Perceptual interaction of the harmonic source and noise in voice

Although the amount of inharmonic energy (noise) present in a human voice is an important determinant of vocal quality, little is known about the perceptual interaction between harmonic and inharmonic aspects of the voice source. This paper reports three experiments investigating this issue. Results indicate that perception of the harmonic slope and of noise levels are both influenced by complex interactions between the spectral shape and relative levels of harmonic and noise energy in the voice source. Just-noticeable differences (JNDs) for the noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR) varied significantly with the NHR and harmonic spectral slope, but NHR had no effect on JNDs for NHR when harmonic slopes were steepest, and harmonic slope had no effect when NHRs were highest. Perception of changes in the harmonic source slope depended on NHR and on the harmonic source slope: JNDs increased when spectra rolled off steeply, with this effect in turn depending on NHR. Finally, all effects were modulated by the shape of the noise spectrum. It thus appears that, beyond masking, understanding perception of individual parameters requires knowledge of the acoustic context in which they function, consistent with the view that voices are integral patterns that resist decomposition.     

A preliminary study of particle velocity during phonation in an in vivo canine model

The particle velocity across the glottis was measured with simultaneous electroglottography, photoglottography, and subglottic pressure in an in vivo canine model of phonation. A constant temperature anemometer measured flow velocity at five midline anterior to posterior glottal positions. Tracheal input air flow was varied in five steps from 175 to 500 cc/s, while vocal fold approximation was achieved by constant electrical stimulation of the laryngeal nerves. For all levels of air flow, a decreasing peak velocity gradient was observed from the anterior commissure to the arytenoids. Time-varying features of the flow velocity are discussed in relation to glottal vibratory events and aerodynamics.     

Direct calculation of intermolecular potential energy surfaces

A variation perturbation method is presented for the direct calculation of intermolecular interaction energies. The theory is based on valence bond ideas but avoids the full evaluation of the matrix elements by expansion in powers of interchange, a procedure which is valid for small overlap between the systems. The participating excited states are regarded as polarized pseudo-states and are determined by optimizing the long-range multipole-multipole part of the interaction energy. The validity of these ideas is illustrated by a calculation of the He-He interaction. A remarkable simplification is pointed out, in which the interaction energy is given almost exactly by the sum of the repulsive term, calculated as zero + single interchange, plus the long-range interaction.     

Sources of listener disagreement in voice quality assessment

Traditional interval or ordinal rating scale protocols appear to be poorly suited to measuring vocal quality. To investigate why this might be so, listeners were asked to classify pathological voices as having or not having different voice qualities. It was reasoned that this simple task would allow listeners to focus on the kind of quality a voice had, rather than how much of a quality it possessed, and thus might provide evidence for the validity of traditional vocal qualities. In experiment 1, listeners judged whether natural pathological voice samples were or were not primarily breathy and rough. Listener agreement in both tasks was above chance, but listeners agreed poorly that individual voices belonged in particular perceptual classes. To determine whether these results reflect listeners' difficulty agreeing about single perceptual attributes of complex stimuli, listeners in experiment 2 classified natural pathological voices and synthetic stimuli (varying in f0 only) as low pitched or not low pitched. If disagreements derive from difficulties dividing an auditory continuum consistently, then patterns of agreement should be similar for both kinds of stimuli. In fact, listener agreement was significantly better for the synthetic stimuli than for the natural voices. Difficulty isolating single perceptual dimensions of complex stimuli thus appears to be one reason why traditional unidimensional rating protocols are unsuited to measuring pathologic voice quality. Listeners did agree that a few aphonic voices were breathy, and that a few voices with prominent vocal fry and/or interharmonics were rough. These few cases of agreement may have occurred because the acoustic characteristics of the voices in question corresponded to the limiting case of the quality being judged. Values of f0 that generated listener agreement in experiment 2 were more extreme for natural than for synthetic stimuli, consistent with this interpretation.     

Optimization of virtual orbitals in the framework of a multiconfiguration spin-coupled wave function

A new method is introduced for the optimization of nonorthogonal virtual orbitals for use in general multiconfiguration spin-coupled wave functions. The use of a number of highly effective approximations greatly reduces the computational effort involved, the most important being the use of a second-order perturbation expression for the energy and an approximate expression for the elements of the Hessian. As a result, the overall scheme scales very favourably with respect to the numbers of active electrons and of basis functions, making it suitable for the accurate study of large systems. Benchmark calculations are presented for the dissociation of LiH(X¹Σ⁺) and Li₂(X¹Σ⁺ _g ) using a highly compact four-configuration wave function. Standard spin-coupled valence bond expansions in the same virtual space are required to be significantly larger before equivalent results are obtained. The results are shown to compare very favourably with full valence complete active space self-consistent field calculations using an identical basis, and binding energies are within 4% of the values obtained from full configuration interaction calculations in the same basis set. Received: 10 June 1997 / Accepted: 7 October 1997     

Theoretical study of the formation of acetylene from two CH fragments

The interaction between two CH radicals to form C₂H₂ is studied theoretically. The fragments are treated by MO theory but the interaction between them is described by VB theory. Thus reveals a sudden change in spin coupling at R_CC≈ 6 au from that characteristic of CH(²Π)-CH(²Π) to CH(⁴Σ^?)-CH(⁴Σ^?) and this is associated with a barrier in the potential energy surface≈ 0.33 eV in height.     

The C6 coefficients for NeHF. Improved polarizabilities and dispersion coefficients by a simple level-shifting technique

The parallel and perpendicular C₆ coefficients for the NEHF pair have been estimated at 7.905 and 5.065 and respectively. A simple technique, using experimental values of polarisabilities to determine level shifts semi-empirically, produced these values. An important feature of the technique is its suitability for inclusion as a part of an othenvise ab initio treatment of the intermolecular force problem.