FORMANT FREQUENCY DIFFERENCES IN VOWELS BETWEEN NORMAL AND ELECTRONICALLY DISGUISED MALE VOICE: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Authors

  • PRAKHAR PRASOON Physics Division, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Telangana, India
  • RITIKA VERMA Document Division, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Chandigarh, India.
  • P N RAMAKRISHNAN Physics Division, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Telangana, India.

Keywords:

voice, voice disguise, formants, vowels, electronic disguised voice

Abstract

Voice disguise involves the deliberate alteration of one's voice for deceptive purposes and is commonly employed in criminal activities such as ransom or threatening calls. This manipulation may include non-electronic methods, such as accent adoption and pitch adjustment, as well as electronic methods like phone voice changers and software. In this study, we compared the variation in formant frequency values of five vowels in normal and electronically disguised male voices using Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) and Consonant-Vowel-Vowel-Consonant (CVVC) words. Five normal male voice samples were recorded in the laboratory, and the same samples were electronically disguised with a Voice Changer app. These disguised samples were then analyzed using Multi Speech Model 3700 software. Through statistical analysis, including t-tests and p-value calculations, it was revealed that only vowels /i/ and /o/ exhibited significant formant frequency variation in all formants, example F1, F2, and F3. Moreover, it was noted that only the F2 and F3 frequencies were associated with more significant or nearly significant results. This highlights the intricate impact of electronic disguises on vocal characteristics. These findings enhance our understanding of the acoustic shifts induced by voice disguises, which is crucial for forensic voice analysis and speaker recognition applications. The results presented in this paper contribute to the comprehension of acoustic shifts induced by voice disguises and can be beneficial for applications in forensic voice analysis and speaker recognition.

References

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Published

2024-08-01

How to Cite

PRASOON, P., VERMA, R., & RAMAKRISHNAN, P. N. (2024). FORMANT FREQUENCY DIFFERENCES IN VOWELS BETWEEN NORMAL AND ELECTRONICALLY DISGUISED MALE VOICE: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS. Quantum Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology, 5(3), 94–104. Retrieved from https://qjoest.com/index.php/qjoest/article/view/162

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