Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio

Ferrand, Carole T.

doi:10.1016/s0892-1997(02)00123-6

Cited by 192 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…For males, an average higher pitch relates to increased valence: this would bring the pitch closer to that of females, resulting in increased friendliness due to stereotyping [81]. The association with HNR in both genders may relate to changes in age: decreasing HNR has been proposed in vocal aging, either chronological or physiological [82], though findings are inconclusive [83]. It is possible that older voices are perceived as more friendly/trustworthy, than younger voices, though this would conflict with reports that younger voices are perceived as warmer, more honest and less dominant [6], [11], [29].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do You Say ‘Hello’? Personality Impressions from Brief Novel Voices

2014

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On hearing a novel voice, listeners readily form personality impressions of that speaker. Accurate or not, these impressions are known to affect subsequent interactions; yet the underlying psychological and acoustical bases remain poorly understood. Furthermore, hitherto studies have focussed on extended speech as opposed to analysing the instantaneous impressions we obtain from first experience. In this paper, through a mass online rating experiment, 320 participants rated 64 sub-second vocal utterances of the word ‘hello’ on one of 10 personality traits. We show that: (1) personality judgements of brief utterances from unfamiliar speakers are consistent across listeners; (2) a two-dimensional ‘social voice space’ with axes mapping Valence (Trust, Likeability) and Dominance, each driven by differing combinations of vocal acoustics, adequately summarises ratings in both male and female voices; and (3) a positive combination of Valence and Dominance results in increased perceived male vocal Attractiveness, whereas perceived female vocal Attractiveness is largely controlled by increasing Valence. Results are discussed in relation to the rapid evaluation of personality and, in turn, the intent of others, as being driven by survival mechanisms via approach or avoidance behaviours. These findings provide empirical bases for predicting personality impressions from acoustical analyses of short utterances and for generating desired personality impressions in artificial voices.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do You Say ‘Hello’? Personality Impressions from Brief Novel Voices

2014

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“…We argue that harmonic content represents a universal acoustic-semantic signal attribute that effectively shapes (or helps shape) the organization of cortical networks for vocalization perception, and thus ultimately for spoken language perception. Harmonic content, or harmonicity, can be quantified by a harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) value over discrete time periods of a sound (Boersma, 1993; Riede et al, 2001; Ferrand, 2002). For instance, a wolf howl has much stronger harmonic content than a snake hiss, which is readily evident by strong frequency bands (“stacks”) in their spectrograms (cf.…”

Section: Bottom-up Perspectives Of Vision and Hearing Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory object perception: A neurobiological model and prospective review

Brefczynski-Lewis

Lewis

2017

Neuropsychologia

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Interaction with the world is a multisensory experience, but most of what is known about the neural correlates of perception comes from studying vision. Auditory inputs enter cortex with its own set of unique qualities, and leads to use in oral communication, speech, music, and the understanding of emotional and intentional states of others, all of which are central to the human experience. To better understand how the auditory system develops, recovers after injury, and how it may have transitioned in its functions over the course of hominin evolution, advances are needed in models of how the human brain is organized to process real-world natural sounds and “auditory objects”. This review presents a simple fundamental neurobiological model of hearing perception at a category level that incorporates principles of bottom-up signal processing together with top-down constraints of grounded cognition theories of knowledge representation. Though mostly derived from human neuroimaging literature, this theoretical framework highlights rudimentary principles of real-world sound processing that may apply to most if not all mammalian species with hearing and acoustic communication abilities. The model encompasses three basic categories of sound-source: (1) action sounds (non-vocalizations) produced by ‘living things’, with human (conspecific) and non-human animal sources representing two subcategories; (2) action sounds produced by ‘non-living things’, including environmental sources and human-made machinery; and (3) vocalizations (‘living things’), with human versus non-human animals as two subcategories therein. The model is presented in the context of cognitive architectures relating to multisensory, sensory-motor, and spoken language organizations. The models’ predictive values are further discussed in the context of anthropological theories of oral communication evolution and the neurodevelopment of spoken language proto-networks in infants/toddlers. These phylogenetic and ontogenetic frameworks both entail cortical network maturations that are proposed to at least in part be organized around a number of universal acoustic-semantic signal attributes of natural sounds, which are addressed herein.

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“…Mueller [33] made the assumption that because hoarseness is prevalent in the voices of elderly speakers, a lower HNR would be predicted. Also, Ferrand [34 ]reported that significant differences in HNR emerged between elderly women, young and middle-aged groups. HNR might be a more sensitive and inclusive index of vocal function in older speakers than are jitter and shimmer, as the ratio reflects both cycle-to-cycle variability in frequency and amplitude as well as additive noise generated at the glottis [35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Aging on Acoustic Parameters of Voice

Dehqan

Scherer²,

Dashti³

et al. 2012

Folia Phoniatr Logop

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Background/Aims: There are no studies of the phonatory parameters of elderly Iranian speakers. The purpose of this study was to obtain normative acoustic data for a group of elderly Iranian male and female speakers over 70 years of age. Four selected acoustic parameters [fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer, and harmonics-to-noise ratio] were obtained and compared to a group of young and middle-aged speakers. Methods: Subjects were 21 Iranian elderly men and 20 Iranian elderly women. The age range for both male (mean ± SD: 77.09 ± 5.84) and female subjects (77.55 ± 4.34) was 70–90 years. The control group consisted of 40 Iranian young and middle-aged adults who were 20–49 years old (20 men and 20 women). The age range for the females was 23–40 years (30 ± 4.76) and for the males it was 21–49 years (30.1 ± 8.51). Each subject phonated 5/a/vowels with constant pitch and loudness for at least 5 s. The mid 3-second portion of the tokens was analyzed using the Dr. Speech 4.3u software (subprogram: Vocal Assessment; Dr. Speech, Tiger Electronics, Seattle, Wash., USA). Results: F0 was greater for elderly males than for young and middle-aged males. Conversely, F0 was greater for young and middle-aged females than for elderly females. Average shimmer was significantly higher in elderly males than in elderly females. Likewise, jitter was significantly higher in elderly males than in elderly females. Both shimmer and jitter were significantly greater in elderly speakers than in the young and middle-aged speakers. In addition, the harmonics-to-noise ratio was significantly greater for young and middle-aged males and females than for elderly males and females. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that elderly Iranian speakers had significantly greater vocal instability than young and middle-aged Iranian adults, as measured by the selected acoustic parameters. As the elderly population in Iran and the world continues to increase rapidly, studies of this kind are needed for researchers, educators, and practitioners to better understand the effects of aging on all aspects of human speech-language communication. Voice is an important factor for communication, and its change with age alters the communication process.

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Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio

Cited by 192 publications

References 32 publications

How Do You Say ‘Hello’? Personality Impressions from Brief Novel Voices

How Do You Say ‘Hello’? Personality Impressions from Brief Novel Voices

Auditory object perception: A neurobiological model and prospective review

The Effects of Aging on Acoustic Parameters of Voice

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