Anatomic development of the oral and pharyngeal portions of the vocal tract: An imaging study

Abstract

The growth of the vocal tract (VT) is known to be non-uniform insofar as there are regional differences in anatomic maturation. This study presents quantitative anatomic data on the growth of the oral and pharyngeal portions of the VT from 605 imaging studies for individuals between birth and 19 years. The oral (horizontal) portion of the VT was segmented into lip-thickness, anterior-cavity-length, oropharyngeal-width, and VT-oral; and the pharyngeal (vertical) portion of the VT into posterior-cavity-length, and nasopharyngeal-length. The data were analyzed to determine growth trend, growth rate and growth type (neural or somatic). Findings indicate differences in the growth trend of segments/variables analyzed, with significant sex differences for all variables except anterior-cavity-length. While the growth trend of some variables display prepubertal sex differences at specific age ranges, the importance of such localized differences appears to be masked by overall growth rate differences between males and females. Finally, assessment of growth curve type indicates that most VT structures follow a combined/hybrid (somatic and neural) growth curve with structures in the vertical plane having a predoMinantly somatic growth pattern. these data on the non-uniform growth of the vocal tract reveal anatomic differences that contribute to documented acoustic differences in prepubertal speech production.

What makes a voice masculine: Physiological and acoustical correlates of women's ratings of men's vocal masculinity

“…Pubertal exposure to androgens causes a 60% increase in men's vocal fold length relative to women, and a corresponding decrease in its inverse acoustic correlate, mean F0 (Harries et al, 1998;Titze, 1994). Under the influence of androgens, pubertal males also grow 7% taller than women on average (Gaulin and Boster, 1985) and develop a further descended larynx, causing an increase in the lengthening of their vocal tract and thus a permanent drop in its inverse acoustic correlate, formant spacing or ΔF (Fitch and Giedd, 1999;Vorperian et al, 2009).…”

Novelty and social preference in phonetic accommodation

“…Indeed, young language learners begin to show preferential patterns of language acquisition early on in production. For example, children show gender-specific speech patterns prior to the onset of puberty-induced anatomical differences (Sachs et al 1973;Perry et al 2001; though see Vorperian et al [2009] for recent evidence of sex differences in vocal tract anatomy prior to puberty). This suggests that gendered speech patterns are at least somewhat learned, with young boys and girls modeling their speech patterns on select input, not an aggregate of all spoken language they have been exposed to.…”

Effect of body position on vocal tract acoustics: Acoustic pharyngometry and vowel formants

“…Although most laboratory studies of speech pertain to the upright position, imaging methods often place the speaker in a supine position, or more rarely, a prone position. Studies of vocal tract (VT) anatomy or function using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) generally have placed the speaker in a supine position (Fitch and Giedd, 1999;Steiner et al, 2012;Vorperian et al, 2009). The question arises if differences in body position affect the configuration and/or function of the articulators while producing speech or at rest.…”