Fundamental frequency characteristics of young Black adults: spontaneous speaking and oral reading

The purpose of this study was to determine the speaking fundamental vocal frequency of young Black adults during prompted spontaneous speech and reading and to compare the results with published data for White subjects of comparable age. Subjects were 100 men and 100 women volunteers, ranging in age from 18 to 29 years. Central tendency and dispersion values were calculated from data obtained with a fundamental frequency analyzer (Florida I). The mean modal fundamental vocal frequency for spontaneous speaking was 108.05 Hz for men and 188.85 Hz for women. The mean range was 80.70--166.65 Hz (6.27 tones) for men and 132.55--270.80 Hz (6.18 tones) for women. The men showed smaller excursions from the mean mode to the lower limit of the mean range (27.35 hz, 2.52 tones) than from the mean mode to the upper limit of the mean range (58.60 Hz, 3.75 tones). The women had a range of 81.95 Hz above and 56.30 Hz below the mean mode but approximately equal tonal intervals above and below (3.12 and 3.06, respectively). A comparison of prompted spontaneous speech to reading for the same subjects indicated that the mean modal fundamental vocal frequency was significantly lower and the mean range was significantly greater for speaking than for reading. Both men and women had a mean speaking range of one octave. In comparison to published values for young White adult subjects, the Black subjects in this study had a lower mean fundamental vocal frequency.