- What are the formant frequencies?
- How many formants are in the human voice?
- Do formant frequencies for vowels vary by age or gender?
What are the formant frequencies?
In simple terms, formants are the frequencies of different sounds, particularly vowels. They vary in frequency based on the size and shape of the vocal tract. Together, all the formants let us know what a specific sound is. For example, /o/ as in top and /u/ as in cup have similar articulation.
How many formants are in the human voice?
Three formants are generally required to synthesize a vowel sound. These regions appear as dark horizontal bands on a SPECTROGRAM or amplitude peaks on a line SPECTRUM.
Do formant frequencies for vowels vary by age or gender?
There is a broad consensus in the literature that vowel-specific formant patterns differ as a function of gender (men/women) or age (adults/children) due to different average vocal tract sizes.