Abstract
This paper investigates the effectiveness of measures related to vocal tract characteristics in classifying normal and pathological speech. Unlike conventional approaches that mainly focus on features related to the vocal source, vocal tract characteristics are examined to determine if interaction effects between vocal folds and the vocal tract can be used to detect pathological speech. Especially, this paper examines features related to formant frequencies to see if vocal tract characteristics are affected by the nature of the vocal fold-related pathology. To test this hypothesis, stationary fragments of vowel /aa/ produced by 223 normal subjects, 472 vocal fold polyp subjects, and 195 unilateral vocal cord paralysis subjects are analyzed. Based on the acoustic-articulatory relationships, phonation for pathological subjects is found to be associated with measures correlated with a raised tongue body or an advanced tongue root. Vocal tract-related features are also found to be statistically significant from the Kruskal-Wallis test in distinguishing normal and pathological speech. Classification results demonstrate that combining the formant measurements with vocal fold-related features results in improved performance in differentiating vocal pathologies including vocal polyps and unilateral vocal cord paralysis, which suggests that measures related to vocal tract characteristics may provide additional information in diagnosing vocal disorders.
Highlights
It is very important to evaluate acoustical voice quality for the assessment of pathological voice
Objective assessment tools for vocal fold pathologies have been usually supplemented with perceptual judgments, as factors separated from vocal fold measurements have not been readily available
By measuring the statistical significance of formant measurements, which is directly related to the vocal tract, it is observed that the vocal tract characteristics may be indicative of vocal fold-related pathology
Summary
It is very important to evaluate acoustical voice quality for the assessment of pathological voice. The assessment process can be classified into two approaches: perceptive and objective. The perceptive assessment process qualifies and quantifies voice pathologies by directly listening to the voice of a subject. It is performed by trained professionals who evaluate the voice characteristics on a grade scale. The Buffalo voice profile analysis (BVP), the Hammarberg scheme, the vocal profile analysis scheme (VPA), and the GRBAS scale are typical examples [1]. The perceptive assessment is the most practical method used to evaluate and clinically manage pathological speech
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