Bachelor of Science (BS), Ohio University, 2010, Hearing, Speech and Language Science

The phenomenon of the “missing fundamental frequency” has shown that when the f0 is removed from a complex stimulus the pitch of the f0 is still perceived. This ability for normal hearing adults to process changes in voice pitch has been studied through psychophysical experiments. Through the use of the frequency following response (FFR), relative contributions of the f0 and its harmonics to pitch perception can be examined to determine the role of place cues and temporal cues in pitch processing in the human brainstem. The current study examined the contribution of the f0 and its harmonics in pitch processing by systematically manipulating the speech stimulus to remove component frequencies. It was hypothesized that as the f0 and part of its harmonic components were removed from the stimulus, FFRs would remain stable (in support of the temporal theory), while a response would also be identifiable when only the f0 is preserved (in support of the place theory). FFRs were recorded to seven experimental conditions including the intact, no-f0, harmonics-only and f0-only conditions. A control condition was conducted with the sound tube plugged and moved away from the participants. The results showed distinguishable FFRs in all conditions (except the control condition), with significantly larger FFR Pitch Strength in response to the harmonics-only conditions than those obtained in the f0-only condition (one-way ANOVA, p<0.001). This finding was in support of both the temporal and place theories, with temporal cues contributing more to pitch processing in the human brainstem than place cues.

Committee: Fuh-Cherng Jeng MD, PhD (Advisor) Subjects: Audiology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2008, Speech Pathology and Audiology

Limited data exists in the literature that describes typical voice production for preschool-aged children. The purpose of this study was to collect normative data for voice production and calculate the prevalence of dysphonia in 3- to 5- year-olds. Twenty-seven children were recruited from the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area. Several acoustic and aerodynamic measures of voice were obtained, including (a) sustained vowel fundamental frequency (F0), (b) speaking F0, (c) maximum phonatory frequency range (MPFR), (d) and maximum phonation time (MPT). Findings for F0 and MPT corroborate data in existing literature. Data for MPFR was not able to be reported due to lack of accurate measurement methods. The prevalence figure for dysphonia was not valid due to small sample size. Continuation of this study is necessary to further validate results.

Committee: Susan Baker PhD (Committee Chair); Barbara Weinrich PhD (Committee Member); Wendy LeBorgne PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2023, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Estimating sediment thickness and bedrock surface geometry is critical for many hydrogeologic studies. The horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio (HVSR), a passive seismic method is a unique, non-invasive technique for speedily estimating bedrock depth. To record ambient seismic noise, the H/V method employs a single broadband three-component seismometer. A field assessment was conducted on the Wright State University Campus in Dayton, Ohio, to determine the depth (z) and elevation of the bedrock. Data were collected at 60 different locations. A known value for the depth of bedrock on campus was determined using the log from a local water well available from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Using this depth and the observed fundamental resonant frequency (f0) the shear wave velocity (Vs) of the glacial drift above bedrock was calculated, which was then used to determine the depth of bedrock and its elevation in relation to the fundamental resonant frequency (f0). The HVSR results generally produced distinct, easily discernible resonance frequency peaks which together with the Vs constrained at the local borehole allowed the depth to bedrock and thereby bedrock elevation to be mapped across campus. The interpreted depth and elevation of the bedrock surface are comparable with previous surveys on campus.

Committee: Ernest C. Hauser Ph.D. (Advisor); Doyle R. Watts Ph.D. (Committee Member); Abinash Agrawal Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Education; Environmental Engineering; Environmental Geology; Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Geophysics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Spanish and Portuguese

This dissertation is a mixed-methods ethnographic and linguistic study of how local understandings of femininity interact with medical practices among women with Turner Syndrome (TS), an intersex chromosomal condition affecting 1/2,500 women. For intersex individuals, social experiences of gender often collide with biological interpretations of sex and its material realities. Innovations in medical technology push the limitations of bodily manipulation and gendered norms and can mitigate tensions between the biological and the social experiences of gender, and this intersection of the social and the biological is particularly salient in intersex populations. While previous research has investigated social categories and their effects on health, few examine how health and medicine interact with social identity formation and linguistic practices. In Brazil, this is amplified as bodies are prominent both in the public eye and in national discourses on beauty, surgery, and hormones, where biomedicine is used to negotiate gendered bodily norms. At the same time, work within sociocultural linguistics and language, gender, and sexuality studies has begun to examine linguistic practices of non-binary populations, while very little previous work on intersex populations has been conducted. Over sixteen months of fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I conducted ethnographic and linguistic interviews with TS women and performed participant observation at two endocrinology clinics. In Chapter 1, I set the scene for the dissertation and research context. Chapter 2 presents a detailed analysis of the ethnographic, linguistic, and analytical methodologies employed. In Chapter 3, I examine how intimate characteristics of TS and ideologies of “sex” and “gender” are located in and on the body through an analysis of how women with TS interact with physiological phenomena such as hormone replacement, sex chromosomes, and other material practices. I conduct a discursive analysis of dimin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Anna Babel (Advisor); Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza (Committee Member); Glenn Martínez (Committee Member); Gabriella Modan (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Endocrinology; Gender; Gender Studies; Health Care; Language; Latin American Studies; Linguistics; Medical Ethics; Public Health; Sociolinguistics; Womens Studies

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2020, Communication Disorders

Objective. To explore how listeners use three aspects of the acoustic signal in the novel context of formant space configurations to determine speaker gender. Methods. The software Madde, Praat, and Audacity were used to synthesize 210 sound files that each contain the vowels /i, æ, ɑ, u/ separated by brief silences (i.e., the formant space configuration context). The 210 files were created by combining 10 values for fundamental frequency, seven sets of formant frequencies (vocal tract length), and three values for source spectral tilt. The lowest values for formant frequencies (longest value for vocal tract length) and fundamental frequency each correspond to the values for the average male. The highest values for formant frequencies (shortest vocal tract length) and fundamental frequency each correspond to the values for the average female. The values for source spectral tilt approximate the voice qualities of breathy, normal, and pressed. Twenty-three listeners judged the gender of the “speaker” of the synthesized sounds as female or male. Results. Increases in fundamental frequency and formant frequencies (decreases in vocal tract length) correlated with increased likelihood of judgement of female. An interaction between source spectral tilt and formant frequencies (vocal tract length) revealed that an increase in the steepness of source spectral tilt increased likelihood of judgement of female only when formant frequencies were high (vocal tract length was short). An interaction between formant frequencies (vocal tract length) and fundamental frequency revealed listeners were more sensitive to changes in fundamental frequency when formant frequencies were high (vocal tract length was short). Conclusions. Both fundamental frequency and formant frequencies are strong cues to speaker gender. The contribution of other cues, such as source spectral tilt were subtle. The observed interactions point to gender aspects of speech perception as a complex phenomen (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Scherer PhD (Advisor); Brent Archer PhD, CCC-SLP (Committee Member); Jason Whitfield PhD, CCC-SLP (Committee Member) Subjects: Acoustics; Speech Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2018, Communication Disorders

Although stress has been frequently attributed to voice disorder development and progression, little work has been done to determine the role of activation of the two major stress systems [the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA)] on changes in voice production parameters. Nineteen healthy female participants (median age: 18; range: 18 to 23) were subjected to the Trier Social Stress Test protocol. Voice production parameters (average airflow, estimated subglottal pressure, laryngeal airflow resistance, open quotient from the EGG signal, speaking fundamental frequency, and percent of syllables produced in vocal fry) were measured at seven measurement time points (2 before the stressor, 1 after an anticipatory period, and 4 after the stressor). Participants rated their levels of stress and nine emotions and provided saliva samples at each measurement time. Salivary cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase were measured from the saliva samples. Ten of the 19 participants experienced a minimum 2.5 nmol/l increase in salivary cortisol levels from before the stressor to after the stressor, indicating that they had HPA axis activation. There were no significant changes in aerodynamic or electroglottographic measures over the seven measurement time points. There was a significant increase in speaking fundamental frequency before the stressor and a reduction in fundamental frequency after the stressor. Estimated subglottal pressure and laryngeal airflow resistance measures were significantly higher in participants who did not experience an HPA axis response. The findings of the current study further support the body of literature that has reported mainly individual changes in voice production parameters following stress. However, the addition of salivary cortisol measures in the present study revealed the novel finding that there are consistent voice production differences between participants who experience HPA axis activation (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Scherer Ph.D. (Advisor); Michael Ellison Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jason Whitfield Ph.D. (Committee Member); Casey Cromwell Ph.D. (Committee Member); Charles Hughes Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Communication Disorders

Airflow vibrato is the fluctuation in average airflow while singing with vibrato. Understanding airflow vibrato relates to a deeper understanding of its importance to physiological, pedagogical, and clinical aspects. Two studies were performed to examine airflow vibrato. The subjects for Study 1 were four professional Western classical singers, and for Study 2 four highly trained amateur singers. Aerodynamic and acoustic measures were compared among vibrato, bleating (a primarily adductory gesture), and external epigastric pumping (EEP, a primarily subglottal pressure manipulation). Utterances included speaking (phonation and whisper) and singing (constant /a/ vowel, different pitches and loudness levels). Study 1 demonstrated how airflow vibrato compares with fundamental frequency (F0) and intensity vibrato. The correlation between rates of airflow and F0 vibrato was moderately strong. Mean airflow vibrato extents were larger for the female singers than for the male singers, and increased with pitch increase for all four singers. For the males, average airflow extent was 30 and 75 cm3/s for their lower and higher pitch, respectively, and for the females, 47 cm3/s and 94 cm3/s for their lower and higher pitch, respectively. Study 2 was undertaken to better understand sources of airflow vibrato. Airflow modulations were produced during singing with vibrato and also while bleating and with external epigastric pumping. Bleating had the fastest alteration rate (9.5-12 Hz), whereas the other types had similar rates (vibrato: 4.8-6.0 Hz; EEP: 6.0–7.5 Hz). During phonation (combining all conditions), bleating had the largest airflow modulation extents (on average 144 cm3/s, compared to 30 cm3/s for vibrato and 46 cm3/s for EEP). Overall results suggest that airflow vibrato typically leads F0 vibrato, and often has a more complex waveshape than F0 vibrato. Hypotheses generated from the study include: (1) A primarily subglottal pressure driven vibrato may provide relat (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Scherer Ph.D. (Advisor); Alexander Goberman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jason Whitfield Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mingsheng Li Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: Health Sciences; Music; Speech Therapy

Master of Arts in Speech Pathology and Audiology, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Sciences and Health Professions

As Spanish-English bilingual speakers continue becoming a growing part of the population in the United States it is essential to investigate their acoustic measures. The purpose of this study was to investigate a possible shift in fundamental frequency (F0) measures in bilingual speakers, and it sought to determine whether that shift was based on language acquisition or language dominance. Eleven Spanish-English bilinguals were asked to complete the following tasks 1) answer the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q) 2) complete 3 Spanish and 3 English category fluency trials by naming words belonging to a category (e.g. animals), each one minute in length 3) reading Spanish and English sentences. The speech samples were analyzed for F0, category fluency tasks were scored for number of correct answers provided, and all measurements were compared to self-reports on the LEAP-Q. The results of this study suggested there may be a shift in F0 in bilingual speakers. In at least one speech sample, 7 out of 11 participants had an increased F0 when speaking in their non-dominant language. Due to the trend in the data and the small sample size it was concluded that further investigation must be conducted to determine if there is a true shift in F0 in bilingual speakers, and if factors such as language acquisition, language proficiency, language exposure, language status and language preference.

Committee: Violet Cox Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Kimberly Neuendorf Ph.D. (Committee Member); Conor McLennan Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2016, Communication Disorders

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential fade in the effects of a clear speech cue on selected acoustic features of Parkinsonian speech as participants read a passage. Participants were 12 adults with idiopathic Parkinson disease (mean age = 73 years), reading a passage with the instructions to "Produce the items as clearly as possible, as if I am having trouble hearing or understanding you." The effects of clear speech were measured using speech rate, articulation rate, fundamental frequency, variation in fundamental frequency, intensity difference between stressed and unstressed syllables, and intensity change from the beginning of the passage to the end. Results indicated that the clear speech cue broke down early in the reading as suggested by an increase in speech and articulation rates, a decrease in fundamental frequency standard deviation, and an overall decrease in intensity. There was a negligible decrease in average fundamental frequency and the maintenance of the difference between intensity between the two syllables of "rainbow;" near the beginning and end of the reading. These findings suggest that some prosodic aspects (laryngeal, short-term respiratory) may reflect maintenance of the clear speech cue or general stability, but more global aspects of speech over time (long-term articulation, long-term respiratory control) suggest the lack of maintaining the clear speech cue or relatively little response to the clear speech cue.

Committee: Ronald C. Scherer (Advisor); Alexander M. Goberman (Committee Member); Jason A. Whitfield (Committee Member) Subjects: Acoustics; Speech Therapy

Master of Arts in Speech Pathology and Audiology, Cleveland State University, 2014, College of Sciences and Health Professions

The purpose of this study was to extend understanding of the effects of aging on the male voice by obtaining and analyzing both acoustic and respiratory measures across the aging continuum. Aerodynamic measurements such as vital capacity (VC), maximum phonation time (MPT) and the acoustic measurement Speaking Fundamental Frequency (SFF) are used commonly in Speech-language Pathology to aid in the assessment and treatment outcomes of vocal dysfunction. However, current research lacks analysis of the interaction across these parameters within males and younger ages. This information may be important in understanding the normal changes in the speech mechanism with age and provide important direction for voice assessment and therapy outcomes. This study examined the changes of these parameters and interactions in males across various age groups. Acoustic measures of SFF, MPT, and VC were obtained in age groups of 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60-69, N=35. A statistically significant decrease in SFF with age was observed. No statistically significant interaction was observed between MPT and VC. Additionally, no statistically significant interaction was observed between MPT and age, or between VC and age.

Committee: Violet Cox Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Committee Chair); Amee Shah Ph.D., CCC-SLP (Committee Member); Andrew Lammers Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Aging; Health Sciences; Speech Therapy

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Allied Health Sciences : Communication Science and Disorders

Vocal loudness tends to increase when healthy speakers are speaking in the presence of background noise. Acoustic studies of Lombard speech have shown that other articulatory changes associated with increased intelligibility occur along with the increase in loudness. Lombard speech in healthy speakers is characterized by decreased speaking rate, increased fundamental frequency range and mean, as well as increased vowel space. These results suggest a more complex interaction between auditory monitoring of speech and motor speech planning in this uncommon speaking environment. Recently, there has been increased interest in the effect of background noise on speakers with Parkinson Disease (PD). In this study, nineteen patients with Mild-to-Moderate Idiopathic PD (10 males and 9 females) and 19 age-and-sex matched healthy speakers were recruited to investigate these acoustic-phonetic measures in quiet and in Lombard conditions. A 90 dB SPL noise was given binaurally via a closed headset to induce the LE. Subjects were engaged in repeating the syllable chain /pataka/ and reading a set of phonetically balanced sentences. Speaking rate was measured by the diadochokinetic (DDK) task and speech rate (SR). Vocal loudness measures included intensity (INT) and intensity standard deviation (INTSD). Fundamental frequency range (F0Rge), mean (F0M), and standard deviation (F0SD) were the acoustic measures of fundamental frequency. The vowel space (VS) was obtained by measuring the vowel quadrilateral of the corner vowels /i, æ, a, u/ in the vocal tract. Repeated measures ANOVA results showed a statistically significant increase in vocal loudness measures, increase in F0 measures, and a decrease in speaking rate measures in both groups as a function of noise. The VS was not statistically different for both groups of participants in the Lombard condition. The male speakers in both groups showed increased VS compared to their female counterparts. The Parkinsonian group showed a smalle (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Boyce Suzanne (Advisor); Jean Neils-Strunjas (Committee Member); Fredy Revilla (Committee Member); Angel Ball (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Linguistics

Every spoken language has stops in its consonant inventory, and stop-vowel syllables such as [pa] and [ta] are among the earliest linguistic sounds to be identified in the babbling and first words of typically-developing children. A large majority of spoken languages also have at least two series of stops that contrast in their associated laryngeal gestures. This dissertation investigates how the acoustic details of the laryngeal contrast are related to the order in which children master the different stop phonation-type categories in their native languages. Analyses of a cross-sectional database of productions collected from Korean-, Japanese-, English- and Greek-acquiring children (2;0-5;11) supports some well-established claims about universal characteristics of children's stop phonation-type mastery patterns across languages, and also suggest the potential role of language-specific acoustic properties in explaining seemingly exceptional mastery patterns.A starting point for this crosslinguistic comparison is Jakobson's (1941/1968) claim that there are implicational universals in the mastery of stop phonation types: the aspirated or voiced categories are mastered after the voiceless unaspirated category when a language has a contrast involving either aspiration or voicing. Using the acoustic measure of Voice Onset Time (VOT: the latency between oral constriction release and the onset of voicing), studies of many languages have shown that voiceless unaspirated stops (with short lag VOTs) are mastered before one year of age, whereas voiceless aspirated stops (with long lag VOTs) are not mastered until two years of age in English (Macken and Barton, 1980a), Cantonese (Clumeck, Barton, Macken, and Huntington, 1981), and Thai (Gandour, Petty, Dardarananda, Dechongkit, and Mukongoen, 1986), and truly voiced stops (with lead VOTs) are mastered even later, at around age five in French (Allen, 1985), Thai (Gandour et al., 1986), Spanish (Macken and Barton, 1980b), and Hin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mary E. Beckman (Advisor); Elizabeth V. Hume (Committee Member); Cynthia G. Clopper (Committee Member) Subjects: Linguistics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Electrical Engineering

Nowadays there has been increasing demand for radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs) to have high efficiency so as to extend wireless terminal's battery/talk time and achieve low form-factor in mobile, as well as reduce the cooling and electrical power cost in base stations. The classical design equations of efficient switching-mode class E PAs have been challenged by non-ideal issues which can lead the analysis of class E PAs to be enormously complex and intractable. In this work, the design of class E pHEMT PA has been improved based on the ADS load-pull simulation, which permits an iterative search for the nominal impedance values that maximize efficiency and output power under various bias/load conditions of the active transistor. An important contribution of this dissertation is the proposed multi-harmonic real-time active load-pull (RT-ALP) based on the large signal network analyzer (LSNA), for designing high efficiency non-linear PAs. It applies real-time tunings at the second and third harmonic frequencies, which enable to quickly synthesize a wide range of harmonic load reflection coefficients without stability issue due to open-loop structure. Fast acquisition of reliable large-signal data generates the RF dynamic loadlines, PAE and power contour plots for guiding the design of non-linear PAs. A GaN HEMT demonstrats a PAE of 81% (class F) at 2 GHz by tuning up to the third harmonic. Based on the predicted optimal impedances, a pHEMT PA is designed and constructed with matching networks achieving 68.5% PAE at 2 GHz, further demonstrating the efficacy and reliability of the proposed multi-harmonic RT-ALP for the interactive design of power efficient PAs. An integrated CMOS Doherty PA for 3.5 GHz WiMAX is designed using the 0.18µm TSMC CMOS. Cascode transistors are chosen to achieve high efficiency and address the low breakdown voltage issue. Lumped components replace the λ/4 transmission line for circuitry miniature. The layout passes all the DRC/LVS ch (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Patrick Roblin (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1982, Linguistics

Experimental investigations of tone 3 sandhi in Mandarin Chinese have failed to find well-defined connections between sandhi and speech rates. In this study, empirical evidence is provided that indicates that the traditional claims of tone 3 sandhi are too arbitrary. Tone 3 does not necessarily change into tone 2 by all means. Furthermore, empirical, historical and theorectical arguments are raised concerning the validity of the duration of tone 3 in sandhi situation. Spectrograms and graphs are used to study durations and fundamental frequency of tone 3 in tone sandhi at slow, normal and fast speech by three females and three males. The degree to which the values of tone 3 are influenced appears to depend on various speech speeds. In addition, it is possible that greater variance in tone 3 duration and fundamental frequency is concomitant with the variance of speech speeds. The present study may be viewed as raising some interesting questions and careful cautions in future research on tone 3 sandhi.

Committee: Robert Fox (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2010, Speech Pathology and Audiology

The purpose of this study was to determine the short-term repeatability of average airflow in children, ages 4.0 – 5.11 years. Thirty participants with healthy voices and normal hearing sustained the vowel /a/ for 5 seconds at their comfortable frequency and intensity for 3 consecutive productions during 2 separate trials, using the Phonatory Aerodynamic System. The trials were separated by performance of additional acoustic tasks. Results indicated that average airflow measurements were repeatable in young children with no significant difference in average airflow values.

Committee: Barbara Weinrich PhD (Advisor); Susan Baker Brehm PhD (Committee Member); Wendy LeBorgne PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2010, Speech Pathology and Audiology

The purpose of this study was to determine how task type influences fundamental frequency in children ages 4.0 to 5.11 years. Fundamental frequency is an acoustic measure and is defined as the average rate of vocal fold vibration. Thirty children (16 males; 14 females) without hearing loss or the presence of a voice disorder were included in this study. Each participant completed 3 tasks for the elicitation of fundamental frequency. The tasks included: sustaining a vowel for approximately 5 seconds, counting from 1 to 10, and telling a story from 4 picture cards. A repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that there was no significant difference in fundamental frequency across the task type (p=.101). These findings are clinically useful as speech-language pathologists should be able to use any of the three tasks to assess function and track progress with children ages 4.0 to 5.11 years.

Committee: Susan Baker Brehm Ph.D. (Advisor); Barbara Weinrich Ph.D. (Committee Member); Wendy LeBorgne Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Arts in Speech Pathology and Audiology, Cleveland State University, 2012, College of Sciences and Health Professions

Normative data compiled by Hixon and Abbs (1980) continue to serve as guidelines for fundamental frequency (F0 ). These normative data were collected solely from Caucasian participants and may not accurately reflect norms for other ethnicities. According to published literature regarding pitch differences among racial groups, African Americans are believed to have a lower F0 than their Caucasian counterparts. This study investigated differences in F0 between African American and Caucasian young adults. Twenty adults between the ages of 18 and 30 were examined along three vocal parameters: sustained vowel phonation, a speaking task, and a reading task. Three experienced speech-language pathologists and three students without training in voice listened to one second samples of the sustained vowels and made judgments of the speaker's race. Acoustic results revealed no significant differences between the African American and Caucasian male participants. However, F0 values for the sustained vowel task were higher for African American females compared to their Caucasian counterparts while the same trend was not observed in the other two tasks. This suggests that F0 differences across the two races may be task specific rather than racially influenced.

Committee: Violet Cox PhD (Committee Chair); Monica Gordon-Pershey Ed.D (Committee Member); Andrew Lammers PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Sciences; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2009, Communication Disorders

The purpose of this study was to describe the acoustic and aerodynamic characteristics of diatonic scale singing at different tempi in a professional female soprano. The classically trained singer sang ascending-descending ninth scales on /a/ in the F# major key at five different tempi – slow, moderately slow, moderately fast, fast, and fastest. All scales were performed with a moderate loudness level and with a pre-determined metronome marking. Tempo was controlled in order to determine whether differences existed between scales that were sung at a comfortable tempo and scales that were sung at an uncomfortable tempo. The slow (1 note = 104 beats / minute), moderately fast (2 notes = 92 beats / minute), and fastest (4 notes = 92 beats / minute) tempi were designated as comfortable because they were typically performed with integer multiple vibrato cycles per note. The moderately slow (2 notes = 72 beats / minute) and fast (4 notes = 69 beats / minute) tempi were designated as potentially uncomfortable because the note durations were not integer multiples of the singer's typical vibrato cycle period. There were a total of 5 ascending-descending scales analyzed in this study, one for each tempo. The results of the study strongly suggested trends in the acoustic and aerodynamic measures when tempo and scale direction were controlled. The following observations were noted: 1)mean fundamental frequency (F0) was higher in the descending notes than the corresponding ascending notes, 2)average F0 vibrato extent decreased as tempo increased, 3)mean note intensity was greatest at the highest notes and lowest at the lowest notes of the scale, 4)secondary intensity peaks were observed at the third (A#4) or fourth (B4) notes of both the ascending and descending portions of the scale, 5)airflow was greatest at the lowest notes of the scale and lowest at the highest notes of the scale, and 6)average airflow vibrato extent decreased as tempo increased. Distinctive trends were not (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Scherer PhD (Advisor); Jane Rodgers DMA (Committee Member); Laura Dilley PhD (Committee Member); Roger Colcord PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2008, Communication Disorders/Speech-Language Pathology

Purpose: The goal of this project was to categorize the fundamental frequency and durational patterns of chinchilla (laniger) vocal productions relative to typical interaction situations. Methods: This project focused on 4 distinct call types: Exploratory, Contact, Bark, and Alarm from three sources: doctoral dissertation supplements, pet owner posts, and newly collected samples from a single chinchilla. Praat was used to extract the fundamental frequency (F0) contour from the recordings. Results: Primary characteristics of the Exploratory utterances were: token Fo contours had a rapid decrease in frequency (136 ST/s), (2) token durations and token periods overlapped to a large extent across animals, 77% of all tokens contained a final Fo up-sweep tag, and utterances contained an average of 9 tokens. The Contact utterances contained 2-4 Exploratory-like tokens preceding a few transitional tokens, segueing into a sequence of the Contact tokens, Fo contours were complex, variable, and low pitched (300-800 Hz), there is a typical brief low Fo dip of less than an octave from the preceding and following Fo, and the utterances contained an average of approximately 7. Bark utterances were characterized by a brief tonal segment followed by a distinctive noise interval, an abrupt intensity onset followed by a more gradual intensity offset, an increase in token period duration across the utterance, an intensity decrease across the tokens, with a variant of the Bark category including an inspiratory tone preceding or following the token, and the utterances contained an average of 6 tokens. The Alarm utterance token was a high intensity call that included a large, very rapid frequency jump, and maintained a high intensity throughout.

Committee: Ronald Scherer PhD (Advisor); Laura Dilley PhD (Committee Member); Donald Cooper PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Acoustics; Communication