Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Voice disorders--Pathophysiology; Voice disorders--Diagnosis;
Abstract
Traditional methods for assessing voice disorders have been based on the perceptual judgments of trained listeners/professionals. These methods have been criticized due to the subjectivity of these ratings. The recent development of computer applications in communicative disorders has led to the availability of objective measures of voice characteristics. However, the specific measures useful in the diagnosis of voice disorders related to vocal pathology are not well established. The purpose of the study was to determine if there were differences in acoustic measures and perceptual judgments between pathological (mass lesion) and normal voice speakers. A total of 35 pathological (mass lesion) speakers and 35 age- and gender-matched normal voice speakers were audio recorded while sustaining the vowel sounds /i/, /a/, and /u/, and reading a standard passage ("My Grandfather"). Six certified speech language pathologists made perceptual judgments of six voice quality dimensions (hoarseness, breathiness, harshness, diplophonia, pitch breaks, and overall voice quality). Further, six acoustic values (f0 range, f0 standard deviation, jitter, shimmer, breathiness, and harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR)) were obtained for each of the three vowels for each subject using SoundScope, a computer-based acoustic analysis program. A series of independent one-way Analysis of Variance with repeated measures was utilized to examine group differences in the perceptual and acoustic measures. Significant differences between groups were found for both the perceptual judgments and acoustic measures. The pathological voice speakers were rated as having greater deviance (higher ratings) on all of the perceptual measures as compared to the normal voice speakers. In addition, the pathological voice group exhibited higher values for the acoustic measures of f0 range, f0 standard deviation, jitter, and shimmer when compared to the normal voice group. Further, Pearson product moment-correlations were utilized to compare the perceptual judgments and the acoustic measures. F0 standard deviation, f0 range, and jitter were moderately to highly correlated with all perceptual measures. A Stepwise Regression procedure was used to examine the acoustic measures' prediction of the perceptual measures. It was found that the best acoustic measure predictors of perceptual voice quality judgments were f0 range and jitter.
Year of Submission
1994
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Communicative Disorders
First Advisor
Richard A. McGuire
Second Advisor
Judith F. Harrington
Third Advisor
Raymond Tymas-Jones
Date Original
1994
Object Description
1 PDF file (95 leaves)
Copyright
©1994 Heidi M. Elliott
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Elliott, Heidi M., "Voice Quality of Individuals Exhibiting Mass Lesion: A Comparison of Acoustic and Perceptual Measures" (1994). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2568.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2568
Comments
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