title: Is the speaking fundamental frequency in females related to body height?
abstract: The aim of the study was to determine the impact of body height on speaking fundamental frequency (SF0) while controlling for as many as possible influencing factors such as habits, biophysical conditions, medication, diseases, and others. Fifty-eight females were analyzed during spontaneous speech (i.e. explaining driving directions or a cooking recipe) of at least 60 seconds at comfortable pitch and loudness. The subjects showed a moderate negative and significant correlation between body height and SF0 (r = -0.40, P = 0.002). With r(2) = 0.16, however, a reasonable portion (16%) of the variance in SF0 is explained by the variance in body height. In comparison with other factors for which a correlation with SF0 was mentioned in literature (hypothyrodism, hemodialysis, auditory-maleness after female-to-male transsexualism, body weight, body mass index, and body fat), body height accounted for most of the proportion of SF0 in females. It is therefore possible to validate body height as a factor to account for in clinical F0 measurement.
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Health Care, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht , Utrecht , The Netherlands.|b Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp , Antwerp , Belgium.
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Barsties
authors.affiliation: c Department of Speech-Language Therapy , Zuyd University College , Heerlen , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rudi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Verfaillie
authors.affiliation: d Vocational School, University Hospital Aix-la-Chapelle , Aachen , Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dicks
authors.affiliation: b Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp , Antwerp , Belgium.|e Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery , Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Sint-Jan General Hospital , Bruges , Belgium.|f Faculty of Education, Health & Social Work, University College Ghent , Ghent , Belgium.
authors.forename: Youri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maryn
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001827:Body Height; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Body height; speaking fundamental frequency; voice measurement