Narrow-band Spectrograms Research Articles

Spectrographic Voice Analysis Protocol (SAP): Convergent, Concurrent, and Accuracy Validity

To verify the convergent and concurrent validity of the Spectrographic Voice Analysis Protocol (SAP) and its accuracy to discriminate dysphonic from nondysphonic patients. The study used 82 vowel /Ɛ/ samples and their respective narrowband spectrograms, analyzed with SAP. Cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and cepstral peak prominence smoothed (CPPS) verified the convergent validity of the SAP total score, while the general grade of vocal deviation (GG) verified the concurrent validity of the SAP total score. The ROC (receive operator curve) curve and its accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity values, positive predictive value(PPV) and negative predictive value(NPV), and positivelikelihood ratio (LR+) and negative likelihood ratio(LR-) verified the accuracy of the SAP score to discriminate dysphonic from nondysphonic individuals. Dysphonic and nondysphonic had different SAP total scores. In the convergent validity, the SAP score had a weak and moderate negative correlation, respectively, with CPP and CPPS, as well as a moderate positive correlation with GG. SAP performed well in discriminating dysphonic from nondysphonic individuals (area under the curve=82.0%; sensitivity=91.7%; specificity=51.7%; PPV=93.7%; NPV=44.0%; LR+=6.21; LR-=0.53) based on the 8-point cutoff score. SAP has convergent validity with CPP and CPPS and concurrent validity with GG. The SAP total score performed well in discriminating dysphonic from nondysphonic individuals. However, the specificity, NPV, and LR- values justify cautiously using SAP, always in combination with other information in clinical voice assessment.

Fundamental frequency disturbances in female and male singers' pitch glides through long tube with varied resistances.

Source-filter interaction can disturb vocal fold vibration frequency. Resonance frequency/bandwidth ratios (Q-values) may affect such interaction. Occurrences of fundamental frequency (fo) disturbances were measured in ascending pitch glides produced by four female and five male singers phonating into a 70 cm long tube. Pitch glides were produced with varied resonance Q-values of the vocal tract + tube compound (VT + tube): (i) tube end open, (ii) tube end open with nasalization, and (iii) with a piece of cotton wool in the tube end (conditions Op, Ns, and Ct, respectively). Disturbances of fo were identified by calculating the derivative of the low-pass filtered fo curve. Resonance frequencies of the compound VT+tube system were determined from ringings and glottal aspiration noise observed in narrowband spectrograms. Disturbances of fo tended to occur when a partial was close to a resonance of the compound VT+tube system. The number of such disturbances was significantly lower when the resonance Q-values were reduced (conditions Ns and Ct), particularly for the males. In some participants, resonance Q-values seemed less influential, suggesting little effect of source-filter interaction. The study sheds light on factors affecting source-filter interaction and fo control and is, therefore, relevant to voice pedagogy and theory of voice production.

WNSA-Net: An Axial-Attention-Based Network for Schizophrenia Detection Using Wideband and Narrowband Spectrograms

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disease that affects patients' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Speech signal has proven to be a biomarker in the early diagnosis of schizophrenia. Previous studies on schizophrenic speech detection are mainly based on manual feature extraction engineering, which requires domain knowledge for researchers and has difficulties extracting effective features. This work proposes an end-to-end architecture, called Axial-attention-based Network using Wideband and Narrowband Spectrograms (WNSA-Net), to detect schizophrenia. Specifically, we adopt both wideband and narrowband spectrograms as inputs to represent speech signals using fine time and frequency structures. Then dilated convolution blocks are employed to capture detailed and long-range information in spectrograms. Axial-attention blocks are introduced to augment the information in feature maps along the time and frequency axes. In addition, we employ a gate mechanism to fuse the output feature maps from all channels. Experimental results on the Schizophrenia dataset and its subdatasets show that schizophrenic patients have difficulties in expressing emotions. To validate the performance of our WNSA-Net, experiments are conducted on Schizophrenia dataset and open-access TORGO database, achieving 97.37% and 98.16% accuracy in detecting schizophrenia and dysarthria, respectively. The results show promise for the proposed method in the diagnosis of disordered speech.

Investigation of Vocal Bifurcations and Voice Patterns Induced by Asymmetry of Pathological Vocal Folds.

Vocal fold asymmetry creates irregular entrainments and modulations in voice, which may lead to rough perceptual quality. The presence of asymmetry can also cause mid-phonation bifurcations where a small change in the phonatory system causes a drastic change in vibration pattern, resulting in transitions in and out of rough voice. This study surveys sustained phonation recordings of speakers with the diagnoses of vocal fold polyp or unilateral vocal fold paralysis to investigate the resulting voice patterns. This retrospective study observed 71 sustained phonation recordings from 48 patients. Segments with distinctive signal patterns were identified within each recording with narrowband spectrogram and computer-assisted analysis of spectral peaks. Phonation segmentation yielded 240 segments across all the recordings. Five voice patterns were recognized: (regularly or irregularly) entrained, modulated, uncoupled, unstable, and pulsed. Thirty-six patients (75%) exhibited irregular patterns. No single irregular pattern lasted for the entire phonation and was always accompanied by at least one mid-phonation bifurcation. Durations of the irregular segments (M = 0.4 s) were significantly shorter than the segments with the regular pattern (M = 1.4 s). The results suggest that vocal fold pathology frequently introduces dynamic vibratory patterns that affect both the acoustic signals and perceptions. Due to these abnormalities, it is important for clinical voice assessment protocols, both perceptual and acoustic, to account for these possible bifurcations, irregular signal patterns, and their tendencies.

Application of Ontology Matching Algorithm Based on Linguistic Features in English Pronunciation Quality Evaluation.

Traditional English classroom teaching is difficult to meet the oral learning needs of most learners. Thanks to the continuous advancement of speech processing technology, computer-assisted language learning systems are becoming more intelligent, not only pointing out learners' pronunciation errors but also assessing their overall pronunciation level. Method. This paper uses the method of tree kernel function to measure the similarity of two ontology trees. According to the features of nodes in ontology tree, methods to calculate the external features and internal features of nodes are proposed, respectively. External features are mainly obtained by calculating the hierarchical centrality, node density, and node coverage of nodes in the ontology tree; internal features are mainly obtained by measuring the richness of internal information. According to the similarity of ontology tree and the external features and internal features of nodes, the calculation formula of structural comprehensive similarity is improved, and the features of ontology itself can be fully considered in the calculation. According to the difference of the structure, the weights of the corresponding features during the calculation are adjusted autonomously, so that the calculation results are closer to reality. In spectral image preprocessing, endpoint detection utilizes the harmonic characteristics presented by narrowband spectrograms with high frequency resolution and eliminates useless nonspeech segments by detecting the presence of voiced segments. When building the neural network model, four convolutional layers, two fully connected layers, and one softmax output layer were conceived, and dropout was used to randomly suspend the work of some neurons to avoid overfitting. Results/Discussion. Through the data analysis of mean and variance and verified by one-way analysis of variance, it proves that the sentiment evaluation method in this paper is effective. The traditional multiple linear regression method is not suitable for the corpus and application scenarios of this paper. This paper proposes a decision tree structure, which is similar to the overall scoring process of raters, and uses the Interactive Dicremiser version 3 (ID3) algorithm to build a comprehensive evaluation decision tree for pitch, rhythm, intonation, speech rate, and emotion indicators. It is proved by experiments that the accurate consistency rate of the human-machine evaluation in this paper is 93%, the adjacent consistency rate is 96%, and the Pearson correlation coefficient value of the human-machine evaluation results is 0.89. The data results prove that the evaluation method in this paper is credible.

The f0 distribution of Korean speakers in a spontaneous speech corpus*

The fundamental frequency, or f0, is an important acoustic measure in the prosody of human speech. The current study examined the f0 distribution of a corpus of spontaneous speech in order to provide normative data for Korean speakers. The corpus consists of 40 speakers talking freely about their daily activities and their personal views. Praat scripts were created to collect f0 values, and a majority of obvious errors were corrected manually by watching and listening to the f0 contour on a narrow-band spectrogram. Statistical analyses of the f0 distribution were conducted using R. The results showed that the f0 values of all the Korean speakers were right-skewed, with a pointy distribution. The speakers produced spontaneous speech within a frequency range of 274 Hz (from 65 Hz to 339 Hz), excluding statistical outliers. The mode of the total f0 data was 102 Hz. The female f0 range, with a bimodal distribution, appeared wider than that of the male group. Regression analyses based on age and f0 values yielded negligible R-squared values. As the mode of an individual speaker could be predicted from the median, either the median or mode could serve as a good reference for the individual f0 range. Finally, an analysis of the continuous f0 points of intonational phrases revealed that the initial and final segments of the phrases yielded several f0 measurement errors. From these results, we conclude that an examination of a spontaneous speech corpus can provide linguists with useful measures to generalize acoustic properties of f0 variability in a language by an individual or groups. Further studies would be desirable of the use of statistical measures to secure reliable f0 values of individual speakers.

Using Pitch Height and Pitch Strength to Characterize Type 1, 2, and 3 Voice Signals

Classifying dysphonic voices as type 1, 2, and 3 signals based on their periodicity enables researchers to determine the validity of acoustic measures derived from them. Existing methods of signal typing are commonly performed by listening to the voice sample and visualizing them on narrow-band spectrograms that require training, time, and are subjective in nature. The current study investigated pitch-based metrics (pitch height and pitch strength) as correlates to characterizing voice signal types. The computational estimates were validated with perceptual judgments of pitch height and pitch strength. Pitch height and pitch strength were estimated from Auditory-Sawtooth Waveform Inspired Pitch Estimator Prime algorithm for 30 dysphonic voice segments (10 per type). Ten listeners evaluated pitch height through a single-variable matching task and pitch strength through an anchored magnitude estimation task. One way analyses of variance were used to determine the effects of signal type on pitch height and pitch strength estimates. Relationship between computational and perceptual estimates was evaluated using correlation coefficients and their significance. There was a significant difference between signal types in both computational and perceptual pitch strength estimates. Periodic type 1 signals had greater pitch strength compared to type 2 and 3 signals. Auditory-Sawtooth Waveform Inspired Pitch Estimator Prime produced robust computational estimates of pitch height even in type 3 signals when compared to other acoustic software. Listeners were able to reliably judge pitch height in type 2 and 3 signals despite their lack of a clear fundamental frequency. Pitch height and pitch strength can be measured in all dysphonic voices irrespective of signal periodicity.

Calentamiento vocal en locutores comerciales

IntroductionThe announcers are professionals of the voice that are characterized by presenting high vocal demand. The objective of this research was to measure the acoustic changes that could be attributed to a routine of vocal warm-up on the quality of the voice in commercial radio and television announcers in Chile. Material and methodThirteen commercial announcers were selected and a vocal warm-up routine was applied. The parameters of fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise, maximum time of phonation and articulatory agility were measured. All parameters were measured before and after the exercise routine. On the other hand, 6 experts voice therapist analyzed through a visual analog scale changes in the narrow band spectrograms of the emissions before and after the vocal warm-up routine. ResultsSignificant changes were found in the fundamental frequency and maximum phonation time. In the analysis of the spectrograms performed by the experts, in 11 cases there was improvement between the before and after the routine. In addition to the above, in 6 of these cases the changes were significant. ConclusionsThe vocal warm-up can be an effective tool for the care of the voice in commercial announcers.

Treatment Effectiveness of Novafon Local Vibration Voice Therapy for Dysphonia Treatment

The objective of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the five-week Novafon local vibration voice therapy (NLVVT) program with and without Novafon local vibration for dysphonia treatment. Twenty-two voice-disordered subjects were divided into two groups. The intervention group (IG) performed the NLVVT program and the control group (CG) had the same voice exercises of this program without local vibration. After NLVVT, the IG showed significantly high results in all parameters of acoustics, multiparametric indices, and self-evaluation (all P values < 0.01). The CG revealed mostly much significantly lower results (P values < 0.05) or nonsignificant results for these parameters after the treatment. The intergroup comparison under consideration before and after NLVVT showed a large and significant treatment effect in voice quality (ie, narrowband spectrograms, and Acoustic Voice Quality Index), in which the IG had better treatment results. The aerodynamic measurement showed no significant changes for both groups after NLVVT (P value > 0.05). After the NLVVT program both groups showed significant improvements of various voice measurements, in which the IG revealed better treatment results than the CG. However, next to voice exercises an extra benefit for local vibration with the Novafon appliance was assessed in voice quality.

The Evaluation of Voice Quality via Signal Typing in Voice using Narrowband Spectrograms

Traditionally, voice quality is evaluated by auditory-perceptual judgment but objective-acoustic analyses are also valid tools. Spectrography is a part of objective-acoustic analyses and is used since around 50 years. Recently, Sprecher et al. (2010) designed a new classification scheme for signal typing in voice using narrowband spectrograms. The present study aimed to explore the external validation between these 2 methods in a larger dataset. In total 300 voice samples were used based on the vowel [a:], in which n=270 had various degrees of dysphonia and n=30 were vocally normal. All voice samples were evaluated by 7 speech-language therapists using the RBH-scale and 2 judges analyzed the signal typing in voice using narrowband spectrograms. The intra- and inter-rater reliability of all RBH parameters was fair in average (kappa=0.234-0.383) but the rater reliability was moderate between the 2 judges rating signal typing in voice (kappa=0.457). A strong concurrent validity was identified between the signal typing in voice using narrowband spectrograms and auditory-perceptual judgment of hoarseness and breathiness (H: r=0.746, p=0.000; B: r=0.746, p=0.000) but only fair in roughness (r=0.370, p=0.000). The present results confirmed the results of Sprecher et al. (2010) and it might be meaningful to benefit signal typing in voice using narrowband spectrograms on sustained vowels as a valid complement in the evaluation of hoarseness and breathiness for clinical utility and research.

The Relationship Between Acoustic Signal Typing and Perceptual Evaluation of Tracheoesophageal Voice Quality for Sustained Vowels

To investigate the relationship between acoustic signal typing and perceptual evaluation of sustained vowels produced by tracheoesophageal (TE) speakers and the use of signal typing in the clinical setting. Two evaluators independently categorized 1.75-second segments of narrow-band spectrograms according to acoustic signal typing and independently evaluated the recording of the same segments on a visual analog scale according to overall perceptual acoustic voice quality. The relationship between acoustic signal typing and overall voice quality (as a continuous scale and as a four-point ordinal scale) was investigated and the proportion of inter-rater agreement as well as the reliability between the two measures is reported. The agreement between signal type (I-IV) and ordinal voice quality (four-point scale) was low but significant, and there was a significant linear relationship between the variables. Signal type correctly predicted less than half of the voice quality data. There was a significant main effect of signal type on continuous voice quality scores with significant differences in median quality scores between signal types I-IV, I-III, and I-II. Signal typing can be used as an adjunct to perceptual and acoustic evaluation of the same stimuli for TE speech as part of a multidimensional evaluation protocol. Signal typing in its current form provides limited predictive information on voice quality, and there is significant overlap between signal types II and III and perceptual categories. Future work should consider whether the current four signal types could be refined.

Voice Outcomes After Transoral Laser Microsurgery for Early Glottic Cancer—Considering Signal Type and Smoothed Cepstral Peak Prominence

This study proposed the use of signal typing and acoustic measures experimentally validated for aperiodic voices to investigate voice outcomes after transoral laser microsurgery (TLM) for early glottic carcinoma. It was of interest whether signal type and pitch-tracking indicators would reveal unreliable perturbation and noise measures. As an alternative, smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) was used for the first time in this population. A descriptive study of patients treated with TLM for early glottic carcinoma. All participants (n=14) performed a series of vocal tasks. Narrowband spectrograms were generated from voice recordings and classified into one of four signal types. The perturbation and noise measures of periodic or near-periodic signals only were reported. The CPPS for sustained vowel (CPPS-/a/) and connected speech (CPPS-s) were calculated for all participants. The relationship between voice outcomes and tumor and TLM factors was investigated. Nine of 14 participants had an aperiodic type 3 signal. Three of 14 participants had voices considered reliable for perturbation analysis. Absolute jitter, %jitter, %shimmer, and signal-to-noise ratio were all low; however, CPPS-/a/ and CPPS-s amplitudes were below the normal range for most participants. Involvement of the anterior commissure, number of TLM episodes, and time post-surgery were associated with worse voice outcomes. There were strong correlations between signal type, CPPS-/a/, and pitch-tracking indicators. The limitations of perturbation analysis should be considered when analyzing the voice after TLM. Signal type should be considered before conducting perturbation analysis. The CPPS-/a/ and CPPS-s may be more reliable acoustic outcome measures for this population.

Acoustic Voice Analysis Using the Praat programme: Comparative Study With the Dr. Speech Programme

Introduction and objectivesThe European Laryngological Society (ELS) basic protocol for functional assessment of voice pathology includes 5 different approaches: perception, videostroboscopy, acoustics, aerodynamics and subjective rating by the patient. In this study we focused on acoustic voice analysis.The purpose of the present study was to correlate the results obtained by the commercial software Dr. Speech and the free software Praat in 2 fields:1. Narrow-band spectrogram (the presence of noise according to Yanagihara, and the presence of subharmonics) (semi-quantitative).2. Voice acoustic parameters (jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and fundamental frequency) (quantitative). Materials and methodsWe studied a total of 99 voice samples from individuals with Reinke's oedema diagnosed using videostroboscopy. One independent observer used Dr. Speech 3.0 and the second one used the Praat programme (Phonetic Sciences, University of Amsterdam).The spectrographic analysis consisted of obtaining a narrow-band spectrogram from the previous digitalised voice samples by the 2 independent observers. They then determined the presence of noise in the spectrogram, using the Yanagihara grades, as well as the presence of subharmonics. As a final result, the acoustic parameters jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio and fundamental frequency were obtained from the 2 acoustic analysis programmes. ResultsThe results indicated that the sound spectrogram and the numerical values obtained for shimmer and jitter were similar for both computer programmes, even though type 1, 2 and 3 voice samples were analysed. ConclusionsThe Praat and Dr. Speech programmes provide similar results in the acoustic analysis of pathological voices.

Análisis acústico de la voz mediante el progama Praat: estudio comparativo con el programa Dr. Speech

Introduction and objectivesThe European Laryngological Society (ELS) basic protocol for functional assessment of voice pathology includes 5 different approaches: perception, videostroboscopy, acoustics, aerodynamics and subjective rating by the patient. In this study we focused on acoustic voice analysis.The purpose of the present study was to correlate the results obtained by the commercial software Dr. Speech and the free software Praat in 2 fields:1. Narrow-band spectrogram (the presence of noise according to Yanagihara, and the presence of subharmonics) (semi-quantitative).2. Voice acoustic parameters (jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio, fundamental frequency) (quantitative). Material and methodsWe studied a total of 99 voice samples from individuals with Reinke's oedema diagnosed using videostroboscopy. One independent observer used Dr. Speech 3.0 and a second one used the Praat program (Phonetic Sciences, University of Amsterdam).The spectrographic analysis consisted of obtaining a narrow-band spectrogram from the previous digitalised voice samples by the 2 independent observers. They then determined the presence of noise in the spectrogram, using the Yanagihara grades, as well as the presence of subharmonics. As a final result, the acoustic parameters of jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio and fundamental frequency were obtained from the 2 acoustic analysis programs. ResultsThe results indicated that the sound spectrogram and the numerical values obtained for shimmer and jitter were similar for both computer programs, even though types 1, 2 and 3 voice samples were analysed. ConclusionsThe Praat and Dr. Speech programs provide similar results in the acoustic analysis of pathological voices.

A new proposal for evaluation of the pharyngoesophageal segment and its relation with the narrow-band spectrogram in tracheoesophageal speakers

The primary purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between pharyngoesophageal segment (PES) configuration and narrow-band spectrogram of tracheoesophageal voices. This study included 30 total laryngectomees tracheoesophageal speakers. Patients were assessed by videofluoroscopy (VF), during deglutition and voicing, and the vowel /a/ was recorded for spectrographic analysis. The evaluation of VF recording consisted of visual perceptual rating of degree of contact between the prominence of PES and its anterior wall, defined as absent/mild (hypo contact), moderate (normo contact) and intense (hyper contact); and quantitative measures of PES: anteroposterior distance (APD) and length of the PES (lenPES); PES surface area in swallowing (areaSw), and phonation (areaPh), and the area of the air reservoir (areaAir). Visual inspection of a narrow-band spectrogram was made and four different acoustic signal typing were defined as Type I, II, III or IV. Type I-II is correlated with moderate contact; Type III, with intense and Type IV, with absent/mild contact. Type I-II has bigger APD and PES with lower length than Type IV. There is a correlation between bigger APD and shorter PES. The group with I-II signal typing has PES with normo contact; Type III with hyper contact and Type IV has PES with hypo contact. The best tracheoesophageal voices are achieved by PES with moderate contact of the prominence and with shorter and larger anteroposterior PES distances. What differentiates the PES with hyper contact from PES with normal one is only the degree of contact between the prominence of the PES and its anterior wall.

AB0168 Relationship between voice quality parameters and clinical manifestation of rheumatoid arthritis

BackgroundRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, multisystem autoimmune disease manifested by joint inflammation and damage including also joints and laryngeal cartilages which play an essential role in the process of...

Properties of violin glides in the performance of cadential and noncadential sequences in solo works by Bach

This study examines the articulatory changes (“glides”) between the leading tone and tonic of cadential vs noncadential semitone sequences in solo violin performance. It was predicted that though these glides would have similar slopes, they would differ in duration and in semitone intonation, and that these latter properties could characterize the expression of cadential finality and the structural insignificance of noncadential sequences. Cadential (46) and noncadential (58) targets from 17 recordings by 13 professional violinists were analyzed using narrow-band spectrograms. Glide durations comprised 16% of the overall duration of semitone sequence irrespective of structure function. However, cadential glides comprised 28% of the duration of the leading tone compared with 11% for noncadential glides. As predicted, the leading tone tended to be sharp in both contexts, but the mean cadential interval was nonsignificantly larger by 18 cents, mainly because the tonic tended to be tuned more accurately in cadential sequences. Finally, the glide direction was linear and followed the natural vibrato trajectory in both contexts as expected. These data confirm that articulatory modifications play a prominent role in the performance of intended musical structure and suggest that such distinctions will influence structural expectancies.

Two-Dimensional Speech-Signal Modeling

Traditional approaches in speech-signal processing analyze short-time frames of the signal (e.g., the short-time Fourier transform). Findings from auditory neurophysiology coupled with image processing principles, however, have motivated an alternative 2-D processing framework in which 2-D analysis is performed on the time-frequency distribution itself. This paper develops a 2-D model of speech in local time-frequency regions of narrowband spectrograms using sinusoidal-series-based modulation. Our model is shown to distribute vocal tract and onset/offset content based on source information (e.g., noise and voicing) in a transformed 2-D space, thereby explicitly representing different classes of energy modulations commonly observed in spectrograms. We demonstrate the model's ability to represent speech sounds by developing and evaluating algorithms for analysis/synthesis of spectrograms. As an example application, we demonstrate the utility of the model for co-channel speaker separation using prior pitch information of two overlapping speakers. Finally, our separation scheme based on 2-D modeling is compared against a reference (frame-based) sinusoidal separation system using both prior and estimated pitch.

The Effect of Anchor Voices and Visible Speech in Training in the GRABS Scale of Perceptual Evaluation of Dysphonia

IntroductionPerceptual evaluation of voice quality remains a key standard for judgement of vocal impairment. The GRABS method has become a commonly used scale for rating severity of dysphonia, but it has no published, standardised protocol to follow. Training is important for reaching good interrater agreement for its parameters; however, the references most often cited for the GRABS provide no guidelines for clinical administration, speech material or rating calibration. This study investigated the effect of anchors (standard reference voices) and visible speech (narrow band spectrogram) in training non-expert professionals in the GRABS method. Material and methodsFour inexperienced listeners evaluated 107 recorded pathological voices using the GRABS scale in 2 separate sessions; at first, without a visible spectrogram and then, 6 months later, with anchors and a narrow band spectrogram as additional information. ResultsThe results show that anchors and visible speech helped to improve the reliability of G, B, A and S parameters. Interrater agreement according to k statistics was significantly stronger with the addition of spectrographic information for rating breathiness and strain. DiscussionThis study found that non-expert listeners showed significant improvement after training with external anchors (standard reference voices) and a narrow band spectrogram.

El espectrograma de banda estrecha como ayuda para el aprendizaje del método GRABS de análisis perceptual de la disfonía

IntroductionPerceptual evaluation of voice quality remains a key standard for judgment of vocal impairment. The GRABS method has become a commonly-used scale for rating severity of dysphonia, but it has no published, standardised protocol to follow. Training is important for reaching good interrater agreement for its parameters; however, the references most often cited for the GRABS provide no guidelines for clinical administration, speech material or rating calibration. This study investigated the effect of anchors (standard reference voices) and visible speech (narrow band spectrogram) in training non-expert professionals in the GRABS method. Material & MethodsFour inexperienced listeners evaluated 107 recorded pathological voices using the GRABS scale in 2 separate sessions; at first, without a visible spectrogram and then, 6 months later, with anchors and a narrow band spectrogram as additional information. ResultsThe results show that anchors and visible speech helped to improve the reliability of G, B, A and S parameters. Interrater agreement according to k statistics was significantly stronger with the addition of spectrographic information for rating breathiness and strain. DiscussionThis study found that non-expert listeners showed significant improvement after training with external anchors (standard reference voices) and a narrow band spectrogram.