15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15) Barcelona, Spain August 3-9, 2003

Simultaneous Measurements of Tracheal and Intra-Oral Pressure, Oral Airflow, Intensity, Fundamental Frequency and Calculation of Vocal Efficiency in Speech and Singing

C. Pillot (1), Alain Soquet (2), S. Hassid (2)

(1) Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie-CNRS, France
(2) Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Vocal efficiency (VE) is the ratio of intensity (I) to subglottal pressure (Ps) times glottal airflow (q). In order to calculate VE in speech and singing, data were obtained for one male French subject: 1) recordings of tracheal and intra-oral Ps, q, I and fundamental frequency; 2) Calculation of VE using 5 different formula found in the literature using three parameters (q, Ps and I) and 4 using two parameters (q and I) on spoken and sung syllables, sentences, glissandi. Results showed that 1) half of spoken values are similar to the published one; most of the sung values are smaller; 2) the intra-oral Ps (pio) is not consistent; 3) there is a positive correlation between the values computed with VE formula using three and two parameters. Thus even if our pio is not always reliable, the VE formula using two parameters can be here a good estimation for VE.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Pillot, C. / Soquet, Alain / Hassid, S. (2003): "Simultaneous measurements of tracheal and intra-oral pressure, oral airflow, intensity, fundamental frequency and calculation of vocal efficiency in speech and singing", In ICPhS-15, 3137-3140.