The relationship of age and cardiovascular health to certain acoustic characteristics of male voices.

The purpose of this investigation was to obtain information about the acoustic characteristics of men's voices as a function of age and cardiovascular health. Eighteen adult males, divided equally into groups of healthy young and elderly men and elderly men diagnosed with chronic atherosclerosis in the absence of other systemic complaints, prolonged the vowel /a/ at a comfortable pitch maintained within 70-78 dB SPL. Measures of mean fundamental frequency (F0), mean jitter and shimmer (both absolute and relative), and the standard deviation of F0, SPL, and peak-to-peak vocal amplitude were computed. Significant differences were found between the healthy young and healthy elderly subjects on measures of F0 and amplitude SD, percent jitter, and shimmer. Differences were generally magnified when the younger subjects were compared with the elderly atherosclerotic subjects. Although only percent jitter significantly differentiated between the two geriatric groups, the atherosclerotics' phonations were generally associated with greater short- and long-term variability (as well as intersubject variability) than the healthy elderly men. Unlike the younger subjects, the elderly (especially the elderly atherosclerotic) subjects' perturbation measures fell much closer to the upper limits established in the literature for normal voices, indicating that the elderly speaker may be more prone to vocal disruption in the face of pathology.