SPPA 4030 Lab Activity Name: ______
Topic: Measuring Phonatory Function
DUE DATE: THURSDAY NOVEMBER 26, 2013 IN CLASS
This assignment requires your own audio recordings. Like the files for Assignment 1, the student audio recordings first have to be downloaded from the course website. This only works with PC computers so if you use a Mac, use one of the WMU systems. Log onto the class website and go to “Assignments.” You will see a link titled “Student Files (zip).” This is a zip file that contains all the student recordings. While you will only need to use your own files, it is easier to download all of them. Right click the mouse on the link to and select the option that says “save link as” or something close to that. Download the files to the same location you used to download the original files. Then, when you start TF32 to complete the assignment, you can easily find the folder containing your files.
Point Value: This assignment is worth 4/15 points toward “lab assignments”
PART I: Manual measurement of fundamental frequency using time and frequency domain analysis
Learning Objectives:
1. Learn to measure fundamental frequency of a signal from a sound pressure waveform
2. Learn to measure fundamental frequency and other harmonic frequencies in an amplitude spectrum
Learning Aids:
You really need to look over the following Youtube tutorials before and during the completion of this activity. Links are in the Course Materials section of the course webpage.
TF32 Acoustic Analysis Tool Part 1 (Youtube)
TF32 Acoustic Analysis Tool Part 2 (Youtube)
TF32 Spectrum Display Part 1 (Youtube)
TF32 Spectrum Display Part 2 (Youtube)
Required Files:
Yourname_words.wav
Activity Instructions:
1. Start the program called tf32.exe (see Youtube video for details)
2. Open ‘yourname_words.wav in tf32.exe.
3. Your job is to measure the fundamental frequency at the midpoint of each of the four corner vowels (i.e. hawed, who’d, heed, had) using (1) time and (2) frequency domain methods.
a. Identify your target word (e.g. ‘heed’)
b. Time expand a region near the middle of the vowel sample so that the individual oscillation cycles can be discerned and measured. Using the cursors measure the fundamental period of 5 consecutive cycles. Calculate the fundamental frequency of each cycle, calculate the mean across the 5 cycles and record your results in the table below.
c. Place the left cursor at the midpoint of the vowel. Make sure your right cursor is at least a second to the right of the left cursor. Open an amplitude spectrum window (see video demo). Measure the frequency of the first harmonic and record your response in the table below. If you have a hard time seeing the first harmonic, you can equivalently measure the frequency of two successive harmonics and use that approach to derive fundamental frequency.
Vowel / Mean of 5 cycles / H1 Frequency (or harmonic difference) (Hz)Hawed
Heed
Who’d
Had
PART II: Automated Measurement of Fundamental Frequency
Learning Objective:
Learn to use and evaluate automated measures of speaking fundamental frequency and fundamental frequency variability
Learning Aids:
TF32 Acoustic Analysis Tool Part 1 (Youtube)
TF32 Acoustic Analysis Tool Part 2 (Youtube)
Speaking F0 Measurement (Youtube)
Required Files:
yourname_sents.wav
Activity Instructions:
1. Start the program called tf32.exe (see Youtube video “Speaking F0 Measurement” for details)
2. Open your yourname_sents.wav in TF32.
3. Using the approach outlined in the Youtube tutorial “Speaking F0 Measurement”, determine the speaking F0 mean, F0 standard deviation (SD F0), minimum F0 and maximum F0 for the test sentence. It is important to point out that the statistical summary of fundamental frequency is based on the audio sample between the left and right cursor, or when there are no cursors placed, over the timespan on the computer screen. Therefore, you will need to place cursors around the task of interest to ensure your measures will be on the appropriate task.
Mean F0 (Hz): ______
SD F0 (Hz): ______
Min F0 (Hz): ______
Max F0 (Hz): ______
PART III: Clinical Sample Comparison
Learning Objective:
Compare fundamental frequency tracking for pre and post treatment samples of a test word.
Learning Aids:
TF32 Acoustic Analysis Tool Part 1 (Youtube)
TF32 Acoustic Analysis Tool Part 2 (Youtube)
Speaking F0 Measurement (Youtube)
Required Files:
Location: case 1
rbwpretx.wav
rbwposttx.wav
Activity Instructions:
1. Start the program called tf32.exe
2. First open rbwpretx.wav (pre-treatment sample).
3. In the “View” menu, select “Time Freq A” and then check the ‘close TF’ option and then select “OK”. This will remove the spectrogram view.
4. In the “View” menu, select “Open” and then select “pitch trace”.
5. Use the cursors to expand the view of the speech signal around the words ‘a rainbow’ in the sentence ‘…a prism and form a rainbow’. This will provide an clear view of the F0 trace for the word ‘rainbow.’ Copy and paste the image into a Word file (see Youtube video if you need help with that).
6. Repeat steps 2-5 for the file called rbwposttx.wav (post-treatment sample).
Listen carefully to the pre and post treatment productions of the word rainbow. Do they sound different? If so, try to describe the difference using terms we discussed in class.
Attach a copy of the two plots of the fundamental frequency traces. Describe (you can use annotations on the plot) how the two plots differ. Try to link what you hear with what you see in the physical analysis of the plot.