Abstract
The mean airflow rate (MFR) at the habitual vocal pitch and intensity shows great intersubject and intrasubject variations for normal subjects. In other words, the normal range of MFR is wide. Therefore, abnormalities can be determined only when the MFR value is very large.
We thought normal variations might be smaller for the minimum airflow rate at some F0 and/or SPL levels of phonation than MFR. This paper describes preliminary results obtained from 14 male and 14 female subjects. With the use of flow-F0 and flow-SPL profiles, the minimum airflow rate was determined for five F0 levels, 100,140,200,280 and 400Hz, and for four SPL levels, 60, 70, 80 and 90dB. The minimum airflow rate was smaller at middle F0 than at low and high F0. The intersubject variation did not differ significantly among different F0. The minimum airflow rate and its intersubject variations increased with increasing SPL.
