scholarly journals What Makes Business Speakers Sound Charismatic?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-40
Author(s):  
Oliver Niebuhr ◽  
Alexander Brem ◽  
Jan Michalsky ◽  
Jana Neitsch
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Acoustic Features ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Steve Jobs ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Tone Of Voice ◽  
And Training

Phonetic research on the prosodic sources of perceived charisma has taken a big step towards making a speaker’s tone-of-voice a tangible, quantifiable, and trainable matter. However, the tone-of-voice includes a complex bundle of acoustic features, and a lot of parameters have not even been looked at so far. Moreover, all previous studies focused on political or religious leaders and left aside the large field of managers and CEOs in the world of business. These are the two research gaps addressed in the present study. An acoustic analysis of about 1,350 prosodic phrases from keynotes given by a more charismatic CEO (Steve Jobs) and a less charismatic CEO (Mark Zuckerberg) suggests that the same tone-of-voice settings that make political or religious leaders sound more charismatic also work for business speakers. In addition, results point to further charisma-relevant acoustic parameters related to rhythm, emphasis, pausing, and voice quality - as well as to audience type as a significant context factor. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for future perception-oriented studies and perspectives for a computer-based measurement, assessment, and training of a charismatic tone of voice.

Listener Detection of Objectively Validated Acoustic Features of Speech in Huntington’s Disease

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Jess C.S. Chan ◽  
Julie C. Stout ◽  
Christopher A. Shirbin ◽  
Adam P. Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Huntington's Disease ◽  
Huntington’S Disease ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Cognitive Test ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Acoustic Features ◽  
Pitch Level

Background: Subtle progressive changes in speech motor function and cognition begin prior to diagnosis of Huntington’s disease (HD). Objective: To determine the nature of listener-rated speech differences in premanifest and early-stage HD (i.e., PreHD and EarlyHD), compared to neurologically healthy controls. Methods: We administered a speech battery to 60 adults (16 people with PreHD, 14 with EarlyHD, and 30 neurologically healthy controls), and conducted a cognitive test of processing speed/visual attention, the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) on participants with HD. Voice recordings were rated by expert listeners and analyzed for acoustic and perceptual speech features. Results: Listeners perceived subtle differences in the speech of PreHD compared to controls, including abnormal pitch level and speech rate, reduced loudness and loudness inflection, altered voice quality, hypernasality, imprecise articulation, and reduced naturalness of speech. Listeners detected abnormal speech rate in PreHD compared to healthy speakers on a reading task, which correlated with slower speech rate from acoustic analysis and a lower cognitive performance score. In early-stage HD, continuous speech was characterized by longer pauses, a higher proportion of silence, and slower rate. Conclusion: Differences in speech and voice acoustic features are detectable in PreHD by expert listeners and align with some acoustically-derived objective speech measures. Slower speech rate in PreHD suggests altered oral motor control and/or subtle cognitive deficits that begin prior to diagnosis. Speakers with EarlyHD exhibited more silences compared to the PreHD and control groups, raising the likelihood of a link between speech and cognition that is not yet well characterized in HD.

Age Norms for Auditory-Perceptual Neurophonetic Parameters: A Prerequisite for the Assessment of Childhood Dysarthria

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1071-1082
Author(s):  
Theresa Schölderle ◽  
Elisabet Haas ◽  
Wolfram Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Age Norms ◽  
Elementary School Age ◽  
Speech Characteristics ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Computer Based

Purpose The aim of this study was to collect auditory-perceptual data on established symptom categories of dysarthria from typically developing children between 3 and 9 years of age, for the purpose of creating age norms for dysarthria assessment. Method One hundred forty-four typically developing children (3;0–9;11 [years;months], 72 girls and 72 boys) participated. We used a computer-based game specifically designed for this study to elicit sentence repetitions and spontaneous speech samples. Speech recordings were analyzed using the auditory-perceptual criteria of the Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales, a standardized German assessment tool for dysarthria in adults. The Bogenhausen Dysarthria Scales (scales and features) cover clinically relevant dimensions of speech and allow for an evaluation of well-established symptom categories of dysarthria. Results The typically developing children exhibited a number of speech characteristics overlapping with established symptom categories of dysarthria (e.g., breathy voice, frequent inspirations, reduced articulatory precision, decreased articulation rate). Substantial progress was observed between 3 and 9 years of age, but with different developmental trajectories across different dimensions. In several areas (e.g., respiration, voice quality), 9-year-olds still presented with salient developmental speech characteristics, while in other dimensions (e.g., prosodic modulation), features typically associated with dysarthria occurred only exceptionally, even in the 3-year-olds. Conclusions The acquisition of speech motor functions is a prolonged process not yet completed with 9 years. Various developmental influences (e.g., anatomic–physiological changes) shape children's speech specifically. Our findings are a first step toward establishing auditory-perceptual norms for dysarthria in children of kindergarten and elementary school age. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12133380

Acoustic Analysis of Voice Quality in Iron Maiden’s Songs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexsandro Meireles ◽  
Beatriz Raposo de Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Voice Quality

Measuring Vocal Fatigue in Sports Coaches

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Kathy Connaughton ◽  
Irena Yanushevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Professional Sports ◽  
Muscle Adaptation ◽  
Voice Change ◽  
Acoustic Measures ◽  
Perceptual Evaluation ◽  
Coaching Session ◽  
Sports Coaches ◽  
Voice Use

Objective: This study explores the immediate impact of prolonged voice use by professional sports coaches. Method: Speech samples including sustained phonation of vowel /a/ and a short read passage were collected from two professional sports coaches. The audio recordings were made within an hour before and after a coaching session, over three sessions. Perceptual evaluation of voice quality was done using the GRBAS scale. The speech samples were subsequently analyzed using Praat. The acoustic measures included fundamental frequency (f0), jitter, shimmer, Harmonics-to-Noise ratio and Cepstral Peak Prominence. Main results: The results of perceptual and acoustic analysis suggest a slight shift towards a tenser phonation post-coaching session, which is a likely consequence of laryngeal muscle adaptation to prolonged voice use. This tendency was similar in sustained vowels and connected speech. Conclusion: Acoustic measures used in this study can be useful to capture the voice change post-coaching session. It is desirable, however, that more sophisticated and robust and at the same time intuitive and easy-to-use tools for voice assessment and monitoring be made available to clinicians and professional voice users.

Spectral- and Cepstral-Based Acoustic Features of Dysphonic, Strained Voice Quality

2012 ◽  
Vol 121 (8) ◽  
pp. 539-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soren Y. Lowell ◽  
Richard T. Kelley ◽  
Shaheen N. Awan ◽  
Raymond H. Colton ◽  
Natalie H. Chan
Keyword(s):  
Voice Quality ◽  
Acoustic Features

The effect of visual feedback and training in auditory-perceptual judgment of voice quality

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Barsties ◽  
Mieke Beers ◽  
Liesbeth Ten Cate ◽  
Karin Van Ballegooijen ◽  
Lilian Braam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Perceptual Judgment ◽  
And Training

Regression-Based Noise Modeling for Speech Signal Processing

2021 ◽  
pp. 2150022
Author(s):  
Caio Cesar Enside de Abreu ◽  
Marco Aparecido Queiroz Duarte ◽  
Bruno Rodrigues de Oliveira ◽  
Jozue Vieira Filho ◽  
Francisco Villarreal
Keyword(s):  
Speech Enhancement ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Wiener Filter ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Speech Quality ◽  
Speech Signals ◽  
Speech Signal Processing ◽  
Acoustic Environment

Speech processing systems are very important in different applications involving speech and voice quality such as automatic speech recognition, forensic phonetics and speech enhancement, among others. In most of them, the acoustic environmental noise is added to the original signal, decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the speech quality by consequence. Therefore, estimating noise is one of the most important steps in speech processing whether to reduce it before processing or to design robust algorithms. In this paper, a new approach to estimate noise from speech signals is presented and its effectiveness is tested in the speech enhancement context. For this purpose, partial least squares (PLS) regression is used to model the acoustic environment (AE) and a Wiener filter based on a priori SNR estimation is implemented to evaluate the proposed approach. Six noise types are used to create seven acoustically modeled noises. The basic idea is to consider the AE model to identify the noise type and estimate its power to be used in a speech processing system. Speech signals processed using the proposed method and classical noise estimators are evaluated through objective measures. Results show that the proposed method produces better speech quality than state-of-the-art noise estimators, enabling it to be used in real-time applications in the field of robotic, telecommunications and acoustic analysis.

Conversion from a non-indwelling to a Provox®2 indwelling voice prosthesis for speech rehabilitation: comparison of voice quality and patient preference

2003 ◽  
Vol 117 (10) ◽  
pp. 815-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Vlantis ◽  
R. T. Gregor ◽  
H. Elliot ◽  
M. Oudes
Keyword(s):  
Patient Satisfaction ◽  
Prospective Study ◽  
Patient Preference ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Voice Prosthesis ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Speech Rehabilitation ◽  
Perceptual Difference ◽  
The Voice

This prospective study assessed the advantages and problems associated with converting a patient using an older generation non-indwelling voice prosthesis to a newer generation indwelling voice prosthesis, in this case the Provox®2. The voice characteristics of each patient were measured using the old and then the new voice prosthesis. Technical aspects of the insertion of the indwelling prosthesis were noted. Each patient completed a questionnaire after a period of use with the indwelling prosthesis.Changing the prosthesis was simple and uncomplicated in 15 of 17 patients. Acoustic analysis showed improved parameters with the indwelling prosthesis, but no perceptual difference between the two prostheses. The questionnaire revealed that most patients preferred the indwelling prosthesis.Replacing a non-indwelling with an indwelling prosthesis is technically simple, leading to improvement in voice quality and patient satisfaction. It may be reasonable to offer this choice to patients currently using an older generation non-indwelling voice prosthesis.

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