This research investigated the relationship between pulmonary function test metrics and vocal fatigue. Female participants underwent a two-day study, which included a screening, non-fatiguing and fatiguing tasks and pulmonary function testing. Subjective and objective measures indicating vocal fatigue were compared to pulmonary function measures. Subjective measures included participant's ratings of vocal fatigue on a 0-10 scale every 10 minutes throughout non-fatiguing and fatiguing tasks. Objective measures included variations of relative sound pressure level (SPL) and fundamental frequency (f0) collected during both pre and post non-fatiguing and fatiguing tasks. Results indicated that the relationship between lung age and self-reported ratings of vocal fatigue were statistically significant (p<0.05). Variations in ΔSPL and f0 that were collected during non-fatiguing and fatiguing tasks were both statistically significant (p<0.001) when compared to subjective ratings of vocal fatigue during the fatiguing task. Vocal tasks collected pre and post non-fatiguing and fatiguing tasks were not as sensitive to subjective ratings of vocal fatigue with ΔSPL compared to time (p<0.05) and f0 compared to time (p<0.05). Data regarding pulmonary function and vocal fatigue call for continued study, as there are potential implications for use as a screening tool. Additionally, vocal measures collected during vocal fatiguing tasks are more indicative of vocal changes than pre and post non-fatiguing and fatiguing measures.
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