order statistical (HOS) parameters for the classification of young and elderly voice signals and identify gender- and age-related differences through HOS analysis. This study was based on data from 116 subjects (58 females and 58 males) extracted from the Saarbruecken voice database. In the gender analysis, the same number of voice samples were analyzed for each sex. Further, we conducted experiments on the voices of elderly people using gender analysis. Finally, we reviewed the standards and reference models to reduce sex and gender bias. The acoustic parameters were extracted from young and elderly voice signals using Praat and a time–frequency analysis program (TF32). Additionally, we investigated the gender- and age-related differences in HOS parameters. Young and elderly voice signals significantly differed in normalized skewness (p = 0.005) in women and normalized kurtosis (p = 0.011) in men. Therefore, normalized skewness is a useful parameter for distinguishing between young and elderly female voices, and normalized kurtosis is essential for distinguishing between young and elderly male voices. We will continue to investigate parameters that represent important information in elderly voice signals.

Medical Care of Voice Disorders

Voice disorders are common and may be particularly troublesome for singers, actors, and other serious vocalists. Since the 1980s, the standard of medical care for patients with voice disorders has improved dramatically. Techniques of history-taking and physical examination have become much more sophisticated over the last few decades. The consequences of systemic disorders upon voice function has been recognized, and interdisciplinary voice teams have evolved to provide comprehensive voice care. Medical interventions and surgical techniques have improved substantially, and new instruments have allowed more precise surgery. Understanding and treatment of vocal aging has improved markedly. This chapter provides an overview of state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment.

Old and young female voices: effects of body weight, condition and social discomfort on the vocal aging in red deer hinds (Cervus elaphus)

In female terrestrial mammals, vocal aging has only been studied in humans and pandas. In cervids displaying convergent sex dimorphism of vocal apparatus with humans, vocal aging is only investigated in males. This cross-sectional study examined acoustic variables of nasal (closed-mouth) and oral (open-mouth) contact calls of 32 farmed Iberian red deer hinds (Cervus elaphus hispanicus) aged of 4-18 years and their relationships with caller´s age, weight, social discomfort score (bites of other hinds on hind pelt) and body condition score (fat reserves). Decrease of fundamental frequency was associated with age in both oral and nasal calls, but more prominently in the nasal calls. An increase in call duration, peak frequency and power quartiles was associated with a higher degree of bites due to social aggression. Weight and body condition weakly influenced acoustic traits. We discuss that vocal aging of hinds parallels that of vocal aging in human females.

Voice Management and the Older Singer

This chapter explores the vocal ecology of older singers, focusing on three categories of singers: the professional and/or successful soloist who is approaching the end of a singing career; the amateur chorister; and the community singing group participant. It provides an overview of the physical impacts of vocal aging, and addresses also how personality traits can affect a person’s attitude toward aging and his or her ability to manage the effects of vocal aging. Being—or becoming—a singer in this phase of life offers a range of cognitive insights and challenges to the singer and the singing teacher. Through case studies of five singers, and data from a community choir averaging 85 years old, the chapter examines teaching strategies that can be used to ensure that singers can be supported and encouraged to continue to receive the psycho-social and physical benefits of singing, no matter what their age.