Age-related acoustic changes in female speech production

Previous research has observed acoustic changes in aging speech caused by physiologic changes that occur during normal aging process, but with highly variable results across studies regarding what acoustic characteristics change and how (Tucker et al., 2021). Gender has been found to be one possible factor related to such variability (Torre & Barlow, 2009). Therefore, this study focuses on the age-related changes in female speech production specifically by comparing certain acoustic measures between younger and older female talkers. Participants (n = 15 × 2 age groups) were instructed to read a set of sentences and recorded. Speech rates, fundamental frequencies (F0) and pitch variations (indexed as pitch velocity and pitch dynamicity; McCloy et al., 2015) were extracted for each talker. The results showed that older talkers tended to speak more slowly with lower mean F0, decreased F0 standard deviations, and decreased F0 ranges. The measures of pitch velocity and dynamicity are novel to the analysis of aging speech, and both turned out to be lower in older talkers, indicating more downdrift and smaller pitch excursions in their speech production. The implications of such acoustic changes for speech recognition will also be discussed.