Summary
Objectives
Although vowels are of interest for acoustic analysis in clinics, there is no consensus
regarding the effect of vowel selection on acoustic perturbation parameters. This
study aimed to reveal the effects of Mandarin vowels on acoustic measurements.
Study Design
A prospective observational study.
Methods
This prospective observational study enrolled normal phonation Mandarin speakers at
the Otolaryngology Department of the Eye & ENT Hospital affiliated with Fudan University
from December 2020 to August 2021. This study recruited 107 normal-voiced Mandarin
speakers (59 women and 49 men) with a median age of 26 (22, 33) years old. The objective
measures included traditional acoustic parameters (fundamental frequency, harmonic-to-noise
ratio, percent jitter, and percent shimmer) and cepstral analysis (smoothed cepstral
peak prominence) of six Mandarin vowels (ɑ /a/, o /o/, e /ɤ/, i /i/, u /u/, ü /y/).
Results
The acoustic analysis revealed no significant differences in the fundamental frequency
among vowels. The low vowel /a/ had the highest values for percent jitter and percent
shimmer and the lowest harmonic-to-noise ratio value. The back vowel /u/ had the lowest
cepstral measures (P < 0.05).
Conclusions
The acoustic analysis significantly varied across the different Mandarin vowels, and
these differences must be considered for the effective clinical application of objective
evaluations.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 01, 2022
Accepted:
March 30,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2022 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
