The relationship between acoustical and perceptual measures of vocal effort

Abstract

Excessive vocal effort is a common clinical voice symptom, yet the acoustical manifestation of vocal effort and how that is perceived by speakers and listeners has not been fully elucidated. Here, 26 vocally healthy adults increased vocal effort during the production of the utterance /ifi/, followed by self-ratings of effort on a 100 mm visual analog scale. Twenty inexperienced listeners assessed the speakers' vocal effort using the visual sort-and-rate method. Previously proposed acoustical correlates of vocal effort were calculated, including: mean sound pressure level (SPL), mean fundamental frequency (f o), relative fundamental frequency (RFF) offset cycle 10 and onset cycle 1, harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR), cepstral peak prominence and its standard deviation (SD), and low-to-high (L/H) spectral ratio and its SD. Two separate mixed-effects regression models yielded mean SPL, L/H ratio, and HNR as significant predictors of both speaker and listener ratings of vocal effort. RFF offset cycle 10 and mean f o were significant predictors of listener ratings only. Therefore, speakers and listeners attended to similar acoustical cues when making judgments of vocal effort, but listeners also used additional time-based information. Further work is needed to determine how vocal effort manifests in the speech signal in speakers with voice disorders.

Vagus nerve stimulation paired with tones for tinnitus suppression: Effects on voice and hearing

“…Deviant vocal output signatures like hoarseness, is a perceptual feature which is easily detectable in face‐to‐face communication situations and can affect quality‐of‐life, particularly in those individuals using their voices professionally. It is also well known that the objective voice measures used herein have high ecological validity in correlating with perceptual characteristics of abnormal vocal output 74,75 . Therefore, we echo the statement by Van Lierde and colleagues 76 that “…professional voice users and elite vocal performers must be informed before implantation.” In fact, we emphasized the potential for adverse effects on vocal function during the recruitment phase and reiterated this material in our consent process; both in written form and in verbal recapitulation to ensure all participants clearly understood this information before signing the informed consent document and joining the study.…”

Acoustic voice characteristics with and without wearing a facemask

“…Increased vocal effort seems associated with a different trend of spectral change. In vocally healthy speakers McKenna and Stepp 84 observed that typical phonation style had the highest L/H ratio (a ratio of low to high spectral energy with cut-off at 4 kHz) and this measure decreased steadily from mild to maximal effort (i.e. decreased spectral slope in vocal effort).…”

Voice Differences When Wearing and Not Wearing a Surgical Mask

“…20,21 Vocal effort manifests as a series of changes to the voice signal, including those that can be quantified by amplitude-, time-, and spectral-based measures. 22 Effortful voice production is a critical component of voice disorders and is considered to be a component of vocal hyperfunction. 23,24 Therefore, the increased vocal effort that occurs in hyperfunctional voice disorders can be associated with altered patterns of intrinsic and extrinsic laryngeal muscle activation, attempts to compensate for a lack of vocal fold closure, changes in the vibratory patterns of the vocal fold and altered respiratory behavior.…”