Pitch Discrimination Testing in Patients with a Voice Disorder.

Duy Duong Nguyen,Nicola J Hodges,Daniel Novakovic,Catherine Madill,Paul N Carding,Antonia M Chacon

doi:10.3390/jcm11030584

Abstract

Auditory perception plays an important role in voice control. Pitch discrimination (PD) is a key index of auditory perception and is influenced by a variety of factors. Little is known about the potential effects of voice disorders on PD and whether PD testing can differentiate people with and without a voice disorder. We thus evaluated PD in a voice-disordered group (n = 71) and a non-voice-disordered control group (n = 80). The voice disorders included muscle tension dysphonia and neurological voice disorders and all participants underwent PD testing as part of a comprehensive voice assessment. Percentage of accurate responses and PD threshold were compared across groups. The PD percentage accuracy was significantly lower in the voice-disordered group than the control group, irrespective of musical background. Participants with voice disorders also required a larger PD threshold to correctly discriminate pitch differences. The mean PD threshold significantly discriminated the voice-disordered groups from the control group. These results have implications for the voice control and pathogenesis of voice disorders. They support the inclusion of PD testing during comprehensive voice assessment and throughout the treatment process for patients with voice disorders.

Highlights

Results of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analyses showed that the Pitch discrimination (PD) threshold had a predictive ability to discriminate between voice-disordered and control groups
It is necessary to develop/revise the PD testing tool to include a wider range of pitch intervals/differences and test its sensitivity and specificity in different levels of dysphonic severity and different voice disorder types
We showed that patients with a voice disorder had poorer PD than non-voicedisordered controls

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Laryngeal muscle control in voice production is affected by auditory feedback and sensorimotor reflexes [1]. There are overlapping anatomical pathways in the brain that encode similar acoustic information presented in both music and voice, such as waveform periodicity and amplitude envelope [2]. Coordination of laryngeal muscles in phonation depends upon motor planning, muscle activation, and feedback provided by auditory systems [1,3]

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion