Acoustic interaction between the right and left piriform fossae in generating spectral dips

Abstract

It is known that the right and left piriform fossae generate two deep dips on speech spectra and that acoustic interaction exists in generating the dips: if only one piriform fossa is modified, both the dips change in frequency and amplitude. In the present study, using a simple geometrical model and measured vocal tract shapes, the acoustic interaction was examined by the finite-difference time-domain method. As a result, one of the two dips was lower in frequency than the two independent dips that appeared when either of the piriform fossae was occluded, and the other dip was higher in frequency than the two dips. At the lower dip frequency, the piriform fossae resonated almost in opposite phase, while at the higher dip frequency, they resonated almost in phase. These facts indicate that the piriform fossae and the lower part of the pharynx can be modeled as a coupled two-oscillator system whose two normal vibration modes generate the two spectral dips. When the piriform fossae were identical, only the higher dip appeared. This is because the lower mode is not acoustically coupled to the main vocal tract enough to generate an absorption dip.