RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of level and type of experience on response time and the number of replays needed when judging voice quality. STUDY DESIGN: This was a within-subjects group design. METHODS: Speech-language pathologists, singing voice teachers, speech-language pathology graduate students with and without experience with a voice client, graduate students who have completed a voice pedagogy course, and inexperienced listeners (n = 60) rated stimuli with systematically altered measurements of jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR) on a visual analog scale ranging from mild to severe for overall severity, roughness, breathiness, strain, and pitch. Response time (in seconds) and number of replays were recorded during the experiment. RESULTS: Results showed that experienced listeners took the most time when rating the stimuli. Stimuli with two altered acoustical components also yielded longer response times compared with the stimuli with one altered acoustical component. Finally, level and type of experience had some effect on the number of replays for each stimulus during the rating task. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, experience does affect response time when judging voice quality and the number of replays during voice quality rating tasks. Continued research is needed regarding the reasons for extended time and replays as per experience so as to enhance future training protocols.
Asunto(s)
Juicio , Tiempo de Reacción , Acústica del Lenguaje , Percepción del Habla , Calidad de la Voz , Estimulación Acústica , Adulto , Anciano , Competencia Clínica , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Ocupaciones , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Canto , Medición de la Producción del Habla , Patología del Habla y Lenguaje , Factores de Tiempo , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of experience on the perceptual space of listeners when judging voice quality. STUDY DESIGN: This was a within-subjects group design. METHOD: Speech-language pathologists, singing voice teachers, speech-language pathology graduate students with and without experience with a voice client, graduate students who have completed a voice pedagogy course, and inexperienced served as listeners. Each participant rated the similarity of pairs of synthesized stimuli with systematically altered measurements of jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio on a visual analog scale ranging from no similarity to extremely similar. RESULTS: Results showed that participants with different levels and types of experience used different perceptual spaces (of additive noise and perturbation measures) when judging the similarity of stimulus pairs. CONCLUSION: The conclusion was that perceptual spaces differ among individuals with different levels and types of experience when judging the similarity of pairs of stimuli with systematically altered acoustical measurements.
Asunto(s)
Percepción Auditiva/fisiología , Competencia Profesional , Canto/fisiología , Percepción del Habla/fisiología , Calidad de la Voz , Voz/fisiología , Adulto , Anciano , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Acústica del Lenguaje , Medición de la Producción del HablaRESUMEN
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of level and type of experience on the judgment of voice quality and to examine the correlation among acoustical measurements and perceptions of voice quality. STUDY DESIGN: This was a within-subjects group design. METHODS: Speech-language pathologists, singing voice teachers (SVTs), speech-language pathology graduate students with and without experience with a voice client, graduate students who have completed a voice pedagogy course, and inexperienced listeners (IEs) rated stimuli with systematically altered measurements of jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR) on a visual analog scale ranging from mild to severe for overall severity, roughness, breathiness, strain, and pitch. RESULTS: Results showed that the type of experience had an impact on judgments of voice quality more than the level of experience. Also, jitter/shimmer combination stimuli and shimmer only stimuli frequently correlated with the ratings of overall severity, roughness, and strain, and NHR stimuli correlated with ratings of breathiness across all groups. Only IEs, SVTs, and their students had significant correlations for ratings of pitch with jitter/shimmer combination stimuli having the highest correlations. CONCLUSION: The conclusion was that the level and type of experience affect judgments of voice quality.
Asunto(s)
Juicio , Competencia Profesional , Acústica del Lenguaje , Percepción del Habla , Patología del Habla y Lenguaje/métodos , Calidad de la Voz , Estimulación Acústica , Acústica , Adulto , Anciano , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Variaciones Dependientes del Observador , Fonación , Percepción de la Altura Tonal , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Medición de la Producción del Habla , Análisis y Desempeño de Tareas , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: The purpose of this study was to compare the agreement among several groups of listeners with different types of experience in regard to classifying voice quality. STUDY DESIGN: This is a retrospective cross-sectional quasi-experimental design. METHOD: This study compared three groups: speech-language pathologists who specialize in voice, singing voice teachers, and inexperienced listeners. All groups were asked to classify voice samples as breathy, rough, or normal. RESULTS: Results show a significant difference across all groups with speech-language pathologists demonstrating a substantial interrater agreement, κ=0.67, z=103.07 (P<0.01); singing voice teachers demonstrating a moderate interrater agreement, κ=0.53, z=79.10 (P<0.01); and inexperienced listeners demonstrating a fair interrater agreement, κ=0.24, z=35.82 (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Experienced listeners demonstrated a higher interrater agreement as compared with inexperienced listeners, with speech-language pathologists demonstrating a superior agreement as compared with all groups.
Asunto(s)
Competencia Profesional , Acústica del Lenguaje , Percepción del Habla , Medición de la Producción del Habla , Patología del Habla y Lenguaje , Calidad de la Voz , Adulto , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Estudios Transversales , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Variaciones Dependientes del Observador , Pennsylvania , Competencia Profesional/normas , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Estudios Retrospectivos , Medición de la Producción del Habla/normas , Patología del Habla y Lenguaje/normas , Análisis y Desempeño de Tareas , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Esophageal talkers may have reduced intelligibility due to both time domain and frequency domain variability. The unpredictable nature of esophageal speech can cause problems when automatic procedures are used in applications such as long-distance telephone messages. The current study compared a standard coding algorithm (LPC-10e) with a novel approach to determining voiced periods (vocal tract area functions) in the speech of esophageal talkers. The results of the study showed that the sentences synthesized with the vocal tract area function algorithm were more intelligible than those synthesized with the standard LPC-10e algorithm. Supplemental information, such as vocal tract area functions, may be useful in determining voiced epochs when variability in vocal parameters is high.