title: Measures of vocal attack time for healthy young adults.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the vocal attack time (VAT) in a healthy young adult population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sound pressure (SP) and electroglottographic (EGG) recordings were obtained for 57 female and 55 male subjects while performing multiple tokens of three tasks (sustained /a/, "always," and "hallways") at comfortable pitch and loudness.
  
  
  METHODS
  Generalized sinusoidal models were obtained for SP and EGG signals to compare rates of amplitude change. VAT was computed from the time lag of the cross-correlation function using a fully automated process accompanied by operator validation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Adjusted mean VAT values were significantly shorter for females than for males. There was no systematic effect of age on VAT. However, 25- to 29-year-old men showed longer VAT than did the other age and sex subgroups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Normative data are presented for a new measure of the duration of vocal initiation, VAT. Acquiring this measure requires very little intervention by the user and, thereby, eliminates the influence of subjective decision making. Although beyond the scope of this article, we suggest several factors that might underlie VAT as a function of speaker sex and age.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York 10595, USA. roark@nymc.edu
authors.forename: Rick M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Roark
authors.forename: Ben C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Baken
authors.forename: Darnell J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Jennifer M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Thomas
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010699:Phonation / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D014833:Voice Quality / Q000502:physiology*; D014894:Weights and Measures; D055815:Young Adult