Albuquerque Luciana, Oliveira Catarina, Teixeira António, Sa-Couto Pedro, Figueiredo Daniela
Institute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; Center for Health Technology and Services Research, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; Department of Electronics Telecommunications and Informatics, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; Department of Education and Psychology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
Institute of Electronics and Informatics Engineering of Aveiro, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; School of Health Science, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
J Voice. 2023 Jan;37(1):143.e13-143.e29. doi: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2020.10.021. Epub 2020 Dec 5.
The knowledge about the age effects in speech acoustics is still disperse and incomplete. This study extends the analyses of the effects of age and gender on acoustics of European Portuguese (EP) oral vowels, in order to complement initial studies with limited sets of acoustic parameters, and to further investigate unclear or inconsistent results. A database of EP vowels produced by a group of 113 adults, aged between 35 and 97, was used. Duration, fundamental frequency (f0), formant frequencies (F1 to F3), and a selection of vowel space metrics (F1 and F2 range ratios, vowel articulation index [VAI] and formant centralization ratio [FCR]) were analyzed. To avoid the arguable division into age groups, the analyses considered age as a continuous variable. The most relevant age-related results included: vowel duration increase in both genders; a general tendency to formant frequencies decrease for females; changes that were consistent with vowel centralization for males, confirmed by the vowel space acoustic indexes; and no evidence of F3 decrease with age, in both genders. This study has contributed to knowledge on aging speech, providing new information for an additional language. The results corroborated that acoustic characteristics of speech change with age and present different patterns between genders.
关于语音声学中年龄影响的知识仍然分散且不完整。本研究扩展了对年龄和性别对欧洲葡萄牙语（EP）口腔元音声学影响的分析，以补充初始研究中声学参数有限的情况，并进一步研究不明确或不一致的结果。使用了一个由113名年龄在35岁至97岁之间的成年人发出的EP元音数据库。分析了时长、基频（f0）、共振峰频率（F1至F3）以及一系列元音空间指标（F1和F2范围比率、元音清晰度指数[VAI]和共振峰集中比率[FCR]）。为避免可争议的年龄分组，分析将年龄视为连续变量。与年龄最相关的结果包括：男女元音时长均增加；女性共振峰频率普遍呈下降趋势；男性的变化与元音集中一致，这由元音空间声学指标得到证实；并且没有证据表明男女的F3会随年龄下降。本研究为衰老语音的知识做出了贡献，为另一种语言提供了新信息。结果证实，语音的声学特征会随年龄变化，且男女之间呈现不同模式。
