speech

Voice – Episode 116

 in Podcasts  tagged communication / larynx / singing / sound / speech / talking / throat / voice / words by

A black and white photo looking directly at the metal-grated end of a microphone on a stand, as if it's ready for you to use your voice and speak or sing. The microphone is clear and in focus, while the background is blurred to the point that nothing pasted the microphone is recognizable.

Voice Anatomy

Larynx: a structure on top of the trachea (windpipe) and holds the vocal folds

Vocal Folds: also known as vocal cords; the soft tissue that vibrates and creates sound when air passes through them.  There’s one on each side.

Vocal Box: the structure that surrounds the vocal cords.  It’s made of 3 parts – a cover that is made of epithelial cells (similar to the inside of your mouth), vocal ligaments that hold it all in place, and the thyroarytenoid muscle that is responsible for relaxing the vocal cords into place.

Glottis: the opening in the middle of the vocal folds where they sperate for breathing and closes for talking and swallowing.

Voice Production

There are 3 levels of sound production to equal talking.

  1. Voiced Sound: this is the basic vibration of the vocal cords and creates a “buzzing” sound.  This is the first step of babies learning to talk and communicate.  We say the baby is “discovering their voice.”
  2. Resonance: the “buzzing” sounds are amplified by resonating chambers that include the throat, mouth, and nasal cavity.  The sound produced by these chambers is what give you your distinct voice. To produce sound without using one or more of these resonating areas alters your voice significantly.
  3. Articulation: movement of the tongue, soft palate, lips, and jaw modifies and changes the sound to produce words and intelligible speech.

Singing

Singing adds the breathing system to regulate the air pressure that vibrates the vocal cords.  The rhythm of putting words to music to create singing changes the pattern and length of words and syllables, and the strength of the diaphragm plays a big part in that.

Just like guitar strings, the tighter the vocal cords, the higher the pitch.  More relaxed vocal cords produce a lower pitch. *If you listened to this episode, I’m so sorry for your ears!*

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Music Credits: Up In My Jam (All Of A Sudden) by – Kubbi https://soundcloud.com/kubbiCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…Music provided by Audio Library https://youtu.be/tDexBj46oNI

Your Tongue – Episode 105

 in Podcasts  tagged anatomy / eat / extrinsic / glossus / intrinsic / muscles / organ / skin / speech / swallow / tongue by

Tongue Basics

Your tongue is made up of eight muscles.  This is why it is called a muscular organ.  It is the most important articulator in speech production. (A brief word dissection:  articulate means to communicate something clearly.  In medicine, articulate means to make a connection.  It all makes sense!)

The tip is called the apex.  The crease down the middle is called the median lingual sulcus.  There is another crease at the back of your tongue and it is called the sulcus terminalis.

Tongue Muscles

The tongue has two types of muscles.  Extrinsic muscles attach to bones boarding the mouth.  Intrinsic muscles are completely contained inside the tongue borders.

Extrinsic Muscles

These muscles are responsible for moving your tongue front to back and side to side.  There are four of them and they are named for the facial bones that they are anchored to.

  • The genioglossus muscle moves it forward so you can stick it out of your mouth.
  • The Hyoglossus muscle pulls it back and presses it down.
  • The Styloglossus muscle raises the sides of it during swallowing.
  • The Palatoglossus muscle raises the back of it during swallowing.  It also presses the soft palate down and squeezes the palatoglossal arch inward during that same step of swallowing.

Intrinsic Muscles

These muscles are responsible for all the shapes and movements your tongue makes when you talk and eat.

  • The superior longitudinal muscle covers the top side.
  • The inferior longitudinal muscle covers the bottom side.
  • The vertical muscle fibers are in the middle and connect the superior to the inferior muscles.
  • The transverse muscle fibers start at the median sulcus and connect to the outer edges.

The Tongue Has Skin?!

The surface of your tongue is known as the masticatory mucosa, which basically means it’s the surface that food comes in contact with.  The surface is made up of epithelial cells just like your skin.  The cells are keratinized (or filled with a toughening protein) so it is tough and does not get damaged by the wide variety of things we eat.

Call Backs

Wrinkly Brain

Skin 101

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Seems like only yesterday [Show Notes]

 in Brain / Podcasts  tagged brain / emotions / long-term / memory / speech / temporal lobe by

Temporal Lobe Basics

The temporal lobe is located on each side of your head by your ears.  It helps you process auditory input and identify sounds.

There is a special area called Wernicke’s area.  It helps identify the meaning behind speech and vocal tones.  This is different from Broca’s area, which is just able to identify some sounds as being words.

This is where your long-term memory lives, like facts and knowledge (declarative).

Emotionally charged memories are also held in the temporal lobe, but they have a special connection to the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system).  These memories have a high level of detail, and usually can’t be recalled without also recalling the emotion.  They also don’t have a sense of time.

Mind Games

Memories in the temporal lobe can lead to déjà vu.

The temporal lobe allows you to see a simple or incomplete image and fill in all sorts of details, whether it be the details of the image or a long train of connected memories.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Makes You Who You Are [Show Notes]

 in Brain / Podcasts  tagged decisions / Frontal lobe / judgment / lobotomy / motor / personality / rant / speech by

**Many apologies for the screaming baby***

Basics

Frontal Lobe – in the front of the brain (behind your forehead)

This is the area that contains your personality.  A stroke or brain injury or damage can alter someone’s personality drastically.

We take personality tests, but they are too basic to take such a complex part of you and put it in a quadrant or on a spectrum.

This area of the brain is also well-connected to the limbic system (emotional center), and if those connections are broken through stroke or injury, then that causes personality changes too.

Frontal Lobe

  • Motor cortex: voluntary muscle movements = how you choose to move your body.
  • Prefrontal cortex: personality, complex cognitive behavior, decision-making, social behavior, judgment (not existential judgement – but simple things like opposites) – if this gets damaged in adults (so less chance to relearn things as kids would), they don’t sense the dread of the consequences of doing “bad” behaviors, thus they can live lifestyles that include sex, drugs, and crime.
  • Broca’s area (confirmed: he was French):  speech, language production, translation (not just audible language, but any type of symbol or gesture that would have meaning)
    • stuttering and aphasia originate here

* This area of the brain doesn’t reach full development until almost 30 years old —> Insert rant here!!

Story Time

During the Heroic Era of medicine (not a well-named era) – they invented the Lobotomy – mainly trying to find a treatment for mental illnesses.  Society was ok with doctors experimenting on criminals in prison and patients who were put in asylums by their families. It did cause changes in the people, thus they claimed the “cured” them.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/