Formant Frequency in Relation to Body Mass Composition

Maxillary arch dimensions associated with acoustic parameters in prepubertal children

“…7 More so, there is a correlation among vocal pitch, shoulder and waist-to-hip ratio, and skull and chest circumference. 8 However, several other authors [9][10][11] failed to demonstrate any correlation between body characteristics and voice. Franco et al 12 examined somatotype and body composition differences among dysphonic and nondysphonic patients in 72 adults and found no significant difference between the dysphonic group (n ¼ 32) and controls (n ¼ 40).…”

Effect of Rapid Maxillary Expansion on Voice

“…11 On the other hand, there has been a debate on the relation between body weight and formants with a major dispute whether heavy individuals compared with normal individuals have lower speaking frequencies. 12,13 Despite the debate on the correlation between speaker's weight, and formant frequencies and their interspace, there is a consensus that formants vary with the shape, configuration, and dimensions of the vocal tract, part of which is the orofacial and craniofacial morphology. 14,15 The effect of different vocal tract configurations on formants has intrigued the authors of the present article to investigate the effect of RME on formant frequencies and their dispersion.…”

Somatotype and Body Composition of Normal and Dysphonic Adult Speakers

“…10 A deep male voice may be a predictor of body size (height and weight) and body shape (body configuration including measures of body circumferences and ratios derived from these measures). 11 On the contrary, Collins, 13 Künzel, 20 González, 14 and Hamdan et al 15,16 could not find any association between vocal and body characteristics. Table 1 brings together information about recent studies.…”

“…Biological patterns of voice production associated with physical body characteristics are not new concerns in the field of voice quality research; however, the results achieved are controversial and none of these studies included dysphonic speakers. 6,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Body size has been related to vocal tract morphology. [10][11][12][13][14]16 Fitch and Giedd 10 found differences in vocal tract morphology both in male and in female speakers, including changes in vocal tract length and in the relative proportions of the oral and the pharyngeal cavities, with consequences in formant frequencies.…”

“…18 Despite the importance of this subject, previous literature has mostly focused on variables such as weight and body mass index (BMI), 10,13,14,17,19,23,24 which are not the most appropriate measures of body composition variability, and for that reason can condition the information that can be obtained and analyzed. In our opinion, body composition analysis must consider other morphological characteristics such as skull, neck, shoulder, chest, waist, and hip circumferences, shoulder-hip ratio, shoulderwaist ratio, waist-hip ratio, 11 muscle mass, fat weight, extremity fat, 15,16 trunk fat, 15 extremity fat-free mass (FFM), trunk FFM, and body FFM. 16 Moreover, the morphological type that encloses a set of morphological traits or characteristics and integrates an individual into a certain category, often called morphotype or morphological type, 25,30 seems to be another biological feature to consider in the study of voice quality although it was possibly never studied in the field of voice disorders.…”