Voice-over: Perceptual and Acoustic Analysis of Vocal Features

Voice-overs are professional voice users who use their voices to market products in the electronic media. The purposes of this study were to (1) analyze voice-overed and non-overed productions of an advertising text in two groups consisting of 10 male professional voice-overs and 10 male non-voice-overs; and (2) determine specific acoustic features of voice-over productions in both groups. A na?ve group of listeners were engaged for the perceptual analysis of the recorded advertising text. The voice-overed production samples from both groups were submitted for analysis of acoustic and temporal features. The following parameters were analyzed: (1) the total text length, (2) the length of the three emphatic pauses, (3) values of the mean, (4) minimum, (5) maximum fundamental frequency, and (6) the semitone range. The majority of voice-overs and non-voice-overs were correctly identified by the listeners in both productions. However voice-overs were more consistently correctly identified than non-voice-overs. The total text length was greater for voice-overs. The pause time distribution was statistically more homogeneous for the voice-overs. The acoustic analysis indicated that the voice-overs had lower values of mean, minimum, and maximum fundamental frequency and a greater range of semitones. The voice-overs carry the voice-overed production features to their non-voice-overed production.     

广东星海音乐厅室内乐厅的声学设计

室内乐厅是以演奏室内乐为主、兼供独奏(唱)、音乐讲座、文娱演出和立体电影所用的多功能厅堂。为使各项功能均具有最佳的声学条件,设置了用计算机调控混响时间的装置。本文概要介绍室内乐厅的声学设计、但侧重于计算机调控混响时间所取得的成效。     

Features of Normal Higher-Order Acoustic Wave Generation in Thin Piezoelectric Plates

Acoustical Physics - The article studies the spectrum of acoustic oscillations generated by interdigital transducers in a plate made from a LiNbO3 piezocrystal with a thickness on the order of the...     

Acoustic microcavitation: enhancement and applications

Experimental investigation into acoustic microcavitation is extended to include "cavitation activity" in addition to the threshold measurements using acoustic detectors. The primary setup incorporates two detectors: an unfocused, untuned 1-MHz transducer, which serves as a passive detector, and a focused 30-MHz transducer used in pulse-echo mode as the active detector. Cavitation itself is brought about by a focused piezoelectric transducer driven in pulse mode. The active detector is arranged confocally with respect to the cavitation transducer. Both the interrogating pulse and the cavitation pulse arrive simultaneously at the common focus which is the region of cavitation. Cavitation is conducted primarily at 0.75 MHz and 1% duty cycle in clean water using microparticles to seed the events. Cavitation activity appears to be directly proportional to the number density of the particles present in the cavitation medium. The fact that the active detector affects the cavitation process can be further exploited to seek interesting applications leading possibly to submicronic particle counting and testing of surface characteristics of silica particles used in liquid chromatography.     

隧道声显微镜的几种模式及理论研究

讨论了隧道声显微镜(TAM)的三种工作模式,即相互作用力-隧道间距模式、改进的STM测量模式和AFM测量模式,研究了它们的工作机理。建立了一个探针-样品相互作用的模型,理论分析了相互作用力与隧道间距的关系,计算结果与实验结果一致,该结果对于研制TAM实验系统和探针制备等具有指导意义.     

Judgments of voice quality and preference: Acoustic interpretations

Previous studies have shown that trained listeners are highly reliable in making perceptual judgments of several parameters of normal and pathologic voices. This study investigated objective measures of acoustic characteristics of high and low preference voices as determined by previous perceptual study. Four acoustic parameters were measured including harmonics-to-noise ratio, autocorrelation function, average jitter, and the standard deviation of the fundamental frequency. Useful correlations between perceptual and measured results were identified. Normal voices differ from pathologic voices in terms of the acoustic-perceptual relationships.     

Classification of Dysphonic Voice: Acoustic and Auditory-Perceptual Measures

The purpose of this study was (1) to determine the relationship between acoustic measures and auditory-perceptual dimensions of overall voice severity and pleasantness and (2) to evaluate the ability of acoustic and auditory-perceptual measures to discriminate normal from dysphonic voices. Thirty adult dysphonic speakers and six, age-matched normal control speakers were asked to provide oral reading samples of the Rainbow Passage. Acoustic analysis of the speech samples was used to identify abnormal phonatory events associated with dysphonia. The acoustic program calculated long-term average spectral measures, glottal noise measures, and those measures based on linear prediction (LP) modeling. Twelve adult listeners judged overall voice severity and pleasantness from the connected speech samples using direct magnitude estimation (DME) procedures. The acoustic measures accounted for 48% of overall voice severity and 40% of voice pleasantness for dysphonic speakers. The classification performance of the acoustic measures and auditory-perceptual measures was quantified using logistic regression analysis. When acoustic measures or auditory-perceptual measures were considered in isolation, classification was generally accurate and similar across measures. Classification accuracy improved to 100% when acoustic and auditory-perceptual measures were combined. These data provide further support for use of both auditory-perceptual evaluation and acoustic analyses for classifying and evaluating dysphonia.     

Acoustic microscopy system: design and preliminary results

An acoustic microscopy system was designed to perform 2D imaging in the C-plane with a single-element transducer. The ultrasound transducer was fabricated by polishing bulk lithium niobate (LiNbO(3)) to the required thickness (approximately 60 or 45 micro) for the desired operating frequency (55 or 75 MHz). The polished LiNbO(3) was attached to acoustic backing and matching layers. Finally, an epoxy lens was applied and the transducer mounted in a housing. The transducer was mounted in a 3D motorized positioning stage and operated by a high-frequency pulser/receiver. Received echoes were sampled with a 2 GHz ADC card and displayed on a PC using software developed in the Matlab environment. Transducer frequency and bandwidth were measured off a steel plate positioned at the focal length. A penny was scanned initially to confirm expected performance before acquiring data from liver (n=3) and spleen (n=3) specimens. For the first probe, the peak frequency was 54.05 MHz with a -6 dB bandwidth of 6.76 MHz. The axial and lateral resolutions were estimated to be 114 and 188 microm, respectively. For the second probe, the peak frequency was measured to 82 MHz with a -6 dB bandwidth of approximately 23 MHz. The axial and lateral resolutions were estimated to be around 33 and 81 microm, respectively. C-scans of the penny clearly showed detailed structures on front and back, while the capsule and the trabecular structures of the splenic tissues could easily be separated in different layers. In conclusion, an acoustic microscopy system operating at 55-75 MHz has been constructed and the feasibility of obtaining high-resolution images of tissue specimens demonstrated.     

Black Holes and Gravitational Waves in Concert—A Probe of Superstring Cosmology

Two strands of observational gravitation, one the search for astrophysical evidence of primordial black holes and the other the search for gravitational waves, may combine to provide strong evidence in favour of cosmological models based on superstring theory, the leading candidate for unifying gravity with the other fundamental forces.     

Acoustic characteristics of rough voice: Subharmonics

This study investigates the relationship between rough voice and the presence of Subharmonics, which correspond to smaller yet distinct peaks located between two consecutive harmonic peaks in the power spectrum. Spectrum analysis was undertaken in 389 pathologic voices, of which 20 had subharmonics. Although all 20 voices had roughness perceptually, 8 had normal jitter and/or shimmer. The degree of roughness had a significant inverse relationship with the frequency of subharmonics. By digital signal processing, sound samples with various types of subharmonics were synthesized and perceptually analyzed. Power and frequency of subharmonics in the synthesized sound also had significant relationships with the degree of roughness. Rough voice is acoustically characterized not only by jitter and shimmer but also by the presence of subharmonics in the power spectrum. Subharmonics are important acoustic properties for objective evaluation of rough voices.