Summary
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between pitch discrimination
and fundamental frequency (fo) variation in running speech, with consideration of factors such as singing status
and vocal hyperfunction (VH).
Method
Female speakers (18–69 years) with typical voices (26 non-singers; 27 singers) and
speakers with VH (22 non-singers; 30 singers) completed a pitch discrimination task
and read the Rainbow Passage. The pitch discrimination task was a two-alternative forced choice procedure, in
which participants determined whether tokens were the same or different. Tokens were
a prerecorded sustained /ɑ/ of the participant's own voice and a pitch-shifted version
of their sustained /ɑ/, such that the difference in fo was adaptively modified. Pitch discrimination and Rainbow Passage fo variation were calculated for each participant and compared via Pearson's correlations for each group.
Results
A significant strong correlation was found between pitch discrimination and fo variation for non-singers with typical voices. No significant correlations were found
for the other three groups, with notable restrictions in the ranges of discrimination
for both singer-groups and in the range of fo variation values for non-singers with VH.
Conclusions
Speakers with worse pitch discrimination may increase their fo variation to produce self-salient intonational changes, which is in contrast to previous
findings from articulatory investigations. The erosion of this relationship in groups
with singing training and/or with VH may be explained by the known influence of musical
training on pitch discrimination or the biomechanical changes associated with VH restricting
speakers’ abilities to change their fo.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 06, 2023
Accepted:
January 9,
2023
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
