Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Perturbation

Measurements of Vowels by Normal Malaysian

Chinese Adults
*Hua Nong Ting, *See Yan Chia, †Kang Soo Kim, *Siew Ling Sim, and ‡Badrulzaman Abdul Hamid, *zKuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, and yGimhae, Republic of Korea

Summary: The acoustic properties of vowel phonation vary across cultures. These specific characteristics, including
vowel fundamental frequency (F0) and perturbation measures (Absolute Jitter [Jita], Jitter [Jitt], Relative Average Per-
turbation [RAP], five-point Period Perturbation Quotient [PPQ5], Absolute Shimmer [ShdB], Shimmer [Shim], and 11-
point Amplitude Perturbation Quotient [APQ11]) are not well established for Malaysian Chinese adults. This article
investigates the F0 and perturbation measurements of sustained vowels in 60 normal Malaysian Chinese adults using
acoustical analysis. Malaysian Chinese females had significantly higher F0 than Malaysian males in all six vowels.
However, there were no significant differences in F0 across the vowels for each gender. Significant differences between
vowels were observed for Jita, Jitt, PPQ5, ShdB, Shim, and APQ11 among Chinese males, whereas significant differ-
ences between vowels were observed for all the perturbation parameters among Chinese females. Chinese males had
significantly higher Jita and APQ11 in the vowels than Chinese females, whereas no significant differences were ob-
served between males and females for Jitt, RAP, PPQ5, and Shim. Cross-ethnic comparisons indicate that F0 of vowel
phonation varies within the Chinese ethnic group and across other ethnic groups. The perturbation measures cannot be
simply compared, where the measures may vary significantly across different speech analysis softwares.
Key Words: Fundamental frequency–Perturbation measurements–Malaysian Chinese adults–Normal voice–Sustained
vowels.

INTRODUCTION for Taiwanese males and females between 20 and 29 years

Acoustic measures of phonation have been shown to vary across
cultures.1–3 However, the current literature on fundamental
frequency (F0) and perturbation measures is somewhat
inconsistent across the ethnic groups. Apart from that, an
interesting observation is that these acoustic measures also
vary within the ethnic group, especially in the Chinese ethnic
group.
Andrianopoulos et al3 investigated the F0 and spectral char-
acteristics during prolongation of three vowels of /a/, /i/, and /u/
among four multicultural populations: Caucasian, African
American, native Hindi Indian, and native Mandarin Chinese
with a mean age of around 25 years old. The results revealed
that the Chinese speakers produced the sustained vowels with
significantly higher F0 than the other three ethnic groups. Be-
sides that, the Chinese speakers demonstrated significantly
higher amplitude perturbation compared with the other three
ethnic groups.
Meng et al4 investigated the F0 of Mandarin-speaking Chi-
nese among 212 female speakers and 126 male speakers be-
tween 18 and 22 years old in 10 monophthongs. The finding
of the F0 values was similar to the finding of Andrianopoulos
et al.3 However, the F0 values reported by Wang and Huang5
Accepted for publication May 18, 2010.
From the *Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University
of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; yDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, College of
Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, Inje University, Gimhae, Republic of Korea; and
the zDepartment of Audiology and Speech Sciences, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Hua Nong Ting, PhD, Department of
Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Jalan Pantai
Baharu, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. E-mail: tinghn@um.edu.my
Journal of Voice, Vol. 25, No. 6, pp. e311-e317
0892-1997/$36.00
Ó 2011 The Voice Foundation
doi:10.1016/j.jvoice.2010.05.004
old were 125.6 ± 17.5 and 221.9 ± 19.5 Hz, respectively. An-
other study by Chen6 showed that the F0 of Chinese males
and females were 125 ± 18.3 and 226 ± 25 Hz, respectively.
These F0 values were much lower compared with the findings
of Andrianopoulos et al3 and Meng et al.4 This indicated a dif-
ference in F0 across the Chinese ethnic groups. The F0 and/or
perturbation parameters of normal adults are well documented
for ethnic groups such as Caucasian,3 African American,3 Chi-
nese,3–6 Portuguese,7 Jordanian Arabic,8 and so on. However,
there are limited studies on the F0 and perturbation measure-
ment data for Malaysian Chinese adults.
Malaysia is a multiethnic country, which is composed of
three main ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese, and Indian. The Ma-
lay language is commonly spoken by these three ethnic groups,
who have no difficulty in recognizing and speaking the Malay
vowels. Thus, it is appropriate to use the sustained Malay
vowels to study the F0 and perturbation measurements so that
the acoustic characteristics of these ethnic groups can be com-
pared. Furthermore, the distribution of Malay vowels is quite
even with two high vowels, three middle vowels, one low
vowel, three front vowels, one center vowel, and two back
vowels. There are six Malay vowels: /a/, /e/, / /, /i/, /o/, and
/u/.9,10 The Malay vowels are shown in Table 1.
Most of the studies showed that there was a slight variation
in F0 values across different sustained vowels.3,4,7,11–13
Guimarães and Abberton7 found that F0 of /i/ and /u/ were sig-
nificantly higher than /a/. Lim et al12 showed that there were
significant F0 differences among five vowels except the pairs
of /i/-/u/ and /o/-/a/. Kiliç et al11 reported that there were statis-
tically significant differences among the eight Turkish vowels
for perturbation parameters. The perturbation values of the /u/
and /y/ were generally higher than for the other vowels. Dwire
e312
TABLE 1.
List of Malay Vowels
Tongue Position
Tongue Height Front Center Back
High /i/ /u/
Mid high /e/ /o/
Mid low / /
Low /a/
and McCauley13 found that there was a significant effect of
vowels on the Relative Average Perturbation (RAP) values.
Thus, it would be interesting also to know if there are any sig-
nificant differences of F0 and perturbation parameters across all
the six vowels and across the genders for Malaysian Chinese
adults.
Andrianopoulos et al3 included 11 perturbation measurement
parameters in the study of spectral characteristics among four
multicultural populations such as Absolute Jitter (Jita), Jitter
(Jitt), RAP, Pitch Period Perturbation (PPQ), F0 variation coef-
ficient (vF0), Absolute Shimmer (ShdB), Shimmer (Shim), Am-
plitude Perturbation Quotient (APQ), Smoothened Amplitude
Perturbation Quotient, and Peak Amplitude Variation Coeffi-
cient. Wang and Huang5 studied the Jitt and ShdB perturbation
measures of Taiwanese adults. In the study of Turkish, Kiliç et
al11 examined four perturbation parameters, which included
Jitt, PPQ, Shim, and APQ. Dwire and McCauley13 studied the
perturbation measure of RAP of speakers on two occasions.
In general, perturbation measures such as Jita, Jitt, RAP, PPQ,
ShdB, Shim, and APQ have been commonly used to study the
acoustic characteristics of different ethnic groups.
The aim of this study is to determine the F0 and perturbation
measurement of sustained vowels in Malaysian Chinese adults
using acoustical analysis. The perturbation measures include
Jita, Jitt, RAP, five-point Period Perturbation Quotient
(PPQ5), ShdB, Shim, and 11-point Amplitude Perturbation
Quotient (APQ11). The study also compares the acoustic char-
acteristics of Malaysian Chinese adult voices with the values of
other Chinese groups and ethnicities around the world. Lastly,
the study determines the significant differences in F0 and per-
turbation measures across the genders and across all the six
Malay vowels.
METHODS
Subjects
A total of 60 healthy normal Malaysian Chinese adults between
18.9 and 23.8 years old were selected for the study. The subjects
consisted of 30 males and 30 females, who are currently pursu-
ing their undergraduate studies at the University of Malaya,
Malaysia. The subjects were selected based on the following
criteria during the recording period: no history of smoking, vo-
cal pathology or voice disorder, symptoms of cold and flu, aller-
gies, neurological disease, and respiratory dysfunctions. The
mean age of the subjects was 21.4 years with a standard devia-
tion of 1.21 years.
Journal of Voice, Vol. 25, No. 6, 2011
Equipment and procedure
All the subjects were required to produce steady prolongation
of the six vowels (/a/, /e/, / /, /i/, /o/, and /u/) at a comfortable
pitch and loudness level for a duration of 5 seconds. All the re-
cordings were carried out in a normal room environment with
sound pressure level between 45 and 50 dB(A) using Shure
SM58 microphone (Shure Inc., Mexico D.F., Mexico). The
mouth-to-microphone distance was 2–3 cm. The microphone
was connected to a laptop. The GoldWave14 sound editor soft-
ware (GoldWave Inc., St. John’s, NL, Canada) was used to re-
cord the speech sounds. The speech sounds were sampled at
a rate of 20 kHz with 16-bit resolution. The speech sounds
were saved into the laptop after every sequence of six-vowel
production. The sound pressure level during sustained phona-
tion was recorded around 70 dB(A). For each of the sustained
vowel sounds, the signal was segmented with about 150 milli-
seconds from the start and end point of the sound to avoid the
sudden rising and falling pitch of the sound. The segmented
sounds were analyzed using Praat15 software (Boersma and
Weenink, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) to determine the F0
and perturbation parameters of the speakers.
Statistical analysis
An independent sample t test was used to determine the group
mean differences between males and females for each of the
vowels. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey
post hoc analysis was used to determine the group mean differ-
ence between the vowels. The significant level for independent
sample t test and ANOVA with Tukey procedures was set at
a ¼ 0.05, respectively.
RESULTS
Male subjects
Table 2 shows the F0 and perturbation parameters for Malaysian
Chinese males in six vowels. The overall mean F0 of Malaysian
Chinese males was 119.19 Hz with a standard deviation of
15.61 Hz. /u/ was reported to have the highest frequency,
whereas /a/ had the lowest frequency. The post hoc test revealed
that there were no significant F0 differences between the groups
of vowels (F(5, 174) ¼ 0.551; P > 0.05) among Malaysian Chi-
nese males.
Significant differences in group means between the vowels
were observed among Chinese males for Jita (F(5,
174) ¼ 2.717; P < 0.03), Jitt (F(5, 174) ¼ 2.337; P < 0.05),
PPQ5 (F(5, 174) ¼ 2.979; P < 0.02), ShdB (F(5, 174) ¼ 8.893;
P < 0.001), Shim (F(5, 174) ¼ 7.424; P < 0.001), and APQ11
(F(5, 174) ¼ 8.132; P < 0.001). However, there were no signifi-
cant differences in group means between the vowels among
Chinese males for RAP (F(5, 174) ¼ 2.104; P > 0.05).
Among the vowels, /a/ was observed to have the highest
values for all the perturbation parameters. Post hoc tests were
conducted to look at the multiple comparisons between the
vowels for the perturbation parameters. /a/ had significantly
higher Jita than /u/. As for Jitt and RAP, there were no signifi-
cant differences between /a/ compared with the rest of the
vowels. /a/ had significantly higher PPQ5 than /i/ and /u/. As
Hua Nong Ting, et al Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Perturbation e313

TABLE 2.
Summary Statistics (M and SD) for Acoustic Measures for Malaysian Chinese Males
Parameters

Vowels F0 (Hz) Jita (ms) Jitt (%) RAP (%) PPQ5 (%) ShdB (dB) Shim (%) APQ11 (%)
/a/ 116.12 ± 15.37 40.57 ± 23.53 0.45 ± 0.25 0.25 ± 0.15 0.27 ± 0.13 0.22 ± 0.11 2.34 ± 1.10 1.99 ± 0.91
/e/ 117.30 ± 15.86 37.66 ± 24.32 0.43 ± 0.27 0.24 ± 0.17 0.25 ± 0.13 0.13 ± 0.05 1.53 ± 0.57 1.37 ± 0.53
/ / 119.56 ± 15.85 33.65 ± 15.18 0.39 ± 0.17 0.22 ± 0.11 0.23 ± 0.09 0.14 ± 0.05 1.60 ± 0.65 1.37 ± 0.47
/i/ 120.46 ± 15.49 27.75 ± 16.00 0.33 ± 0.18 0.18 ± 0.12 0.19 ± 0.09 0.12 ± 0.06 1.32 ± 0.68 1.11 ± 0.45
/o/ 119.75 ± 15.86 31.82 ± 18.46 0.37 ± 0.18 0.20 ± 0.12 0.22 ± 0.10 0.14 ± 0.05 1.56 ± 0.61 1.44 ± 0.62
/u/ 122.04 ± 16.21 25.97 ± 10.88 0.31 ± 0.13 0.17 ± 0.08 0.19 ± 0.07 0.13 ± 0.05 1.47 ± 0.55 1.21 ± 0.40
Mean 119.21 ± 15.62 32.90 ± 19.11 0.38 ± 0.21 0.21 ± 0.13 0.22 ± 0.11 0.15 ± 0.07 1.64 ± 0.78 1.42 ± 0.65

for ShdB, Shim, and APQ11, /a/ had significant higher values
than the rest of the vowels.
Female subjects
Table 3 shows the F0 and perturbation measurements for six
vowels in Malaysian Chinese females. The overall mean F0
of Malaysian Chinese females was 207.59 Hz with a standard
deviation of 20.33 Hz. /u/ was reported to have the highest fre-
quency, whereas /e/ had the lowest frequency. The post hoc test
showed that there was no significant F0 difference between the
groups of vowels (F(5, 174) ¼ 0.253, P > 0.05) among Malay-
sian Chinese females.
Significant differences in group means between the vowels
were observed among Chinese females for all the perturbation
parameters: Jita (F(5, 174) ¼ 3.177; P < 0.01), Jitt (F(5,
174) ¼ 2.578; P < 0.03), RAP (F(5, 174) ¼ 2.402; P < 0.04),
PPQ5 (F(5, 174) ¼ 3.842; P < 0.004), ShdB (F(5, 174) ¼
8.086; P < 0.001), Shim (F(5, 174) ¼ 7.669; P < 0.001), and
APQ11 (F(5, 174) ¼ 5.289; P < 0.001).
/a/ had the highest values for all the perturbation parameters
compared with the other five vowels. Post hoc tests were used
to make multiple comparisons between the vowels for the pertur-
bation parameters. /a/ had significantly higher Jita than /i/ and /u/.
Besides that, /a/ had significantly higher Jitt than /i/ and /u/. As for
RAP, /a/ was just slightly significantly higher than /u/. /a/ had sig-
nificantly higher PPQ5 than /i/, /o/, and /u/. As for ShdB, /a/ was
significantly higher than /e/, / /, /i/, /o/, and /u/. /a/ had signifi-
cantly higher Shim than /e/, / /, /i/, and /o/. Lastly, /a/ had signif-
icantly higher APQ11 than /e/, / /, /i/, and /o/.
Significant differences in gender
Generally, the mean F0 of Malaysian Chinese females is higher
than the Malaysian Chinese males in all the six vowels. The
overall mean F0 of Malaysian Chinese females was 1.74 times
higher than that of the Malaysian Chinese males.
The independent sample t tests revealed that Chinese females
had significantly higher F0 than Chinese males in all six vowels.
However, in perturbation parameters, Chinese males had signif-
icantly higher Jita than Chinese females in all the vowels. Chi-
nese males had significantly higher APQ11 than Chinese
females in /a/, /e/, / /, and /o/. No significant differences were
observed between Chinese males and Chinese females for
Jitt, RAP, PPQ5, ShdB, and Shim. Certain acoustic measures
such as Jita and APQ11 that are heavily affected by the differ-
ence in F0 are also expected to exist between male and female
voices. A summary of the significant levels is listed in Table 4.
DISCUSSIONS
The F0 of Malaysian Chinese adults are compared with the data
of other Chinese adults from different cultures and back-
grounds. The comparison is based on the studies that involved
sustained vowels at comfortable pitch and loudness level.
Wang and Huang5 reported that the F0 of Taiwanese Chinese
males and females between 20 and 49 years old were
121.3 ± 16.4 Hz and 213.4 ± 25.4 Hz, respectively. The results
of the study did not differ much from the results of Wang and
Huang. Meng et al4 found that the mean F0 of Chinese adult
males and females of China were 162.09 and 273.88 Hz, re-
spectively, which were much higher than the results of this

TABLE 3.
Summary Statistics (M and SD) for Acoustic Measures for Malaysian Chinese Females
Parameters

Vowels F0 (Hz) Jita (ms) Jitt (%) RAP (%) PPQ5 (%) ShdB (dB) Shim (%) APQ11 (%)
/a/ 206.56 ± 21.99 22.11 ± 9.03 0.44 ± 0.16 0.26 ± 0.10 0.26 ± 0.10 0.19 ± 0.07 2.09 ± 0.70 1.53 ± 0.59
/e/ 205.95 ± 20.71 18.21 ± 7.98 0.37 ± 0.14 0.21 ± 0.09 0.21 ± 0.08 0.12 ± 0.04 1.34 ± 0.40 1.08 ± 0.30
/ / 206.06 ± 21.92 19.12 ± 7.87 0.39 ± 0.15 0.23 ± 0.10 0.22 ± 0.08 0.12 ± 0.04 1.41 ± 0.39 1.10 ± 0.29
/i/ 209.40 ± 20.18 15.98 ± 7.36 0.33 ± 0.15 0.19 ± 0.10 0.19 ± 0.07 0.12 ± 0.06 1.40 ± 0.68 1.14 ± 0.48
/o/ 207.07 ± 19.54 16.68 ± 5.95 0.34 ± 0.13 0.20 ± 0.09 0.20 ± 0.07 0.12 ± 0.03 1.34 ± 0.37 1.05 ± 0.24
/u/ 210.54 ± 20.81 15.66 ± 6.16 0.33 ± 0.15 0.19 ± 0.09 0.20 ± 0.08 0.15 ± 0.08 1.67 ± 0.82 1.29 ± 0.56
Mean 207.59 ± 20.33 17.96 ± 7.69 0.37 ± 0.15 0.21 ± 0.10 0.21 ± 0.08 0.14 ± 0.06 1.54 ± 0.64 1.20 ± 0.46
e314 Journal of Voice, Vol. 25, No. 6, 2011

TABLE 4.
Significant Levels Between Males and Females for Perturbation Parameters in Six Vowels
Vowels

Parameters /a/ /e/ / / /i/ /o/ /u/

F0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Jita 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000
Jitt 0.835 0.272 0.863 0.938 0.564 0.539
RAP 0.836 0.431 0.820 0.597 0.990 0.331
PPQ5 0.877 0.250 0.816 0.883 0.350 0.563
ShdB 0.267 0.194 0.181 0.570 0.091 0.225
Shim 0.310 0.131 0.180 0.628 0.094 0.265
APQ11 0.022 0.010 0.010 0.782 0.002 0.564

study. However, in the study of F0 by Meng et al,4 the method
for eliciting pitch and loudness were not listed. Andrianopolous
et al3 found that the F0 values of comfortable pitch and loudness
by Chinese males and females from China were 154 and
266.73 Hz, respectively, and these values were much higher
than that of the Malaysian Chinese adults also. The study con-
firms that Chinese adults from different cultures and back-
grounds have different average values of F0.
When compared with other ethnic groups, the F0 of Malay-
sian Chinese adults was comparable with the studies conducted
by Sapienza2 for African American males and females and for
white American males and females. Nevertheless, the F0 of
Malaysian Chinese was slightly lower than that of the Jordanian
Arabic speakers,7 Caucasian,3 African American,3 and native
Hindi Indian.3 The F0 comparison among different ethnic
groups is summarized in Table 5.
As for all the ethnic groups,2,3,5,7,8 the F0 of Malaysian
Chinese females was significantly higher than that of the
Malaysian Chinese males. The studies of Whalen et al,1 Andria-
nopoulos et al3 (except for Caucasian males), Meng et al,4
Guimarães and Abberton,7 Kiliç et al,11 Lim et al,12 and Dwire
et al13 reported that high vowels such as /u/ and /i/ had higher
fundamental frequencies than the low vowels such as /a/.
Although differences in F0 between high and low vowels

TABLE 5.
F0 Comparison Among Different Ethnic Groups
/a/ or / / (Hz) /i/ (Hz) /u/ (Hz)

Researcher/Ethnic Group Male Female Male Female Male Female

Ting et al
Malaysian Chinese 116.11 ± 15.36 206.56 ± 21.99 120.46 ± 15.49 209.40 ± 20.18 121.98 ± 16.18 210.54 ± 20.81
4
Meng and Chen
Mainland Chinese 155.83 ± 19.14 267.52 ± 21.09 165.40 ± 21.65 277.01 ± 19.75 165.83 ± 22.93 277.58 ± 21.97
3
Andrianopoulos et al
Caucasian 128.31 ± 26.06 233.46 ± 27.61 125.90 ± 17.25 242.35 ± 25.01 129.92 ± 14.06 242.06 ± 26.92
African American 127.56 ± 36.67 227.99 ± 9.13 140.86 ± 38.35 245.67 ± 9.87 146.01 ± 42.49 256.82 ± 23.17
Hindi India 137.60 ± 3.95 251.64 ± 34.23 139.60 ± 4.91 262.17 ± 37.23 143.09 ± 6.58 263.78 ± 34.85
Mainland Chinese 154.21 ± 20.71 266.73 ± 48.32 162.36 ± 22.15 280.92 ± 36.78 162.25 ± 23.78 295.03 ± 40.20
Guimarães and Abberton7
Portuguese 121.00 ± 6.2 212.50 ± 6.60 135.40 ± 13.10 225.50 ± 5.5 128.20 ± 6.70 222.60 ± 12.40
9
Kilic et al
Turkish 133.50 ± 16.20 Not available 143.90 ± 16.8 Not available 144.50 ± 16.4 Not available
8
Natour and Wingate
Jordanian Arabic 131.34 ± 18.65 231.13 ± 20.86 Not available Not available Not available Not available
5
Wang and Huang
Taiwanese 121.3 ± 16.4 213.4 ± 25.4 Not available Not available Not available Not available
2
Sapienza
African American 123.95 ± 21.03 223.10 ± 29.41 Not available Not available Not available Not available
White American 124.53 ± 23.04 214.90 ± 24.51 Not available Not available Not available Not available
Hua Nong Ting, et al Vocal Fundamental Frequency and Perturbation e315

TABLE 6.
Perturbation Parameter Comparison Among Different Ethnic Groups
/a/ or / / (Hz) /i/ (Hz) /u/ (Hz)

Researcher/Ethnic Group Male Female Male Female Male Female

Malaysian Chinese (Ting et al)
Jita 40.57 ± 23.53 22.11 ± 9.03 27.75 ± 16.00 15.98 ± 7.36 25.97 ± 10.88 15.66 ± 6.16
Jitt 0.45 ± 0.25 0.44 ± 0.16 0.33 ± 0.18 0.33 ± 0.15 0.31 ± 0.13 0.33 ± 0.15
RAP 0.25 ± 0.15 0.26 ± 0.10 0.18 ± 0.12 0.19 ± 0.10 0.17 ± 0.08 0.19 ± 0.09
PPQ5 0.27 ± 0.13 0.26 ± 0.10 0.19 ± 0.09 0.19 ± 0.07 0.19 ± 0.07 0.20 ± 0.08
ShdB 0.22 ± 0.11 0.19 ± 0.07 0.12 ± 0.06 0.12 ± 0.06 0.13 ± 0.05 0.15 ± 0.08
Shim 2.34 ± 1.1 2.09 ± 0.70 1.32 ± 0.68 1.40 ± 0.68 1.47 ± 0.55 1.67 ± 0.82
APQ11 1.99 ± 0.91 1.53 ± 0.59 1.11 ± 0.45 1.14 ± 0.48 1.21 ± 0.40 1.29 ± 0.56
Caucasian3
Jita 77.68 ± 51.97 33.65 ± 20.04 59.05 ± 48.77 48.38 ± 32.28 38.69 ± 18.96 34.56 ± 14.33
Jitt 0.98 ± 0.67 0.76 ± 0.40 0.72 ± 0.59 1.14 ± 0.70 0.49 ± 0.21 0.82 ± 0.31
RAP 0.58 ± 0.41 0.46 ± 0.25 0.42 ± 0.36 0.69 ± 0.42 0.29 ± 0.13 0.50 ± 0.19
PPQ 0.57 ± 0.38 0.44 ± 0.23 0.41 ± 0.33 0.66 ± 0.40 0.29 ± 0.13 0.50 ± 0.19
ShdB 0.12 ± 0.12 0.17 ± 0.04 0.05 ± 0.02 0.11 ± 0.02 0.06 ± 0.03 0.07 ± 0.02
Shim 1.33 ± 1.31 1.97 ± 0.51 0.57 ± 0.23 1.21 ± 0.27 0.65 ± 0.39 0.84 ± 0.21
APQ 1.05 ± 1.01 1.35 ± 0.39 0.47 ± 0.21 0.84 ± 0.22 0.56 ± 0.39 0.59 ± 0.16
African American3
Jita 30.55 ± 12.79 21.35 ± 7.42 60.53 ± 28.08 18.94 ± 15.19 53.44 ± 47.63 28.53 ± 15.26
Jitt 2.09 ± 6.58 1.09 ± 2.38 0.78 ± 0.27 0.47 ± 0.39 0.69 ± 0.57 0.72 ± 0.35
RAP 0.23 ± 0.10 0.29 ± 0.11 0.47 ± 0.17 0.29 ± 0.24 0.41 ± 0.35 0.44 ± 0.22
PPQ 0.23 ± 0.09 0.27 ± 0.08 0.45 ± 0.16 0.26 ± 0.22 0.40 ± 0.33 0.41 ± 0.20
ShdB 0.08 ± 0.06 0.09 ± 0.03 0.07 ± 0.04 0.10 ± 0.03 0.08 ± 0.03 0.06 ± 0.01
Shim 0.84 ± 0.69 0.99 ± 0.40 0.82 ± 0.49 1.16 ± 0.31 0.85 ± 0.33 0.65 ± 0.16
APQ 0.65 ± 0.49 0.66 ± 0.28 0.66 ± 0.32 0.78 ± 0.17 0.71 ± 0.35 0.44 ± 0.10
Hindi Indian3
Jita 45.05 ± 26.61 33.37 ± 20.76 72.11 ± 36.84 30.61 ± 31.00 72.92 ± 52.14 29.33 ± 6.69
Jitt 0.62 ± 0.36 0.88 ± 0.64 1.02 ± 0.54 0.90 ± 1.08 1.05 ± 0.76 0.78 ± 0.25
RAP 0.35 ± 0.23 0.53 ± 0.39 0.59 ± 0.33 0.55 ± 0.67 0.64 ± 0.47 0.48 ± 0.15
PPQ 0.35 ± 0.20 0.52 ± 0.38 0.58 ± 0.33 0.51 ± 0.59 0.60 ± 0.43 0.45 ± 0.15
ShdB 0.11 ± 0.06 0.11 ± 0.07 0.08 ± 0.05 0.14 ± 0.08 0.12 ± 0.07 0.10 ± 0.04
Shim 1.27 ± 0.72 1.26 ± 0.83 0.89 ± 0.54 1.59 ± 0.97 1.40 ± 0.81 1.19 ± 0.49
APQ 0.93 ± 0.43 0.87 ± 0.58 0.69 ± 0.39 1.06 ± 0.60 0.98 ± 0.50 0.91 ± 0.55
Mainland Chinese3
Jita 37.31 ± 45.41 32.03 ± 17.35 57.32 ± 58.02 23.68 ± 23.00 33.81 ± 33.84 27.23 ± 15.76
Jitt 0.57 ± 0.67 0.84 ± 0.53 0.86 ± 0.79 0.65 ± 0.59 0.52 ± 0.45 0.80 ± 0.51
RAP 0.33 ± 0.42 0.52 ± 0.33 0.51 ± 0.47 0.40 ± 0.39 0.31 ± 0.28 0.48 ± 0.31
PPQ 0.32 ± 0.35 0.47 ± 0.29 0.50 ± 0.44 0.34 ± 0.26 0.31 ± 0.26 0.46 ± 0.29
ShdB 0.15 ± 0.13 0.19 ± 0.08 0.10 ± 0.03 0.17 ± 0.07 0.06 ± 0.02 0.10 ± 0.03
Shim 1.72 ± 1.47 2.19 ± 0.85 1.15 ± 0.39 1.98 ± 0.76 0.69 ± 0.25 1.11 ± 0.40
APQ 1.26 ± 0.99 1.46 ± 0.55 0.89 ± 0.28 1.34 ± 0.49 0.54 ± 0.22 0.77 ± 0.28
Turkish11
Jitt 0.50 ± 0.28 NA 0.79 ± 0.56 NA 1.01 ± 0.82 NA
PPQ 0.29 ± 0.17 NA 0.46 ± 0.32 NA 0.62 ± 0.54 NA
Shim 2.60 ± 1.66 NA 2.16 ± 1.01 NA 3.17 ± 2.82 NA
APQ 2.35 ± 1.09 NA 1.68 ± 0.67 NA 2.35 ± 1.75 NA
Taiwanese between 20 and 29 years old5
Jitt 0.61 ± 0.25 0.69 ± 0.23 NA NA NA NA
ShdB 0.26 ± 0.09 1.65 ± 1.58 NA NA NA NA
Abbreviation: NA, not available.
e316
were not statistically significant in the present study, the aver-
age values followed the same direction.
Malaysian Chinese adults generally had lower values for Jita,
Jitt, RAP, and PPQ compared with mainland Chinese.3 How-
ever, Malaysian Chinese adults generally were observed to
have higher values for ShdB, Shim, and APQ compared with
mainland Chinese.3 When compared with the Taiwanese,5 the
Malaysian Chinese adults had lower values for Jitt and ShdB.
Malaysian Chinese adults generally had lower values for Jita,
Jitt, RAP, and PPQ compared with Caucasian,3 African Amer-
ican,3 and Hindi Indian.3 However, Malaysian Chinese adults
generally had higher values for ShdB, Shim, and APQ than
Caucasian,3 African American,3 and Hindi Indian.3 Malaysian
Chinese adults also had lower values for Jitt, PPQ, Shim, and
APQ compared with Turkish adults.11 The comparison of per-
turbation parameters is shown in Table 6.
Jita is highly dependent on F0. Because there is a significant
F0 difference between the genders, then Jita is guaranteed to
differ significantly between males and females. In contrast,
Jitt is not dependent on F0 and thus no significant difference
was observed between the genders. Significant differences in
ShdB, Shim, and APQ11 were observed between /a/ and the
other vowels for both genders. It is interesting to find that for
both genders, /a/ had the highest values for all the perturbation
measures compared with the other five vowels. It is suspected
that because /a/ was the first sustained vowel to be produced
in the sequence, the speakers showed higher perturbation in
producing it. Besides that, certain vowels may be produced
with a different voice quality. An auditory perceptual study of
these vowels can be conducted in the future to look into this
voice quality difference among the vowels.
The F0 values of the present study obtained using Praat
can be compared directly to those obtained using Multi-
Dimensional Voice Program (MDVP) (Kay Elemetrics, Lincoln
Park, NJ) and other softwares. Amir et al16 conducted clinical
comparison between MDVP and Praat to distinguish different
pathological groups. Their study showed that there was no sig-
nificant difference in mean F0 between the two programs. No
significant difference in F0 was observed between different
computer-based speech analysis softwares for normal voices17
and abnormal voices.18 However, the perturbation measures of
the present study may not be simply compared directly to those
obtained using MDVP. Amir et al16 and Maryn et al19 reported
that perturbation measures obtained using MDVP were signifi-
cantly higher than those obtained using Praat for abnormal voi-
ces. This is quite true when some of the perturbation measures
of the present study are lower compared with the studies that
used MDVP.3,8,11 The differences in perturbation measures
were because of the algorithmic differences between the
speech analysis programs.15 Direct comparison of perturbation
measures between Praat and other softwares such as Aerophone
II (Kay Elemetrics, Lincoln Park, NJ), CSpeech (Milenkovic,
Madison, WI), and Visi-Pitch (Kay Elemetrics, Lincoln Park,
NJ) cannot be simply made as well because the compatibility
is unknown. In addition, other factors such as environmental
noise,20 data acquisition environment,21 and sampling rate22
can have effects on the acoustic voice quality measurements.
Journal of Voice, Vol. 25, No. 6, 2011
There are some limitations on the study of the acoustic
measures of Malaysian Chinese adults. The vocal intensity,
height, and weight of the speakers were not controlled in
the study. These factors could affect the acoustic measures.
Furthermore, the study of the acoustic measures was based
on the sustained vowels, which limited the interpretations
of acoustic differences between the ethnic groups. The study
could be extended to different speech tasks and age groups in
the future. To develop normative data, more subjects are
needed. The subjects were selected based on normal voice
history but were not examined for laryngeal structure and
function.
CONCLUSIONS
The study investigated the F0 and perturbation measurements
of six vowels in Malaysian Chinese adults using acoustical
analysis. The F0 of Malaysian Chinese males and females
were reported at 119.19 ± 15.61 and 207.59 ± 20.33 Hz, respec-
tively. The study found that there were no significant differ-
ences in F0 across all the six vowels for both males and
females. However, F0 of Chinese females was significantly
higher than in males for all six vowels. Significant differences
between vowels were observed for Jita, Jitt, PPQ5, ShdB, Shim,
and APQ11 among Chinese males, whereas significant differ-
ences between vowels were observed for all the perturbation
parameters among Chinese females. Chinese males had signif-
icantly higher Jita and APQ11 than Chinese females, whereas
no significant differences were observed between males and fe-
males for Jitt, RAP, PPQ5, and Shim. Cross-ethnic comparisons
indicate that F0 of vowel phonation varies within the Chinese
ethnic groups and across other ethnic groups. However, the per-
turbation measures cannot be simply compared, where the mea-
sures may vary significantly across different speech analysis
softwares.
Acknowledgments
This research is supported by University of Malaya under the
University Malaya Research Grant (RG070/09AET) and Minis-
try of Science, Technology and Innovation under Science Fund
(06-01-03-SF0516). Special thanks to the undergraduate stu-
dents of University of Malaya, who were involved in the record-
ing of the speech sounds.
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