Effects of Sidetone Amplification on Vocal Function During Telecommunication⁎,
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
The use of technology to communicate remotely has become a new standard in various sectors of society, ranging from work and education to health and leisure. While there are benefits of convenience for this mode of communication, research has shown that frequent use of telecommunication impacts vocal function. Typical speakers report vocal symptoms such as increased vocal effort with increasing use of both audio and audiovisual telecommunication platforms for their work e.g., 1,2. Often, these
Participants
Eighteen cisgender, non-smoking, native speakers of English (eight males and ten females; Mage = 21.0 years SDage = 2.53 years) participated in the study. The participants self-reported no history of speech, language, hearing, or neurological disorders and provided written consent as per the Boston University Institutional Review Board. All participants passed a hearing screening at levels of 25 dB HL at the frequencies of 125, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz. Participants reported
RESULTS
Average values normalized per participant to the baseline condition for the four measured outcomes are shown in Figure 2. The results of the ANOVAs and associated effect sizes are listed in Table 1.
The results from the ANOVA indicated that condition was a statistically significant factor on vocal intensity with a large effect size (Table 1). The post-hoc analysis revealed a statistically significant decrease in vocal intensity between the high and low sidetone amplification (padj = 0.025) and
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of sidetone amplification on vocal function during telecommunication. We hypothesized that participants would decrease their vocal intensity with increasing levels of sidetone amplification. In terms of acoustic estimates of vocal quality, we hypothesized that participants’ LH ratios would increase and that their CPPS values would decrease with increased levels of sidetone amplification. Additionally, we hypothesized that participants would
CONCLUSIONS
This study explored the vocal effects of using sidetone amplification during audio-visual telecommunication. Sidetone amplification resulted in statistically significant decreases in vocal intensity and increases in LH ratio, an acoustic correlate of vocal quality. The impact of sidetone amplification on speakers’ perceptions of vocal effort was less clear, but overall suggested that participants experienced less vocal effort with increased levels of amplification. These findings are tempered
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants R01DC015570 (CES), P50-DC015446 (REH), and T32DC013017 (CAM). The authors thank Hasini Weerathunge for aiding in calibration efforts and providing experimental training.
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2022, Journal of VoiceCitation Excerpt :The extremes of the lines were labeled “Minimal Vocal Effort” (left) and “Maximum Vocal Effort” (right), and the score was measured as the distance of the tick from the left end of the line. Vocal effort was defined for the participants as “how easy or difficult it is to talk in terms of how much effort, strain, discomfort, and/or fatigue you perceive when using your voice, independent of your volume,” as reported in a previous sidetone amplification study.58 The VAS was administered immediately after each task.
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Address correspondence and reprint requests to Nicole E. Tomassi, Graduate Program for Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA
Disclosure: Cara Stepp has received consulting fees from Altec, Inc./Delsys, Inc., companies focused on developing and commercializing technologies related to human movement. Stepp's interests were reviewed and are managed by Boston University in accordance with their conflict of interest policies. All other authors have declared that no competing interests existed at the time of publication.