A technique has been developed to obtain a quantitative measure of correlation between electromyographic (EMG) activity of various laryngeal muscles, subglottal air pressure, and the fundamental frequency of vibration of the vocal folds (Fo). Data were collected and analyzed on one subject, a native speaker of American English. The results show that an analysis of this type can provide a useful measure of correlation between the physiological and acoustical events in speech and, furthermore, can yield detailed insights into the organization and nature of the speech production process. In particular, based on these results, a model is suggested of Fo control involving laryngeal state functions that seems to agree with present knowledge of laryngeal control and experimental evidence.

A measure was obtained of the amounts of variability in fundamental voice frequency F0 in simple sentences produced by several adult male speakers. A comparison was made of intra- and interspeaker variability, and a detailed analysis was performed to determine the nature of this variability. Great variability was found between speakers, but more important was the finding that the intraspeaker variability was essentially as great as the interspeaker. This indicates that even for a single speaker’s utterances, considerable ’’noise’’ is present which can obscure the prosodic ’’signals.’’ The F0 variability involves seemingly random interleavings that affect the relative F0 values within an utterance, as well as, simple shifts in average F0 that affect the absolute F0 of the contour as a whole. Subject Classification: [43]70.40, [43]70.70.

How does the institutional design of a state's bureaucracy affect foreign policy? We argue that institutions can moderate bureaucrats’ incentives to act in accordance with an Executive's diplomatic preferences. Where the Executive can influence budgets or career paths, bureaucrats face incentives to adopt her diplomatic goals as their own. Where agencies are shielded from Executive influence, bureaucrats are free to act independently in a bid to enhance their autonomy and their reputation for competence. To test these expectations, we develop a new measure of bureaucratic independence for the 15 aid‐giving agencies in the US government. We analyze how independence affects foreign aid allocation patterns over the 1999–2010 period. We find that in “dependent” agencies, foreign aid flows track the diplomatic objectives of the president. In “independent” agencies, aid flows appear less responsive to presidential priorities and more responsive to indicators of need in the recipient country. Our results highlight limits on the diplomatic use of foreign aid and emphasize the importance of domestic institutional design. Our findings yield insight into a broad range of policy domains—including international finance, immigration, and the application of economic sanctions—where multiple government agencies are in charge of implementing foreign policy.

Association of cricothyroid activity with high or rising fundamental frequency (f0) and strap activity with low or falling f0 in speech has been confirmed by numerous electromyographic experiments. The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether the role of the strap muscles in lowering f0 is analogous to that of the cricothyroid in raising f0. An electromyographic investigation of the sternohyoid and cricothyroid muscles was performed with speakers of English and Thai. It was found that there were indeed peaks of strap activity during low f0 and peaks of cricothyroid activity during high f0. However, examination of the timing of muscle activity with respect to f0 revealed that the cricothyroid differs from the strap muscles in that the cricothyroid begins to increase in activity prior to the onset of the f0 rise, whereas the increase of strap muscle activity begins after the onset of the f0 fall.

This paper reports on one aspect of a continuing study to determine the physiological correlates of the changes in fundamental voice frequency (F0). Several electromyographic (EMG) studies with speech have reported an association of strap-muscle activity, particularly the sternohyoid, with low F0 and some of these studies suggest that the sternohyoid is actively involved in lowering F0. It has also been suggested, however, that the sternohoid is involved with jaw opening, and that the reported pitch-lowering effects may actually be the result of jaw opening. To investigate this question an EMG experiment was conducted on one speaker of American English under normal and clenched jaw conditions. The normal utterances were of the form “Bev loves Bob” with emphasis on the various words. The clenched-jaw data were obtained while the subject held his jaw fixed by biting on a tongue depressor and intoned the corresponding intonation patterns with a fixed vowel carrier /a/. The results indicate that the strap muscle activity for the normal utterances is very similar to the activity for the same intonation pattern with the jaw clenched. Strap-muscle activity thus seems to be more closely related to pitch effects than to jaw-opening effects.