Title:EFFECTS OF THE PROMINENCE OF FIRST HARMONIC ON THE PERCEPTION OF BREATHINESS AND VOWEL IDENTITY Authors: Emily Lin, Samuel Sloane,and Donal Sinex Background: Human communication relies on adequate speech intelligibility to enable the comprehension of verbal messages. Dysphonia (i.e., aberrant voice) may not only result in distraction during communication but also interfere with speech intelligibility leading to a communication barrier. One voice quality commonly found in dysphonia is breathiness, which is related to the presence of excessive airflow during phonation due to incomplete glottal closure. Breathiness has been associated with the prominence of the first harmonic (H1) in the acoustic analysis of voice. Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether excessiveness in the first harmonic (H1) dominance, which has been associated with breathy voice, may result in the perception of breathiness and compromise vowel intelligibility. Methods: Participants included 10 female and 10 male normal-hearing adults, aged between 19 to 40 years. Participant’s tasks included a “breathiness rating” and a “vowel identification” task. For the “breathiness rating” task, a direct magnitude method was employed for the participant to rate a 500-ms long vowel (/i/ and /a/) segmented from sustained vowel phonation. For the “vowel identification” task, the vowel stimuli were segmented out from running speech (“Rainbow passage”) and the participants were asked to listen to one vowel stimulus (/i/, /a/, or /o/; duration: 60 ms) at a time and indicate which vowel (i.e., /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, or /u/) they perceived the stimulus to be. The vowel stimuli included processed and unprocessed voice recordings of individuals with and without voice disorders. Voices showing the lowest, median, and highest amplitude differences between the first two harmonics (H1-H2) were chosen from a voice database for female and male voices respectively. The 18 selected vowel signals (3 vowels X 3 H1-H2 levels X 2 speaker genders) were processed through 12 signal manipulation conditions. The 12 signal conditions involved increasing or decreasing the H1 amplitude of the original signals in six 2-dB interval steps in both directions. Results: For the “breathiness rating” task, the five-way (3 vowels X 2 speaker genders X 3 H1-H2 levels X 13 signal conditions X 2 listener genders) Mixed Model Analysis of variance (ANOVA) conducted on the breathiness scores for normal speakers and voice patients separately showed significant findings for various main and interaction effects, such as a significant speaker gender by signal condition by vowel interaction effect on the perception of breathiness [F(12, 96) = 1.95, p = 0.038] for normal voice. An increase of H1-H2 through signal manipulation led to an increase of perceived breathiness only when performed on the vowel /i/ produced by female normal speakers. As for the “vowel identification” task, a relationship between H1-H2 increment and vowel intelligibility was found but the relationship was affected by vowel type, speaker gender, and H1-H2 level. With all vowel types, speaker genders, and H1-H2 levels combined, a significant signal condition effect on the number of incorrect vowel identification was found (2 = 188.585, df = 10, p < 0.001). Generally, it appeared that an increase of H1-H2 would worsen the identification of /i/ but enhance that of /o/. Conclusion: The relationship between H1 dominance and perceived breathiness was non-linear. Factors found to disrupt the linear relationship included speaker gender, vowel type, and the extent of H1 dominance. In addition, there was evidence that acoustic manipulation of the H1 amplitude would affect vowel intelligibility and the relationship between vowel intelligibility and H1-H2 values also vary by speaker genders and vowel types.

1 Abstract The present thesis is concerned with the study of creaky voice and its communicative functions in audio-visual presentation of a brand. This study analyzes nineteen videos that were part of the Sign On campaign produced by Greenpeace in 2009. The main purpose of this thesis is to measure the level of creaky voice in communicative functions. The communicative functions presented in this study are based on the model of Roman Jakobson (1960) and some new functions are proposed as addition to the model. One of the predictions of this thesis is that functions that are emotionally loaded will be comparatively more creaky and this prediction is partially met. Secondly, it was expected to see the same order of the communicative functions based on their level of creakiness among different groups of speakers. This expectation was not met and the possible reasons for the findings are discussed. This thesis uses only acoustic measurements for the comparison of the communicative functions based on their levels of creaky voice. Finally, this thesis discusses the possibilities and current limitations of acoustic methods used for detection of creaky phonation. Keywords: creaky voice, vocal fry, laryngealization, communicative functions, F0, HNR, H1-H2, antimode

This paper responds to the development policy debate involving the World Bank and the IMF on the use of fiscal policy not only for economic stabilization but also to promote economic growth and increase per capita income. A key issue in this debate relates to the effect of the composition of public expenditure on economic growth. Policy makers and some researchers have argued that expenditure on growth-enhancing functions could enhance future revenue and justify the provision of "fiscal space" in the budget. But there are no simple ways to identify the growth-maximizing composition of public expenditure. The current paper lays out a research strategy to explore the effects of fiscal policy, including the composition of public expenditure, on economic growth, using a time series approach. Based on the modeling strategy of Greiner, Semmler and Gong (2005) we develop a general model that features a government that undertakes public expenditure on (a) education and health facilities which enhance human capital, (b) public infrastructure such as roads and bridges necessary for market activity, (c) public administration to support government functions, (d) transfers and public consumption facilities, and (e) debt service. The proposed model is numerically solved, calibrated and the impact of the composition of public expenditure on the long-run per capita income explored for low-, lower-middle- and uppermiddle-income countries. Policy implications and practical policy rules are spelled out, the extension to an estimable model indicated, a debt sustainability test proposed, and the out-of-steady-state dynamics studied.

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