Measures of Vocal Attack Time for Healthy Young Adults

Objective To determine the vocal attack time (VAT) in a healthy young adult population. Study Design Sound pressure (SP) and electroglottographic (EGG) recordings were obtained for 57 female and 55 male subjects while performing multiple tokens of three tasks (sustained /a/, “always,â€‌ and “hallwaysâ€‌) at comfortable pitch and loudness. Methods Generalized sinusoidal models were obtained for SP and EGG signals to compare rates of amplitude change. VAT was computed from the time lag of the cross-correlation function using a fully automated process accompanied by operator validation. Results Adjusted mean VAT values were significantly shorter for females than for males. There was no systematic effect of age on VAT. However, 25- to 29-year-old men showed longer VAT than did the other age and sex subgroups. Conclusions Normative data are presented for a new measure of the duration of vocal initiation, VAT. Acquiring this measure requires very little intervention by the user and, thereby, eliminates the influence of subjective decision making. Although beyond the scope of this article, we suggest several factors that might underlie VAT as a function of speaker sex and age.