Winkler Ralf, Sendlmeier Walter
Department of Speech Communication and Phonetics, Technical University, Berlin, Germany.
Logoped Phoniatr Vocol. 2006;31(2):51-6. doi: 10.1080/14015430500445534.
This paper presents the results of open quotient (OQ) measurements in electroglottographic (EGG) signals of young (18-30 years) and elderly (60-82 years) male and female speakers. The paper further presents quantitative results of the relation between the EGG OQ and the perception of a speaker's age. Higgins and Saxman found a decreased EGG OQ with increased age for females, while the EGG OQ increased for males as the speaker's age increased in sustained vowel material 1. Although laryngeal degeneration due to increased age seems to occur to a lesser extent in females, the significant decrease of the OQ in elderly female voices could not be explained in terms of age-related physiological changes. Linville found increased spectral amplitudes in the region of F0 for the elderly (obtained by long-term average spectra (LTAS) measurements of read speech material), independent of gender, which could be indirectly interpreted as an increasing OQ 3. We measured the EGG OQ, not only for sustained vowels but also in vowels taken from isolated words and read speech material. To analyse the relation between breathiness in terms of an increased EGG OQ and the mean perceived age per stimulus, a perception test was carried out, in which listeners were asked to estimate speaker's age based on sustained /a/-vowels varying in vocal effort (soft-normal-loud) during production. 1) The decreased EGG OQ for elderly females originally found by Higgins and Saxman 1 is not apparent in our data for sustained /a/-vowels; for males, however, we also found an increased EGG OQ for the elderly speakers. 2) In addition, an increased EGG OQ for the group of elderly in comparison to the younger males occurs for the unstressed syllable of the word material. 3) Our results show a strong positive relation between perceived age and EGG OQ in male vowel stimuli. Regarding 2), depending on the speech task at least a male speaker's voice gets more breathy as age increases. Considering 3), increased breathiness may contribute to the listener's perception of increased age.
本文展示了对年轻（18 - 30岁）和年长（60 - 82岁）男性及女性说话者的电声门图（EGG）信号进行开放商（OQ）测量的结果。本文还展示了EGG开放商与说话者年龄感知之间关系的定量结果。希金斯和萨克斯曼发现，在持续元音材料1中，随着年龄增长，女性的EGG开放商降低，而男性的EGG开放商则随着说话者年龄的增加而增加。尽管年龄增长导致的喉部退化在女性中似乎不太明显，但老年女性声音中开放商的显著降低无法用与年龄相关的生理变化来解释。林维尔发现，对于老年人（通过对朗读语音材料的长期平均谱（LTAS）测量获得），在基频区域的频谱幅度增加，与性别无关，这可以间接解释为开放商增加3。我们不仅测量了持续元音的EGG开放商，还测量了从孤立单词和朗读语音材料中获取的元音的开放商。为了分析EGG开放商增加所导致的呼吸声与每个刺激的平均感知年龄之间的关系，我们进行了一项感知测试，要求听众根据发音时在不同发声力度（轻柔 - 正常 - 响亮）下的持续 /a/ 元音来估计说话者的年龄。1）希金斯和萨克斯曼最初发现的老年女性EGG开放商降低在我们关于持续 /a/ 元音的数据中并不明显；然而，对于男性，我们也发现老年说话者的EGG开放商增加。2）此外，在单词材料的非重读音节中，与年轻男性相比，老年组的EGG开放商增加。3）我们的结果表明，在男性元音刺激中，感知年龄与EGG开放商之间存在很强的正相关关系。关于2），至少对于男性说话者，根据语音任务不同，随着年龄增长声音会变得更有呼吸声。考虑到3），呼吸声增加可能会使听众感觉说话者年龄增加。
