Eugene H. Buder

The Aging Voice: A Review, Treatment Data and Familial and Genetic Perspectives

This paper will provide a review of aspects of vocal aging within the context of general body aging and describe two data sets related to the aging voice. Data will be presented which document pre- to posttreatment improvement in select voice characteristics (sound pressure level, subglottal air pressure, thyroarytenoid laryngeal muscle activity and voice quality) following application of an intensive voice treatment program (the LSVT®) to 3 individuals with aged voice. Additionally, physiological data (forced expiratory volume, visual accommodation, bone density, taste discrimination, white blood count and resting heart rate) and select perceptual (perceived age) and acoustic measures (reflecting both cycle-to-cycle and longer-term intensity and frequency stability) from 67 subjects will be reviewed from the work of Gray and colleagues to document the differential impact of the global aging process across organ systems including the aging voice.

Functional flexibility of infant vocalization and the emergence of language

We report on the emergence of functional flexibility in vocalizations of human infants. This vastly underappreciated capability becomes apparent when prelinguistic vocalizations express a full range of emotional content—positive, neutral, and negative. The data show that at least three types of infant vocalizations (squeals, vowel-like sounds, and growls) occur with this full range of expression by 3–4 mo of age. In contrast, infant cry and laughter, which are species-specific signals apparently homologous to vocal calls in other primates, show functional stability, with cry overwhelmingly expressing negative and laughter positive emotional states. Functional flexibility is a sine qua non in spoken language, because all words or sentences can be produced as expressions of varying emotional states and because learning conventional “meanings” requires the ability to produce sounds that are free of any predetermined function. Functional flexibility is a defining characteristic of language, and empirically it appears before syntax, word learning, and even earlier-developing features presumed to be critical to language (e.g., joint attention, syllable imitation, and canonical babbling). The appearance of functional flexibility early in the first year of human life is a critical step in the development of vocal language and may have been a critical step in the evolution of human language, preceding protosyntax and even primitive single words. Such flexible affect expression of vocalizations has not yet been reported for any nonhuman primate but if found to occur would suggest deep roots for functional flexibility of vocalization in our primate heritage.

American and Swedish children’s acquisition of vowel duration: Effects of vowel identity and final stop voicing

Vowel durations typically vary according to both intrinsic (segment-specific) and extrinsic (contextual) specifications. It can be argued that such variations are due to both predisposition and cognitive learning. The present report utilizes acoustic phonetic measurements from Swedish and American children aged 24 and 30 months to investigate the hypothesis that default behaviors may precede language-specific learning effects. The predicted pattern is the presence of final consonant voicing effects in both languages as a default, and subsequent learning of intrinsic effects most notably in the Swedish children. The data, from 443 monosyllabic tokens containing high-front vowels and final stop consonants, are analyzed in statistical frameworks at group and individual levels. The results confirm that Swedish children show an early tendency to vary vowel durations according to final consonant voicing, followed only six months later by a stage at which the intrinsic influence of vowel identity grows relatively more robust. Measures of vowel formant structure from selected 30-month-old children also revealed a tendency for children of this age to focus on particular acoustic contrasts. In conclusion, the results indicate that early acquisition of vowel specifications involves an interaction between language-specific features and articulatory predispositions associated with phonetic context.

A Nonlinear Dynamic Model of Social Interaction

This article presents a dynamic model of dyadic social interaction. It is shown that a set of simple deterministic arithmetic operations representing basic assumptions about social-involvement behavior can lead to a variety of complex outcomes, including asymptotically stable behavior, self-sustaining periodic behavior, and chaotic behavior. These outcomes illustrate the emergence of macroscopic interaction-level properties from microscopic individual-level rules.

Differential phonatory characteristics of four women with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Patients with specific neural subsystem involvement are often reported to present with particular perceptual characteristics of voice. This has been true for diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive disease in which mixed neurologic signs are present. This article reports acoustic data on the phonatory performance of four women diagnosed with ALS who had initial bulbar signs and progressive phonatory deterioration. The data presented here demonstrate that the phonatory characteristics of women with ALS are not uniform, but in fact may vary greatly from patient to patient.

Prespeech motor learning in a neural network using reinforcement

Vocal motor development in infancy provides a crucial foundation for language development. Some significant early accomplishments include learning to control the process of phonation (the production of sound at the larynx) and learning to produce the sounds of ones language. Previous work has shown that social reinforcement shapes the kinds of vocalizations infants produce. We present a neural network model that provides an account of how vocal learning may be guided by reinforcement. The model consists of a self-organizing map that outputs to muscles of a realistic vocalization synthesizer. Vocalizations are spontaneously produced by the network. If a vocalization meets certain acoustic criteria, it is reinforced, and the weights are updated to make similar muscle activations increasingly likely to recur. We ran simulations of the model under various reinforcement criteria and tested the types of vocalizations it produced after learning in the different conditions. When reinforcement was contingent on the production of phonated (i.e. voiced) sounds, the networks post-learning productions were almost always phonated, whereas when reinforcement was not contingent on phonation, the networks post-learning productions were almost always not phonated. When reinforcement was contingent on both phonation and proximity to English vowels as opposed to Korean vowels, the models post-learning productions were more likely to resemble the English vowels and vice versa.

Acoustic analysis of dysarthria associated with multiple sclerosis

Approximately 40% of all individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) present some degree of speech impairment. MS speakers with dysarthria are a heterogeneous group and the speech disorder is characterized by disturbances of the temporal patterning of speech as well as articulatory and phonatory symptoms. Previous research also indicates that the neuromotor dysfunction manifests itself in the fundamental frequency of sustained phonation, even in the absence of other speech symptoms. The present study was designed with the specific purpose of exploring the temporal, spectral and phonatory acoustic features of five MS speakers as compared to those of two normal controls. It was found that the dysarthric symptoms of these MS speakers largely mirror their different underlying neuromotor dysfunctions, and that they exhibit temporal and articulatory deviation when compared to the normal speakers. It is also suggested that a Fourier spectrum analysis of the derived pitch of the sustained phonation in MS speakers is...

Formoffa: An automated formant, moment, fundamental frequency, amplitude analysis of normal and disordered speech

A system for semi-automatic, multi-parameter acoustic analysis is described. The system, called FORMOFFA (For = FORmants, Mo = MOments, FF = Fundamental Frequency, A = Amplitude), operates on a PC microcomputer by adaptations of commercially available software. Data displays include a deterministic time record of instantaneous values, and an ergodic time-compressed distribution. In this report the technique is developed with a one-word example, and some measurement and reliability issues are described. The analysis possibilities are then illustrated with several applications: (1) segmental analysis of normal speech, (2) acoustic assessment of the effects of a progressive neurological disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) on sentence production, (3) acoustic study of palatal lift management of a patient with traumatic brain injury, and (4) phonetic assessment of word production by a subject with dysarthria. Although the current technique is recommended as a research tool, this kind of analysis promises several advantages for clinical application, including semi-automaticity, efficiency, parsimony, and relevance to both segmental and suprasegmental levels of analysis.

Spectrographic Description of Vocalizations in Captive Otolemur garnettii

To advance knowledge of the vocal communication associated with close proximity social interactions in Garnetts greater bush baby (Otolemur garnettii), we measured acoustic and temporal properties of vocalizations from videotaped recordings of captives in two main social contexts: mother-infant interactions and adult male-female pair introductions and reintroductions. We used a real-time sonagraph or software program to display, edit, and analyze vocal waveforms, and to provide wideband and narrowband spectrograms. Vocalization characteristics measured include fundamental frequency (via inspection of harmonics) and spectral features such as formant frequency, intensity, and duration. The vocal repertoire contained 4 major types of vocalizations: 1) barks and complex multiple bark sequences, 2) low frequency flutter/hums and growls, 3) high frequency clicks and spits, and 4) noisy shrieks. We describe several vocalizations for the first time and provide a clear classification of some of them on the basis of call durations (long/short growls). Complex bark sequences, previously described as distant communication calls, were invariant and were not often emitted by individuals when in close proximity. When classified spectrographically, the remaining 3 call types, which occurred when individuals were in close proximity, were less stereotypical, and gradations within call types were apparent. Our results show that although nocturnal and non-gregarious, complex communicatory signals of bush babies constitute a vocal repertoire formerly thought to be characteristic only of diurnal, gregarious primates.

Infant Response to Mother Call Patterns in Otolemur garnettii

Garnett’s greater bushbaby infants vocalize in apparent response to their mother’s contact calls. However, it remains unclear whether specific vocal or behavioral patterns by a mother elicit this vocal response. We video-recorded the behaviors and vocalizations of 4 individual mother-infant groups (mother with twins), analyzed vocalizations via spectrography and documented behaviors of mothers and infants. Initial analyses of all groups revealed that short growls and short growl bouts (or chains), but not long growls, emitted by mothers, were followed by infant clicks within 5 s. Further statistical examination of 1 mother-infant group revealed that an infant’s vocal response is conditional on the sequencing of the mother’s short growls and somewhat conditional on the mother’s behavior before or after the short growls.