Normative Values of Adult’s Voice in Indian Population using Praat

Abstract

Voice plays a major role in speech and communication. Voice characteristics convey information not only related to the individuals laryngeal status but also the social origins, emotional state, physique, age and sex. Any deviation from these guidelines is considered as voice disorder. The present study included 60 voice samples (30 males and 30 females) age range 18 to 25 years. The voice samples were recorded in sound treated room and analyzed with praat software. Voice parameters were analyzed like fundamental frequency( f0), Jitter (local), jitter (local, absolute), shimmer (local), shimmer (local dB), harmonics to noise ratio(HNR), first formant frequency( f1), second formant frequency( f2), and third formant frequency( f3) for the vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/. Mean and standard deviation were calculated and also t-test was carried out to observe the significant difference across gender on voice parameters. Significant differences were noticed on some of the voice parameters between genders.