Quantifying the auto-oscillation complexity following water spraying with interest for phonation

Human voiced sound production or phonation is the result of a fluid-structure instability in the larynx leading to vocal folds auto-oscillation. In this paper, the effect of surface hydration following water spraying (0 up to 5 ml) on an ongoing auto-oscillation is studied experimentally using different mechanical deformable vocal folds replicas. The complexity of the oscillation is quantified on the upstream pressure by a phase space recurrence and complexity analysis. It is shown that: (1) the ratio of the degree of determinism to the recurrence rate of the phase space states γ and (2) estimated correlation dimension D2 are suitable parameters to grasp the effect of hydration on the oscillation pattern. The oscillation regime after hydration can either remain deterministic or approach a chaotic regime depending on initial conditions prior to water spraying, such as elasticity, glottal aperture, as well as oscillation complexity.