Fundamental frequency statistics for young male speakers of mandarin

Abstract

In forensic speaker comparison (FSC), it is essential not only to evaluate the similarity between two (or more) samples, but also the typicality of the features in the relevant population. For the typicality, it is necessary that the population statistics related to the phonetic parameters be available. This article presents the statistics for the fundamental frequency (F0) of 100 young Chinese male speakers producing both reading and spontaneous speech. Five descriptive statistics of long-term F0, namely mean, median, mode, standard deviation (SD), and coefficient of variation (CV = SD/mean), are shown in histograms and scatter diagrams. Results show that the distributions of the five statistics are near normal. The findings are compared with the literature and discussed with respect to forensic phonetic implications. This article concludes that the results for the F0 statistics in the present study can be used in FSC casework as reference data on F0 for the young male Chinese population.

Keywords

• Forensic speaker comparison
• fundamental frequency
• Mandarin
• population statistics