Morphometric Differences of Vocal Tract Articulators in Different Loudness Conditions in Singing

Dynamic MRI analysis of phonation has gathered interest in voice and speech physiology. However, there are limited data addressing the extent to which articulation is dependent on loudness. 12 professional singer subjects of different voice classifications were analysed concerning the vocal tract pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-04, Vol.11 (4), p.e0153792-e0153792
Main Authors: Echternach, Matthias, Burk, Fabian, Burdumy, Michael, Traser, Louisa, Richter, Bernhard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Audio data
Biology and Life Sciences
Engineering and Technology
Female
Frequency
Humans
Jaw - anatomy & histology
Jaw - physiology
Larynx
Larynx - anatomy & histology
Larynx - physiology
Lip
Lip - anatomy & histology
Lip - physiology
Loudness
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
Musicians & conductors
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Optical communication
Pharynx
Pharynx - anatomy & histology
Pharynx - physiology
Phonation
Physical Sciences
Physiological aspects
Pressure
Research and Analysis Methods
Singers
Singing
Social Sciences
Sound pressure
Speech
Speech Acoustics
Speech perception
Studies
Vertical orientation
Vocal tract
Voice
Voice Quality
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Summary:Dynamic MRI analysis of phonation has gathered interest in voice and speech physiology. However, there are limited data addressing the extent to which articulation is dependent on loudness. 12 professional singer subjects of different voice classifications were analysed concerning the vocal tract profiles recorded with dynamic real-time MRI with 25fps in different pitch and loudness conditions. The subjects were asked to sing ascending scales on the vowel /a/ in three loudness conditions (comfortable=mf, very soft=pp, very loud=ff, respectively). Furthermore, fundamental frequency and sound pressure level were analysed from the simultaneously recorded optical audio signal after noise cancellation. The data show articulatory differences with respect to changes of both pitch and loudness. Here, lip opening and pharynx width were increased. While the vertical larynx position was rising with pitch it was lower for greater loudness. Especially, the lip opening and pharynx width were more strongly correlated with the sound pressure level than with pitch. For the vowel /a/ loudness has an effect on articulation during singing which should be considered when articulatory vocal tract data are interpreted.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0153792