Chaos and Bifurcations during Voiced Speech

Abstract

Paralysis, laryngitis, cancer and other pathological conditions often lead to irregularities in the sounds of speech. Many of these irregularities seem related to intrinsic nonlinearities in the vibrations of the vocal cords and may thus be understood in terms of the concepts of nonlinear dynamics. In this paper, we analyze examples of newborn infant cries and voiced sound to illustrate the occurrence of bifurcations and chaos. A dynamic model of speech production is presented. Simulation with the model reveals a variety of complex dynamic behaviors, including subharmonic generation and chaos.