How Reading a “Three Bears” Story Reveals Hidden Clues About Voice Flexibility and Disorders

What is it about?

This study looked at how people adjust their voices when reading a short passage called the “Three Bears Passage”, adapted from the classic Goldilocks and the Three Bears tale. The passage asks readers to sound like Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear, each with a different voice representative of the character. We analyzed recordings from 30 adults with voice disorders and 30 adults with typical voices to see how their voices changed while reading. We measured pitch (how high or low the voice sounds) and formants (acoustic resonances of the vocal tract—from the throat to the mouth). These measures tell us how people use both their voice source (vocal folds in the throat) and vocal filter (lips, jaw, tongue, and pharynx cavity above the throat) to create expressive speech.

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Photo by Cristina Glebova on Unsplash

Photo by Cristina Glebova on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The results showed that people with voice disorders had less flexibility in changing pitch, but they could still adjust the shape of their vocal tract to make expressive sounds. This means that even when pitch control is limited, resonance and articulation can still be used to communicate emotion and character. These findings suggest that the “Three Bears Passage” could become a fun and effective clinical tool for both voice assessment and therapy, helping clinicians evaluate how flexible and adaptive a person’s voice can be during expressive speech. It could also make therapy more engaging by encouraging patients to “play” with their voices through storytelling.