Influence of Altered Auditory Feedback on Oral-Nasal Balance in Song

Objectives. This study explored the role of auditory feedback in the regulation of oral-nasal balance in singing in trained singers and non-singers. Study design. Experimental repeated measures study. Methods. Twenty non-singers (10M/10F) and 10 female professional singers sang a musical stimulus repeatedly while hearing themselves over headphones. Over the course of the experiment, the nasal level signal in the headphones was increased or decreased so that the participants heard themselves as more or less nasal. Nasalance scores in the different phases of the experiment were quantified using a Nasometer 6450. Results. A repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect for singing condition F(5, 135) = 3.70, P < 0.05, and multiple comparison tests demonstrated that the nasalance scores for final baseline and the maximum and minimum nasal feedback conditions were all significantly lower than the first baseline (all comparisons P < 0.05). Conclusion. There were no differences between the singers and non-singers. All participants had lower nasalance scores in response to both increased and decreased nasal signal level feedback.