Effects of Sidetone Amplification on Vocal Function During Telecommunication.

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Acoustic phonetics
• Telecommunication engineering

Background:

• Modern society relies heavily on telecommunication, impacting vocal function.
• Sidetone amplification is a potential method to mitigate voice strain during calls.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of sidetone amplification on vocal function during audio-visual communication.
• To assess vocal intensity, quality, and perceived effort under varying sidetone levels.

Main Methods:

• 18 participants with typical voices completed conversational tasks.
• Three sidetone amplification conditions were tested: baseline, low, and high.
• Vocal intensity, low-high ratio, smoothed cepstral peak prominence, and perceived vocal effort were measured.

Main Results:

• High sidetone amplification significantly decreased vocal intensity and increased the low-high ratio.
• The low-high ratio changes were independent of vocal intensity.
• Smoothed cepstral peak prominence remained unchanged; perceived vocal effort was not significantly different, though participants ranked high sidetone as least effortful.

Conclusions:

• High sidetone amplification reduces vocal intensity and impacts vocal quality (low-high ratio).
• Sidetone amplification may decrease vocal effort, but findings require further investigation.
• Preliminary study suggests further research in clinical populations and realistic environments is warranted.