Effects of race and sex on acoustic features of voice analysis

This study sought to provide preliminary normative data for the vocal produ ctions of 44 Euro-American and 40 African-American elderly speakers and to test the hypotheses that (1) Euro-American elderly speakers do not have sig nificantly different acoustic parameters of voice from African-American eld erly speakers, and (2) elderly male speakers (both Euro-American and Africa n-American) do not have significantly different acoustic parameters of voic e from elderly female speakers (both Euro-American and African-American). V oice samples from groups of 44 Euro-Ameri can (21 men and 23 women) and 40 African-American (20 men and 20 women) elderly speakers (ages 70 to 80 year s) from northeastern Arkansas were compared on measures of 15 selected mult idimensional voice profile (KAY Elemetrics) acoustic parameters. Analysis s how that Euro-American elderly speakers did not differ significantly from A frican-American elderly speakers on the measurements of all the selected ac oustic parameters of voice, and elderly male speakers as a group differed f rom elderly female speakers on the measurements of absolute litter, soft ph onation index, and standard deviation of the fundamental frequency as well as fundamental frequency in Hz. The findings suggest it may not be necessar y to establish separate acoustic norms of voice for Euro-American and Afric an-American elderly speakers. However, some acoustic parameters of voice ar e highly sex-dependent, and different norms may be needed for male and fema le speakers regardless of their racial origins.