Formant frequencies have rarely been used as acoustic features for speech recognition, in spite of their phonetic significance. For some speech sounds one or more of the formants may be so badly defined that it is not useful to attempt a frequency measurement. Also, it is often difficult to decide which formant labels to attach to particular spectral peaks. This paper describes a new method of ...

This paper presents a new method for estimating formant frequencies. The formant model is based on a digital resonator. Each resonator represents a segment of the short-time power spectrum. The complete spectrum is modeled by a set of digital resonators connected in parallel. An algorithm based on dynamic programming produces both the model parameters and the segment boundaries that optimally m...

A psycho-acoustical experiment was conducted using synthetic vowel-like stimuli to examine effect of formant amplitude in vowel perception. Nine combinations of formant frequencies were examined. For each combination, relative amplitude of the third to the second formants was modified in seven degrees. In eight of the nine combinations, perceived vowels were changed according to the formant amp...

Examining how increasing distance affects the information content of vocal signals is fundamental for determining the active space of a given species' vocal communication system. In the current study we played back male koala bellows in a Eucalyptus forest to determine the extent that individual classification of male koala bellows becomes less accurate over distance, and also to quantify how i...

The four experiments reported here measure listeners' accuracy and consistency in adjusting a formant frequency of one- or two-formant complex sounds to match the timbre of a target sound. By presenting the target and the adjustable sound on different fundamental frequencies, listeners are prevented from performing the task by comparing the absolute or relative levels of resolved spectral compo...

Background: Models of honest advertisement predict that sexually selected calls should signal male quality. In most vertebrates, high quality males have larger body sizes that determine higher social status and in turn higher reproductive success. Previous research has emphasised the importance of vocal tract resonances or formant frequencies of calls as cues to body size in mammals. However, t...

In this master thesis, the formant frequencies of an excellent male Swedish barbershop quartet were examined. The choice of topic was based on several factors that ought to make the tuning of the formant frequencies extremely important in the strive for the characteristic barbershop sound. The quartet was recorded, singing parts of the song 'Paper Moon'. In the recordings, each singer had an in...