Waveform Patterns in Pitch Glides Near a Vocal Tract Resonance

A time-domain model of vowel production is used to simulate fundamental frequency glides over the first vocal tract resonance. A vocal tract geometry extracted from MRI data of a female speaker pronouncing [i] is used. The model contains direct feedback from the acoustic loads to vocal fold tissues and the inertial effect of the full air column on the glottal flow. The simulations reveal that a perturbation pattern in the fundamental frequency, namely, a jump and locking to the vocal tract resonance, is accompanied by a specific pattern of glottal waveform changes.