Intertext Variability of Smoothed Cepstral Peak Prominence, Methods to Control It, and Its Diagnostic Properties

Abstract

This study aimed to estimate the intertext variability of smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS), examine whether sound-processing techniques improved its variability and diagnostic capability, and evaluate the degree of intertext variability in detail with reference to the CPPS variabilities in sustained vowels. This was a retrospective study. Text readings of 58 Japanese syllables were recorded from 210 speakers with different diagnoses and varying degrees of dysphonia, and were divided into six passages. Applying the sound-processing techniques to those passages, we prepared three sample types: (1) nonprocessed, (2) only-loud, and (3) only-voiced samples. The intertext CPPS variability and diagnostic properties were compared across the passages and sample types. For detailed analysis, we subsequently extracted 63 normophonic speakers who maintained constant quality in their vowel utterances to evaluate the degree of intertext CPPS variability in relation to the variabilities between repeated identical vowels and across different vowels. Although several combinations of passages showed moderate-to-large CPPS variabilities, those variabilities were decreased by either technique, especially the deletion of silent segments, which resulted in the best diagnostic accuracy. The degree of intertext CPPS variability for the only-voiced samples was comparable to that of the CPPS variabilities in sustained vowels. The sound-processing technique removing silent segments should be applied to enhance the diagnostic properties of CPPS. The additional technique of deleting unvoiced segments is worth adopting if clinicians and researchers seek to attenuate the influence of text differences in calculating CPPS values.