Objective: To study the changes of phonetic features of Chinese speech during head-down bed-rest (HDBR) simulated weightlessness.
Method: During -6 degrees HDBR in 6 healthy subjects (20-30 years), acoustic-phonetic features were analyzed.
Result: The duration of utterance was slightly increase in the first two days, and recovered after the fourth day of HDBR; mean energy decreased along with time of bed rest, t-tests showed that the decrease in energy of utterances was very significant; a decrease in fundamental frequencies under HDBR was also significant.
Conclusion: There were certain changes in the acoustic phonetic features under HDBR, some of them were significant.