Acoustical analyses have been utilized to ascertain the functional status of the laryngeal mechanism for clinical management of communication disorders (Gilbert and Weismer, 1974). In particular, the modal frequency level (MFL), defined as the fundamental frequency most often used by an individual in the act of spontaneous speech (Travis, 1971), is one measurement used to determine if a person's pitch level is adequate. Two other pitch measurements used in the voice assessment are the maximum frequency range (MFR) and the optimum pitch level (OPL). Information is needed to provide guidelines for pitch levels as part of the voice evaluation for adult females of different ages. It is not clear from the literature if there is a statistically significant MFL difference between White female nonsmokers and cigarette smokers as determined by different phonatory tasks. The purpose of this investigation was to compare the MFLs of nonsmoking and cigarette smoking White females between the ages of forty and fifty years. The primary research question was: Does smoking significantly affect the modal frequency level of forty to fifty year old White females as compared with forty to fifty year old White females who do not smoke?

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of measuring the insertion loss (attenuation) provided by cannon earplugs using the Knowles Electronics Manikin for Acoustic Research. Five earplugs were tested in a 90 dB sound field at discrete frequencies matching those published by NIOSH. Each plug was exposed to 10 trials. Results indicate an approximation between values obtained in the study and NICSH published values. Some consistent differences tend to indicate that NIOSH values may overrate low frequency attenuation.

This study investigated the following questions: 1) What is the spectra of human heart sounds when transmitted to the listener's ear through amplified and acoustic stethoscopes? 2) How does the acoustic spectrum of normal heart sounds compare to the threshold of audibility for normal hearing sensitivity? 3) Do normal hearing listeners elect to listen to heart sounds at a higher intensity than the acoustic stethoscope is able to transmit?

No description available.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the influence of three instructional conditions (encouraging, discouraging, and neutral) on eighteen aphasic adults' performance on a naming task. Each subject listened to each audiotaped instructional condition followed by a 20 picture naming task presented with a slide projector for a total of three tasks and 60 pictures. Subjects' mean scores were combined and averaged to derive a grand mean score for each instructional condition. A repeated measures analysis of variance was applied to determine if the differences were significant at the .01 level. No significant differences were found.

Word learning implies learning of both a phonological form and its referent. For nouns, the referent is typically a category of objects, with variability between objects within the category but an overlying similarity that allows them to be categorized together, to function similarly, and to be called by the same label. We hypothesized that by strengthening knowledge of the category of referents a word refers to, we could strengthen learning and use of the word. Three-year old children were provided with elaborated referent category information in the form of multiple exemplars of the referent category. In the first manipulation, children were trained on identical exemplars or variable exemplars. A second manipulation provided children with variable exemplars that had been distributed to support a prototype. Children in the third condition, who were provided with a prototype plus variants, learned words best in expressive and receptive tasks, when tested on trained and untrained items, and at two time points. In a second manipulation, we asked if simultaneous presentation of multiple exemplars leads to better learning of the object label than sequential presentation. Results indicated little difference. We conclude that 3-year-olds learn words best in the presence of variability distributed to highlight both invariant elements of the referent category and those elements that are allowed to vary.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Richard Morris, Florida State University, College of Communication, Dept. of Communication Disorders. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Mar. 3, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Discipline of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, 2004. / Includes list of published articles: leaf iv. Bibliography: leaves [188]-203.