PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to characterize differences in vibratory patterns between male and female voices by using high-speed videolaryngoscopy (HSV). METHODS: Ten healthy volunteers, 5 men and 5 women (18-45 years old) with no vocal or laryngeal problems participated in this study. HSV images were recorded during sustained emission of the vowel /e/. The images were sampled at 4000 frames/s and processed using the frame-to-frame laryngeal segmentation method. With this approach, the active border of the vocal folds is used to measure the glottal area and plot 5 glottal pulses. We calculated the time of: closed (CPh), opened (OPh), closing (cPh), and opening (oPh) phases. We also calculated the fundamental frequency (F0). Student's t test was used to compare the results. RESULTS: The results from laryngeal segmentation showed a significant difference in F0 and CPh values between male and female subjects (p = 0.005 for CPh; p = 0.069 for OPh; p- = 0.197 for cPh; p = 0.051 for oPh; F0: p ≤ 0.001). CONCLUSION: We found a significant difference in the closed phase between groups. This reveals the influence of the lower frequency in vibratory patterns. These functional discrepancies between genders are explained by differences in the corresponding anatomical and physiological structures. The vocal imaging analysis also demonstrated the precision possible using HSV. Future research will be necessary to confirm these hypotheses regarding vocal fold vibratory patterns as determined using HSV.
