Acoustic spaces for normal and pathological voices

Abstract

What does it mean for a voice to sound normal? Our recent work comparing listener judgements of talkers with and without a diagnosed voice disorder showed that judgments of “normal” versus “not normal” and strategies for estimating how much a given voice deviates from normal depended on the listener, the context, the purpose of the judgement, and other factors as well as on the voice. F0, F1 and F2, and F0 variability were significant predictors of both categorical judgments and of scalar normalness ratings, but between-listener inconsistency in the perceptual models was observed. The present study examined acoustic spaces for the same normal and pathological voices by performing principal component analysis on scaled values of F0, formant frequencies, spectral noise, source spectral shape, and their variability. Acoustic spaces for normal and disordered talkers had similar structures, and included measures related to source spectral shape, F1, and higher formant frequencies. Overall, variability in noise was only important for pathological voices. The ways in which acoustic voice spaces are related to listener perceptions of a voice are discussed. [Work supported by NIH/NSF.]