Effects of physiological aging on vowel spectral noise

Vowel spectral noise was studied in the sustained phonations of 48 men representing two levels of physiological condition (good and poor) within each of three chronological age groups (25 to 35, 45 to 55, and 65 to 75 years). Results indicated physiological condition was significantly correlated with noise rankings, whereas chronological age and noise were not significantly correlated. These findings support the notion that physiological condition is a significant variable to consider in the analysis of acoustic characteris-tics of voice. Key Words: Vocal acoustics, Men, Sonagram ALTHOUGH it is well documented that changes> • in acoustic characteristics of voice occur with advancing chronological age (e.g., Endres et al., 1971), much variability has been observed within age groupings (e.g., Hollien & Shipp, 1972). Ramig and Ringel (in press) have suggested that differential physiological aging may be one source of this variability. They studied acoustic character-istics of voice in relation to a measure of physio