Main idea of my project is how I can design a building for music and especially for voice - which is the natural instrument of a human body. The music college something more than the place for training music technical skills but the building by itself preform as instrument, as a platform for experimenting with different acoustic features, as a place of inspiration as well as an a performing venue. In theory music is a temporal art, and architecture – is spatial one. However music forms the spatial bounders while it` sounds in the certain space. Rhythm, harmony and movement – they are both reflected in music and architecture. Design of a school is based on integration of this principles into architecture. And I have been working at how the rethinking of musical education process can affect the shape, structure and appearance of the building for the singing.

Introduction: The aim of the present study was the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) in Persian. Methods: The English version of the VFI was translated to Persian using the guidelines of International Quality of Life Assessment. Eighty participants with voice disorders and 50 healthy controls without any voice disorders completed the Persian version of the VFI. The 80 participants with voice disorders completed the VFI a second time a week from the initial completion to evaluate test-retest reliability. Results: The VFI measure demonstrated a strong internal consistency. Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.95 for tiredness and avoidance of voice use, 0.86 for physical discomfort and 0.83 for improvement or lack thereof of symptoms with voice rest. VFI also showed a high test-retest reliability (r = 0.75–0.89). Conclusions: The Persian version of the VFI is considered to be a valid and reliable questionnaire for identifying individuals with probable vocal fatigue. The VFI can be utilized in clinics across Iran in the assessment and treatment of individuals with vocal fatigue.

L'interaction vocale avec des systèmes automatiques connaît, depuis quelques années, un accroissement dans l'intérêt que lui porte tant le grand public que la communauté de la recherche. Cette thèse s'inscrit dans ce cadre pour aborder le sujet depuis deux points de vue complémentaires. D'une part, celui apparent de la fiabilité, de l'efficacité et de l'utilisabilité de ces interfaces. D'autre part, les aspects de conception et d'implémentation sont étudiés pour apporter des outils de développement aux concepteurs plus ou moins initiés de tels systèmes. A partir des outils et des évolutions dans le domaine, une plate-forme modulaire de dialogue vocal a été agrégée. L'interaction continue, basée sur une "écoute" permanente du système pose des problèmes de segmentation, de débruitage, de capture de son, de sélection des segments adressés au système, etc... Une méthode simple, basée sur la comparaison des résultats de traitements parallèles a prouvé son efficacité, tout comme ses limites pour une interaction continue avec l'utilisateur. Les modules de compréhension du langage forment un sous-système interconnecté au sein de la plate-forme. Ils sont les adaptations d'algorithmes de l'état de l'art comme des idées originales. Le choix de la gestion du dialogue basé sur des modèles de tâches hiérarchiques, comme c'est la cas pour la plate-forme, est argumenté. Ce formalisme est basé sur une construction humaine et présente, de fait, des obstacles pour concevoir, implémenter, maintenir et faire évoluer les modèles. Pour parer à ceux-ci, un nouveau formalisme est proposé qui se transforme en hiérarchie de tâches grâce aux outils associés. / Recently, global tech companies released so-called virtual intelligent personal assistants.This thesis has a bi-directional approach to the domain of spoken dialog systems. On the one hand, parts of the work emphasize on increasing the reliability and the intuitiveness of such interfaces. On the other hand, it also focuses on the design and development side, providing a platform made of independent specialized modules and tools to support the implementation and the test of prototypical spoken dialog systems technologies. The topics covered by this thesis are centered around an open-source framework for supporting the design and implementation of natural-language spoken dialog systems. Continuous listening, where users are not required to signal their intent prior to speak, has been and is still an active research area. Two methods are proposed here, analyzed and compared. According to the two directions taken in this work, the natural language understanding subsystem of the platform has been thought to be intuitive to use, allowing a natural language interaction. Finally, on the dialog management side, this thesis argue in favor of the deterministic modeling of dialogs. However, such an approach requires intense human labor, is prone to error and does not ease the maintenance, the update or the modification of the models. A new paradigm, the linked-form filling language, offers to facilitate the design and the maintenance tasks by shifting the modeling to an application specification formalism.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第24504号 / 医博第4946号 / 新制||医||1064(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 溝脇 尚志, 教授 浅野 雅秀, 教授 鈴木 実 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Voiced communication plays a fundamental role in society. Voice research seeks to improve understanding of the fundamental physics governing voice production, with the eventual goal of improving methods to diagnose and treat voice disorders. For this thesis, three different aspects of voice production research were studied. First, porcine vocal fold medial surface geometry was determined, and the three-dimensional geometric distortion induced by freezing the larynx, especially in the region of the vocal folds, was quantified. It was found that porcine vocal folds are qualitatively geometrically similar to canine and human vocal folds, as well as commonly used models, and that freezing of tissue in the larynx causes distortion of around 5%. Second, a setup of multiple high-resolution cameras and a stereo-endoscopy system simultaneously recorded positions on the superior surface of synthetic, self-oscillating vocal fold models to estimate the error in the measurement of the three-dimensional location by the stereo-endoscopy system. The error was found to be low in the transverse plane, whereas the error was relatively large in the inferior-superior direction, suggesting that the stereo-endoscope is applicable for in vivo measurements of absolute distances of the glottis in the transverse plane such as glottal length, width, and area. Third, a function for strain-varying Poisson's ratio for silicone was developed from experimental data. It is anticipated that the findings herein can aid voice researchers as they study voice production, leading to improved voice care.

Most research investigating vocal expressions of emotion has focused on one or more of three questions: whether there exist unique acoustic profiles of individual encoded emotions, whether the nature of emotion expression is universal across cultures, and how accurately decoders can identify expressed emotions. This dissertation begins to answer a fourth question, whether there exist unique patterns in the types of acoustic properties persons focus on to identify vocalized emotions. Three hypotheses were tested: first, whether acoustic patterns are interpreted idiographically or nomothetically as reflected in a comparison of individual vs. group lens model identification ratios; second, whether there exists a decoder by emotion interaction for scores of accuracy; and third, whether such an interaction is mediated by the acoustic properties of the vocalized emotions. Results from hypothesis one indicate there is no difference between individual and group identification ratios, demonstrating that vocalized emotions are decoded nomothetically. Results from hypothesis two indicate there is not a significant decoder by emotion interaction on scores of accuracy, demonstrating that decoders who are generally good (or bad) at identifying some vocalized emotions tend to be generally good (or bad) at identifying all vocalized emotions. There are, however, significant main effects for both emotion and decoder. Anger and happiness are more accurately decoded than fear and sadness. Perhaps most importantly, multivariate results from hypothesis three indicate strong and consistent differences across the four emotions in the way they are identified acoustically. Specifically, decoders identify anger by primarily focusing on spectral characteristics, fear by primarily focusing on frequency (F0), happiness by primarily focusing on rate, and sadness by focusing on both intensity and rate. These acoustic mediation differences across the emotions are also shown to be nomothetic, that is, they are surprisingly consistent across decoders.

Mental tumbling blocks are a problem in sports such as cheerleading where the athlete has an unexplained fear related to performing a skill that has been previously executed successfully. The current study compared participants with and without a mental tumbling block on self-report measures of anxiety and on vocal analysis data indicating if anxiety or fear is present. Participants were female cheerleaders who ranged in age from 10 to 16 years old. The Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2; Smith, Smoll, Cumming & Grossbard, 2006) and the Cheerleading Fear Inventory (CFI; modified from Cartoni, Minganti, and Zelli, 2005) were used in addition to vocal analysis measures assessing pitch and intensity. These vocal analysis measures were taken under two conditions while the cheerleader was interviewed (1) about tumbling and (2) about school. Results indicated that athletes with a mental block reported higher somatic anxiety, concentration disruption, and overall anxiety on the SAS-2 than participants who did not have a mental tumbling block. Similarly, athletes with a mental tumbling block reported higher scores on the CFI than athletes without a mental tumbling block. In addition, athletes with a mental tumbling block showed higher pitch on the vocal analysis measure than athletes without a mental tumbling regardless of interview condition. Finally, several significant correlations emerged between scores on the SAS-2, the CFI, and the vocal analysis measures. These results are discussed in terms of the existing literature, and practical suggestions are offered that may help coaches understand how to effectively handle mental blocks at practice.

This experiment furthered previous research on perceptions of speakers as a function of various vocal characteristics. A low relevance passage was recorded by male and female speakers, simulating voices of orotund, thin, thoaty, flat, breathy, as well as rate and pitch variations, so as to determine effects on persuasiveness and confidence. Main effects were found regarding gender across all vocal characteristics. While an orotund voice produced predominately positive effects of ratings of speakers' confidence and persuasiveness, a breathy effect elicited negative ratings. The male speaker was judged more harshly than the female speaker when the vocal characterization departed from the norm.

The project objective is to improve clinical assessment and diagnosis of the voice disorder, vocal hyperfunction (VH). VH is a condition characterized by excessive laryngeal and paralaryngeal tension, and is assumed to be the underlying cause of the majority of voice disorders. Current clinical assessment of VH is subjective and demonstrates poor inter-rater reliability. Recent work indicates that a new acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is sensitive to the maladaptive functional behaviors associated with VH and can potentially be used to objectively characterize VH. Here, we explored and enhanced the potential for RFF as a measure of VH in three ways. First, the current protocol for RFF estimation was optimized to simplify the recording procedure and reduce estimation time. Second, RFF was compared with the current state-of-the-art measures of VH – listener perception of vocal effort and the aerodynamic ratio of sound pressure level to subglottal pressure level. Third, an automated algorithm that utilized the optimized recording protocol was developed and validated against manual estimation methods and listener perception. This work enables large-scale studies on RFF to determine the specific physiological elements that contribute to the measure’s ability to capture VH and may potentially provide a non-invasive and readily implemented solution for this long-standing clinical issue.

<p> Experiments have shown that manipulations of vocal fundamental frequency, a physical correlate of voice pitch, alter perceptions of vocal attractiveness. Individual experiments, however, have found different effects of pitch manipulations on attractiveness. One possible explanation for the disparate findings may be differences in the strength of pitch manipulations used between studies. The focus of this thesis is to determine psychophysical properties of vocal attractiveness based on pitch manipulations. Within the thesis, two experiments are described that were designed to find just-noticeable differences in vocal attractiveness based on pitch manipulations. The experiments were also designed to determine if there are limits for voice pitch preferences. Relevant background concepts to the thesis are described in Chapters 2-5, and a manuscript is presented in Chapter 6 that describes the methods and results of the experiment, and gives a discussion of the findings.</p> <p> In Chapter 2, the basic anatomy underlying vocal production is explained, including the anatomical structures involved in the source-filter model of vocal production.</p> <p> In Chapter 3, relevant acoustic properties of the voice are described, including fundamental frequency, harmonics, and formant frequencies.</p> <p> In Chapter 4, the basic anatomy involved in audition is explained, including how sound is propagated through the ear.</p> <p> In Chapter 5, a brief review of previous psychophysical research on pitch discrimination and perceived vocal traits is given.</p> <p> In Chapter 6, two experiments are described. Experiment 1 was designed to determine just-noticeable differences in voice pitch discrimination. Experiment 2 was designed to determine just-noticeable differences in voice attractiveness based on manipulations of voice pitch. Experiment 2 was also designed to assess potential limits to voice pitch preferences for supernormal stimuli. Just-noticeable differences in vocal attractiveness were larger than just-noticeable differences in pitch discrimination. Just-noticeable differences in attractiveness were larger in women's voices than men's. There was no limit in men's preferences for highpitched voices, however there was a limit for women's preferences for low-pitched voices below the natural male pitch range.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)