how it works

What's behind the magic

• Those who accurately perceive their vocal intonation are aware of and intuitively modulate their voice's pitch, volume, and cadence to convey emotional nuance.

• Phonemes are frequently at different pitch, cadence, and volume than intoneation.

• Many people primarily hear phonemes without noticing intonation , This can impede their ability to hear and communicate emotional nuance.

• Freudensong's (patented) real-time vocal intonation boosting gently accentuates the volume of intonation within speech..

• This accentuation facilitates discernment of one's own and others' intonation.

• This discernment enables intuitive communication of emotion and nuance.

More about Vocal Intonation Boosting

Unlike a "pure tone" (like in a hearing test), our voices contain a multiple of tones that are harmonics of the "fundamental tone" created by our vocal chords. In speech, vocal tone is called intonation; In English, intonation primarily conveys emotion and other nuance; The other tones primary convey the phonemes which constitute syllables.

Some people easily discern intonation, other people do not. The reasons for and implications of this difference are hot research topics.

Eric Freudenthal proposed (what we now call) vocal intonation boosting (VIB) . VIB accentuates the relative volume of intonation within a voice. When implemented without delay (using a headphone), it helps people sing on-pitch. When implemented with a teeny delay and a loudspeaker, VIB adds a subtle resonance to a room that gently increases everybody's perception of their and others' intonation.

Several early adopters found this resonance calming, which named us to name the appit "Soothing Resonance." It tames our brash, loud, (and somewhat stereotypically ND) voices without our even being aware that it's doing this. VIB also seems to enhance our ability to intuitively sense each other's emotion.

Eric Freudenthal works at the University of Texas at El Paso, which patents for this boosting. Freudenthal founded a tech startup named Freudensong (in German, freuden=peaceful). Freudensong is developing plans to make VIB available to people who want or need to enhance their ability to convey or perceive nuance via intonation.

With colleagues in Speech Pathology & Educational Psychology, Freudenthal is partnering with a local school for ND kids to properly investigate whether and how this boosting might be helpful for kids with ASD, ADHD, and related communication challenges.

A version of soothing resonance which works in a browser tab has been published which has a bit more delay than optimal. Mobile apps with superior delays are under developmen. We have prototyped (and are patenting) wearable versions that will fit under clothing and can be quiet/small enough to boost the wearer's perception of intonation without drawing anybody's attention.

Also: see our short white paper on Vocal Intonation Boosting.