Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Effect of aging on speech features and phoneme recognition: a study on Bengali voicing vowels

  • Published:
International Journal of Speech Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The article studies age related variations of speech characteristics of two age groups, in the Bengali language. The study considers 60 speakers in the each age groups, 60–80 years and 20–40 years, respectively. We have considered different voice source features like fundamental frequency, formant frequencies, jitter, shimmer and harmonic to noise ratio. Cepstral domain feature, Mel Frequency Cepstral coefficients (MFCC) of different voiced Bengali vowels are also analyzed for younger and older adult groups. MFCC feature and Hidden Markov model parameter of different voiced vowels are used to study phoneme dissimilarities measure between two age groups. Age related changes in elderly speech affect the automatic speech recognition performance as was observed in our study, raising the need for specific acoustic models for elderly persons.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baken, R. J. (2005). The aged voice: a new hypothesis. Journal of Voice, 19, 317–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barlow III, J.A. (2009). Age-related changes in acoustic characteristics of adult speech. Journal of Communication Disorders, 42(5), 324–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barman, B. (2011). A contrastive analysis of English and Bangla phonemics. Dhaka University. Journal of Linguistics, 2(4), 19–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, B. J. (1981). Frequency variability in the aged voice. Journal of Gerontology, 36(6), 722–726. doi:10.1093/geronj/36.6.722.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benzeghiba, M., Mori, R. D., Deroo, O., Dupont, S., Erbes, T., Jouvet, D., Fissore, L., Laface, P., Mertins, A., Ris, C., Rose, R., Tyagi, V., & Wellekens, C. (2007). Automatic speech recognition and speech variability: a review. Speech Communication, 49, 763–786.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2011). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (version 5.2.16). (Computer program): Retrieved February 20, 2011. http://www.praat.org.

  • Cassidy, S., & Harrington, J. (2001). Multi-level annotation in the emu speech database management system. Speech Communication, 33(1–2), 61–77.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Chatterji, S. K. (1921). Bengali phonetics. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 2(1), 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deliyski, D. & Xue, S. A.: (2001). Effects of aging on selected acoustic voice parameters: preliminary normative data and educational implications. Educational Gerontology, 27(2), 159–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Endres, W., Bambach, W., & Flösser, G. (1971). Voice spectrograms as a function of age, voice disguise, and voice imitation. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 49(6B), 1842–1848.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrand, C. T. (2002). Harmonics-to-noise ratio: an index of vocal aging. Journal of Voice, 16(4), 480–487.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Ghosh, S., Burnham, K. P., Laubscher, N. F., Dallal, G. E., Wilkinson, L., Morrison, D. F., Loyer, M. W., Eisenberg, B., Kullback, S., Jolliffe, I. T., & Simonoff, J. S. (1987). Letters to the editor. The American Statistician, 41(4), 338–341.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gorham-Rowan, M. M., & Laures-Gore, J. (2006). Acoustic-perceptual correlates of voice quality in elderly men and women. Journal of Communication Disorders, 39(3), 171–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrington, J., Palethorpe, S., & Watson, C. I. (2010). Age-related changes in fundamental frequency and formants: a longitudinal study of four speakers. In Interspeech (pp. 2753–2756).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hillenbrand, J., Cleveland, R. A., & Erickson, R. L. (1994). Acoustic correlates of breathy vocal quality. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 37(4), 769–778.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hisao, K. (1997). Acoustic and perceptual properties of phonemes in continuous speech as a function of speaking rate. In EUROSPEECH (pp. 1003–1006).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollien, H., & Shipp, T. (1972). Speaking fundamental frequency and chronologic age in males. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 15(1), 155–159. http://jslhr.asha.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/1/155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krom, G. d. (1993). A cepstrum-based technique for determining a harmonics-to-noise ratio in speech signals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 36(2), 254–266.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindblom, B. E. F. (1971). Acoustical consequences of lip, tongue, jaw, and larynx movement. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 50, 1166–1179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linville, S. E. (1996). The sound of senescence. Journal of Voice, 10, 190–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linville, S. E. (2001). Vocal aging. San Diego: Singular Publishing Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linville, S. E., & Rens, J. (2001). Vocal tract resonance analysis of aging voice using long-term average spectra. Journal of Voice, 15(3), 323–330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liss, J. M., Weismer, G., & Rosenbek, J. C. (1990). Selected acoustic characteristics of speech production in very old males. Journal of Gerontology, 45(2), 35–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mann, H. B., & Whitney, D. R. (1947). On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the other. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 18(1), 50–60.

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Markus, B., & Walter, S. (2003). Aging female voices: an acoustic and perceptive analysis. In VOQUAL (pp. 163–168).

    Google Scholar 

  • Paulsen, F. P., & Tillmann, B. N. (1998). Degenerative changes in the human cricoarytenoid joint. Archives of Otolaryngology, Head of Neck Surgery, 124, 903–906.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramig, L. A., & Ringel, R. L. (1983). Effects of physiological aging on selected acoustic characteristics of voice. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 26(1), 22–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramig, L. O., Gray, S., Baker, K., Corbin-Lewis, K., Buder, E., Luschei, E., Coon, H., & Smith, M. (2001). The aging voice: a review, treatment data and familial and genetic perspectives. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 53(5), 252–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reubold, U., Harrington, J., & Kleber, F. (2010). Vocal aging effects on F 0 and the first formant: a longitudinal analysis in adult speakers. Speech Communication, 52(7–8), 638–651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodeño, M. T., Sánchez-Fernández, J. M., & Rivera-Pomar, J. M. (1993). Histochemical and morphometrical ageing changes in human vocal cord muscles. Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 113, 445–449.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rother, P., Wohlgemuth, B., Wolff, W., & Rebentrost, I. (2002). Morphometrically observable aging changes in the human tongue. Annals of Anatomy - Anatomischer Anzeiger, 184(2), 159–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, D. W. (1992). Multivariate density estimation. New York: Wiley.

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Tanmay, B. (2000). Bangla (Bengali). In Gary, Jane; Rubino, Carl, Encyclopedia of World’s languages: past and present (facts about the World’s languages).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolep, K., Higgins, N., Muza, S., Criner, G., & Kelsen, S. G. (1995). Comparison of diaphragm strength between healthy adult elderly and young men. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 152, 677–682.

    Google Scholar 

  • Traunmuller, H. (1984). Articulatory and perceptual factors controlling the age and sex-conditioned variability in formant frequencies of vowels. Speech Communication, 3(1), 49–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ulatowska, H. K. (1985). The aging brain: communication in the elderly. San Diego: College-Hill Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vipperla, R., Renals, S., & Frankel, J. Ageing voices: the effect of changes in voice parameters on asr performance. EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing, 2010, 41–50 (2010). doi:10.1155/2010/525783.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilcox, K. A., & Horii, Y. (1980). Age and changes in vocal jitter. Journal of Gerontology, 35(2), 194–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xue, S. A., & Hao, G. J. (2003). Changes in the human vocal tract due to aging and the acoustic correlates of speech production: a pilot study. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46(3), 689–701.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, S., Kershaw, D., Odell, J., Ollason, D., Valtchev, V., & Woodland, P. (2000). The HTK book version 3.0. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yumoto, E., Sasaki, Y., & Okamura, H. (1984). Harmonics-to-noise ratio and psychophysical measurement of the degree of hoarseness. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 27(1), 2–6.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Author wish to acknowledge financial support from the Technology Intervention for Elderly, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, project Elderly speech recognition with applications. I will remain grateful to Communication Empowerment Laboratory, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur for providing me all the facilities. Finally, I wish to thank all the individuals who participated in this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, West Bengal, India

    Biswajit Das, Sandipan Mandal, Pabitra Mitra & Anupam Basu

Authors
  1. Biswajit Das
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sandipan Mandal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Pabitra Mitra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Anupam Basu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Biswajit Das.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Das, B., Mandal, S., Mitra, P. et al. Effect of aging on speech features and phoneme recognition: a study on Bengali voicing vowels. Int J Speech Technol 16, 19–31 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-012-9147-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-012-9147-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation