著者

平原 達也 伊福部 達 吉本 千禎

出版者

一般社団法人 日本音響学会

雑誌

日本音響学会誌 (ISSN:03694232)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.38, no.6, pp.321-329, 1982

被引用文献数

4

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In order to analyze the articulation mechanism of a talking bird "Mynah, " mimic voices obtained in He- O_2 atmosphere are compared with those in the normal air based on the frequency analysis by linear prediction. A mixture of 80%-He and 20%-0_2 at one atm is used in the experiment of helium voices, and 36 mimic voices consisted of words are recorded by a taperecorder in both cases. Comparing vowel parts of normal voices with those of helium voices, it is found that the spectrum pattern of mimic voices has two types, I and II, about the structure of spectral envelope peak components. Type I shows the frequency shift in helium atmosphere and type II shows no frequency shift. Spectral envelope peak components of type I appear around 0. 8-1. 2kHz, 1. 8-2. 4kHz and 3. 8-4. 4kHz, and their frequencies do not change with vowels. On the other hand, the component of type II appears in the range from 1. 5 to 3kHz and its frequency changes with vowels. It is ascertained that (1) only the spectral envelope peak components of type I show almost the same frequency shift as those estimated by the formula describing theoretical transformation of peak frequencies, (2) spectral envelope peak frequencies of type I coincide with resonance frequencies obtained by twin-tube model of which parameters correspond to the vocal tract of Mynah, (3) the number of observed spectral envelope peaks are beyond that of the resonances calculated by twin-tube model, and (4) the observed spectral envelope coincides with one which is obtained by adding a component of type II to the spectral envelope estimated from the source-system model using spectral envelope peaks of type I as poles. From above results and analyses, it is confirmed that type I has multi peak components which are formed by resonances of the vocal tract, and type II has a single peak component which may not be formed by the resonance. Furthermore, it is assumed that Mynah's syrinx may produce two components as sound sources. The first one has a wide range spectrum composed of pitch and its harmonics, which is similar to the sound source by human's vocal cord. The second one has a higher frequency component corresponding to type II. This hypothesis may be also supported by the anatomical structure of the syrinx. From above considerations, it is concluded that Mynah may produce the vowel part of mimic voices by controlling the frequency of the second sound source in addition to use almost fixed resonance components obtained by its vocal tract.