Perception of voice characteristics of adult schizophrenics.

Abstract

Changes in the patterns of vocal-fold vibration produce changes in the speech signal and recognizable changes in voice characteristics. Voice characteristics have been significantly related to specific personality types. Emotional disorders, such as schizophrenia, eshibic certain personality traits as one of their principal features ( 2 ) . Abnormalities in the language patterns of schizophrenics have been extensively investigated, while deviations of voice have received less attention. Although voice disturbances are not as apparent, they are significant (1 ) . Todt and Howell (4) reported schizophrenics as having distinguishable voice chacacteristics, but others have not (3, 5). The disparate findings and the semantic ambiguities associated with some of the terms used to describe voice characteristics led to the present study. Five institutionalized female patients, diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic (M.,. = 32.8 yr.) and five normal female university graduate smdents (M.,. = 28.0 yr.) were compared using the voice characteristics of quality, pitch, volume, intonation, and rate. Following one practice session, tape recordings were made of each subject as she read a 160-word passage. Recordings were then independently and randomly presented to six graduate students in speech pathology. They judged each of the recordings, for the five voice characteristics, using a seven-point semantic differential scale.