• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.91-98
• /
• 2020

This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of sustained vowel /a/ and sentence utterance produced by patients with muscle tension dysphonia (MTD) using cepstrum-based acoustic variables. 36 women diagnosed with MTD and the same number of women with normal voice participated in the study and the data were recorded and measured by ADSVTM. The results demonstrated that cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and CPP_F0 among all of the variables were statistically significantly lower than those of control group. When it comes to the GRBAS scale, overall severity (G) was most prominent, and roughness (R), breathiness (B), and strain (S) indices followed in order in the voice quality of MTD patients. As these characteristics increased, a statistically significant negative correlation was observed in CPP. We tried to classify MTD and control group using CPP and CPP_F0 variables. As a result of statistic modeling with a Random Forest machine learning algorithm, much higher classification accuracy (100% in training data and 83.3% in test data) was found in the sentence reading task, with CPP being proved to be playing a more crucial role in both vowel and sentence reading tasks.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.49-58
• /
• 2024

This study aimed to compare the acoustic measurements of speech samples recorded from individuals with normal voices using various devices: the Computerized Speech Lab (CSL), a unidirectional wired pin-microphone (WIRED) suitable for smartphones, the built-in omnidirectional microphone (SMART) of smartphones, and Bluetooth-connected wireless earphones, specifically the Galaxy Buds2 Pro (WIRELESS). This study included 40 normal adults (12 males and 28 females) who had not visited an otolaryngologist for respiratory diseases within the past three months. Participants performed sustained vowel /a/ phonation for four seconds and reading tasks with sentences ("Walk") and paragraphs ("Autumn") in a sound-treated booth. Recordings were simultaneously conducted using the four different devices and synchronized based on the CSL-recorded samples for analysis using the MDVP, ADSV, and VOXplot programs. Compared with CSL, the Cepstral Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID_V, CSID_S) and Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) values were lower in the WIRED and higher in the SMART. The opposite trend was observed for the L/H spectral ratios (SR_V and SR_S), and the WIRELESS demonstrated task-specific discrepancies. Furthermore, both the fundamental frequency (F0) and the cepstral peak prominence of the vowel samples (CPP_V) had intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values above 0.9, indicating high reliability. These variables, F0 and CPP_V were considered highly reliable for voice recordings across different microphone types. However, caution should be exercised when analyzing and interpreting variables such as the SR, CSID, and AVQI, which may be influenced by the type of microphone used.