On the use of respiratory masks for speech measurements Free

Ideally, respiratory masks, when used to make certain measurements of speech and singing, should not interfere with what is being measured. Unfortunately this is not always the case. In this paper, two masks intended for speech measurements, are experimentally compared. One is a hard-walled mask manufactured and marketed by Kay-Pentax. The other is the circumferentially-vented pneumotachograph (CV) mask manufactured and marketed by Glottal (Syracuse, NY). Distortion measures, as quantified by formant frequencies, and muffling measures, as quantified by estimated mask transfer functions, indicate that the hard-walled mask interferes with the speech characteristics much more than does the CV mask. It is hypothesized that SPL measurements are also likely to be inaccurate if taken when using the hard-walled mask.