Alterations in tone of voice in patients with restrictive anorexia nervosa: A pilot study

Abstract

This article is about the tone of voice (acoustic perception) in patients with restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN-R). Our goal was to study whether or not there is an alteration of the tone in restrictive anorexia nervosa when the disease has started in the puberty. The total sample consisted of 148 subjects divided in two groups: control (n=102) and AN-R (n=46). The voice´s fundamental frequencies (F0) were determined based on the repetition of two phonemes ("a" and "i") and measured by a microphone Plantonic 300 and a digital recorder. We analyzed the voice´s F0 using Praat software. We present the first data for the normal range of the F0 in Spanish healthy women from 9 to 17 years old who were Spanish native speakers. Finally, we show a comparison of data between AN-R patients and control group.