Difference limen for aspiration noise in perception of breathy voice quality

Abstract

Despite much research, the relationship between the vocal acoustic signal and the perception of breathy voice quality is debated. Shrivastav (2001) used an auditory model to study the perception of breathy voice quality and found that listeners’ perception of breathiness was related to the partial loudness of the periodic energy obtained with the aspiration noise acting as a masker. This measure was found to be a better predictor of perceptual judgments than conventionally used acoustic measures of breathiness. The aim of the present experiment was to determine the minimal change in aspiration noise that led to a change in the perception of breathiness. A continuum of voices, identical in all aspects except aspiration noise, was synthesized using a Klatt synthesizer. These stimuli were presented in pairs and listeners identified each pair as being the same or different in terms of their breathiness. Percent-correct scores for each stimulus pair were calculated and compared with differences in the acoustic and auditory spectral measures. Findings of this experiment may be useful in the development of objective tools for the quantification of breathy voice quality.