Acoustic Voice Analysis of Young Turkish Speakers

Abstract

Objective/Hypothesis. One of the objective assessments of voice is acoustic analysis, particularly, the parameters fundamental frequency (F-0), jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR). Because the normative data for healthy native Turkish male and female speakers are lacking in the literature, this study aimed to obtain F0, perturbation parameters, and NHR in three sustained vowels (/A/, /i/, and /u/) among young Turkish speaking adults. Methods. The native Turkish speakers with normal voice aged between 18 and 32 years were included in the study (44 women, 39 men). Voice samples were recorded using Computerized Speech Lab, and data were analyzed with the statistics software SPSS Statistics 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results. The F-0 values of vowels /A/, /i/, and /u/ were greater for women (239.78 Hz, 251.97 Hz, and 250.29 Hz, respectively) than for men (127.11 Hz, 137.23 Hz, and 134.15 Hz, respectively). All shimmer values for all vowels and jitter values for /A/ and /u/ were found significantly low in men; however, no difference was found for jitter values of /i/ between genders. There is no effect of gender on NHR. Only in women, NHR of high vowels was found to be lower than that of vowel /A/. Conclusions. There is a significant difference for F-0 values between the genders as expected. Comparisons of perturbation values were significantly different for some pairs of vowels. There was no significant difference between NHR values between the genders. These findings can be compared with Turkish speakers who have different voice disorders for the further studies.