Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 16, 2026

fMRI Mapping of Brain Activity Associated with the Vocal Production of Consonant and Dissonant Intervals
Published on: May 23, 2017
Audio-vocal responses of vocal fundamental frequency and formant during sustained vowel vocalizations in different
Shao-Hsuan Lee1, Tzu-Yu Hsiao2, Guo-She Lee3
1Faculty of Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Abstract:
Sustained vocalizations of vowels [a], [i], and syllable [mə] were collected in twenty normal-hearing individuals. On vocalizations, five conditions of different audio-vocal feedback were introduced separately to the speakers including no masking, wearing supra-aural headphones only, speech-noise masking, high-pass noise masking, and broad-band-noise masking. Power spectral analysis of vocal fundamental frequency (F0) was used to evaluate the modulations of F0 and linear-predictive-coding was used to acquire first two formants. The results showed that while the formant frequencies were not significantly shifted, low-frequency modulations (<3 Hz) of F0 significantly increased with reduced audio-vocal feedback across speech sounds and were significantly correlated with auditory awareness of speakers' own voices. For sustained speech production, the motor speech controls on F0 may depend on a feedback mechanism while articulation should rely more on a feedforward mechanism. Power spectral analysis of F0 might be applied to evaluate audio-vocal control for various hearing and neurological disorders in the future.
Related Concept Videos
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by...
Perception of Sound Waves
The pitch of a sound depends on the frequency and the pressure amplitude of the source. Two sounds of the same...
Sound Waves: Resonance
Larynx
Anatomy of the Larynx
The larynx consists of various components, including cartilage, muscles, and vocal cords. Its structure includes three large unpaired cartilages—the thyroid, cricoid, and epiglottis—and three smaller paired cartilages—the arytenoids,...
Physical Assessment of the Respiratory Tract IV: Auscultation
Breath Sounds
Breath sounds are categorized into vesicular, bronchovesicular, and bronchial.
Intensity and Pressure of Sound Waves
Unlike the time average of a sinusoidal term, which is zero since it is positive...

