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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Hemi-laryngeal Setup for Studying Vocal Fold Vibration in Three Dimensions
Published on: November 25, 2017
Visualisation of hypopharyngeal cavities and vocal-tract acoustic modelling
Kiyoshi Honda1, Tatsuya Kitamura, Hironori Takemoto
1Phonetics and Phonology Laboratories, UMR7018 CNRS-University of Paris III, Paris, France. khonda@sannet.ne.jp
Abstract:
The hypopharyngeal cavities consist of the laryngeal cavity and bilateral piriform fossa, constituting the bottom part of the vocal tract near the larynx. Visualisation of these cavities with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques reveals that during speech, the laryngeal cavity takes the form of a long-neck flask and the piriform fossa takes the form of a goblet of varying shapes: the former diminishes greatly in whispering and the latter disappears during deep inhalation. These cavities have been shown to exert significant acoustic effects at higher frequency spectra. In this study, acoustic experiments were conducted for male and female mechanical vocal tracts with the results that acoustic effects of those cavities determine the frequency spectra above 2 kHz, giving rise to peaks and zeros. An acoustic model of vowel production was proposed with three components: voice source, hypopharyngeal cavities and vocal tract proper, which provides effective means in controlling voice quality and expressing individual vocal characteristics.
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