Effects of Aging on Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Vowel Formants in Men and Women

Abstract

Purpose: This study reports data on vocal fundamental frequency (f_o) and the first four formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3, F4) for four vowels produced by speakers in three adult age cohorts, in a test of the null hypothesis that there are no age-related changes in these variables. Participants were 43 men and 53 women between the ages of 20 and 92 years.

Results: The most consistent age-related effect was a decrease in f_o for women. Significant differences in F1, F2, and F3 were vowel-specific for both sexes. No significant differences were observed for the highest formant F4.

Conclusions: Women experience a significant decrease in f_o, which is likely related to menopause. Formant frequencies of the corner vowels change little across several decades of adult life, either because physiological aging has small effects on these variables or because individuals compensate for age-related changes in anatomy and physiology.

Keywords: Adult acoustics; Aging voice; Formants; Fundamental frequency; Sex differences.

Figure 1

Vowel-specific fundamental frequency (f_o) for cohort I (young adults), cohort II (middle-aged adults) and cohort III (older adults). Top panel shows the box and whisker plots for women and bottom panel for men. The boxplots show the 25^th and 75^th percentiles and the dash line represents the mean. The whiskers show the maximum and minimum values excluding outliers. Outlying data (greater than 1.5 times the intra-quartile range above or below the box) are shown as open round symbols. Asterisk denotes significant age cohort differences.

Figure 2

Vowel-specific frequencies (first through fourth formants) for cohort I (young adults), cohort II (middle-aged adults) and cohort III (older adults). Top panel shows the box and whisker plots for women and bottom panel for men. See Figure 1 caption for boxplot information. Asterisk denotes significant age cohort differences.

Figure 3

Average F1–F2 data for each of the three age cohorts superimposed on the F1–F2 acoustic space from Peterson and Barney (1952; P&B)[39] and Hillenbrand et al. (1995; HGC&W)[34]. Top figure shows the data for women and bottom figure for men.