Yeonggwang Park - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Yeonggwang Park

Research paper thumbnail of Effects of Vibratory Source on Auditory-Perceptual and Bio-Inspired Computational Measures of Pediatric Voice Quality

Journal of Voice, Aug 31, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluating the Effect of Voice Quality Covariance on Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation Using a Novel Two-Dimensional Magnitude Estimation Task

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, Dec 10, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Improving auditory-perceptual evaluation of disordered voice quality using a novel three-dimensional matching task

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Sep 30, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Predicting Perceived Vocal Roughness Using a Bio-Inspired Computational Model of Auditory Temporal Envelope Processing

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, Aug 17, 2022

Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness... more Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness mainly depends on the subjective auditory-perceptual evaluation and lacks acoustic correlates. This study aimed to apply the concept of roughness in general sound quality perception to vocal roughness assessment and to characterize the relationship between vocal roughness and temporal envelop fluctuation measures obtained from an auditory model. Method: Ten /ɑ/ recordings with a wide range of roughness were selected from an existing database. Ten listeners rated the roughness of the recordings in a single-variable matching task. Temporal envelope fluctuations of the recordings were analyzed with an auditory processing model of amplitude modulation that utilizes a modulation filterbank of different modulation frequencies. Pitch strength and the smoothed cepstral peak prominence were also obtained for comparison. Results: Individual simple regression models yielded envelope standard deviation from a modulation filter with a low center frequency (64.3 Hz) as a statistically significant predictor of vocal roughness with a strong coefficient of determination ( r 2 = .80). Pitch strength and CPPS were not significant predictors of roughness. Conclusion: This result supports the possible utility of envelope fluctuation measures from an auditory model as objective correlates of vocal roughness.

Research paper thumbnail of Predicting Perceived Vocal Roughness Using a Bio-Inspired Computational Model of Auditory Temporal Envelope Processing

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness... more Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness mainly depends on the subjective auditory-perceptual evaluation and lacks acoustic correlates. This study aimed to apply the concept of roughness in general sound quality perception to vocal roughness assessment and to characterize the relationship between vocal roughness and temporal envelop fluctuation measures obtained from an auditory model. Method: Ten /ɑ/ recordings with a wide range of roughness were selected from an existing database. Ten listeners rated the roughness of the recordings in a single-variable matching task. Temporal envelope fluctuations of the recordings were analyzed with an auditory processing model of amplitude modulation that utilizes a modulation filterbank of different modulation frequencies. Pitch strength and the smoothed cepstral peak prominence were also obtained for comparison. Results: Individual simple regression models yielded envelope standard devia...

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluating the translational potential of relative fundamental frequency

Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is an acoustic measure that quantifies short-term changes in... more Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is an acoustic measure that quantifies short-term changes in fundamental frequency during voicing transitions surrounding a voiceless consonant. RFF is hypothesized to be decreased by increased laryngeal tension during voice production and has been considered a potential objective measure of vocal hyperfunction. Previous studies have supported claims that decreased RFF values may indicate the severity of vocal hyperfunction and have attempted to improve the methods to obtain RFF. In order to make progress towards developing RFF into a clinical measure, this dissertation aimed to investigate further the validity and reliability of RFF. Specifically, we examined the underlying physiological mechanisms, the auditory-perceptual relationship with strained voice quality, and test-retest reliability. The first study evaluated one of the previously hypothesized physiological mechanisms for RFF, vocal fold abduction. Vocal fold kinematics and RFF were obtained from both younger and older typical speakers producing RFF stimuli with voiceless fricatives and stops during high-speed videoendoscopy. We did not find any statistical differences between younger and older speakers, but we found that vocal folds were less adducted and RFF was lower at voicing onset after the voiceless stop compared to the fricative. This finding is in accordance with the hypothesized positive association between vocal fold contact area during voicing transitions and RFF. The second study examined the relationship between RFF and strain, a major auditory-perceptual feature of vocal hyperfunction. RFF values were synthetically modified by exchanging the RFF contours between voice samples that were produced with a comfortable voice and with maximum vocal effort, while other acoustic features remained constant. We observed that comfortable voice samples with the RFF values of maximum vocal effort samples had increased strain ratings, whereas maximum vocal effort samples with the RFF values of comfortable voice samples had decreased strain ratings. These findings support the contribution of RFF to perceived strain. The third study compared the test-retest reliability of RFF with that of conventional voice measures. We recorded individuals with healthy voices during five consecutive days and obtained acoustic, aerodynamic, and auditory-perceptual measures from the recordings. RFF was comparably reliable as acoustic and aerodynamic measures and more reliable than auditory-perceptual measures. This dissertation supports the translational potential of RFF by providing empirical evidence of the physiological mechanisms of RFF, the relationship between RFF and perceived strain, and test-retest reliability of RFF. Clinical applications of RFF are expected to improve objective diagnosis and assessment of vocal hyperfunction, and thus to lead to better voice care for individuals with vocal hyperfunction.2021-09-25T00:00:00

Research paper thumbnail of Perception and production of breathy voice quality (Park et al., 2019)

<b>Purpose:</b> Previous studies of speech articulation have shown that individuals w... more <b>Purpose:</b> Previous studies of speech articulation have shown that individuals who can perceive smaller differences between similar-sounding phonemes showed larger contrasts in their productions of those phonemes. Here, a similar relationship was examined between the perception and production of breathy voice quality.<b>Method: </b>Twenty females with healthy voices were recruited to participate in both a voice production and a perception experiment. Each participant produced repetitions of a sustained vowel, and acoustic correlates of breathiness were calculated. Identification and discrimination tasks were performed with a series of synthetic stimuli along a breathiness continuum. Categorical boundary location and boundary width were obtained from the identification task as a measurement of perception of breathiness. Spearman's correlation analysis was performed to estimate associations between values of boundary location and width and the acoustic correlates of breathiness from the participants' voices.<b>Results: </b>Significant correlations between boundary width (<i>r</i> = −.53 to −.6) and some acoustic correlates were found, but no significant relationships were observed between boundary location and the acoustic correlates.<b>Conclusions:</b> Speakers with small boundary widths, which suggest higher perceptual precision in differentiating breathiness, had typical voices that were less breathy, as estimated with acoustic measures, compared to speakers with large boundary widths. Our findings may support a link between perception and production of breathy voice quality.<br><b>Supplemental Materials S1–S10.</b> Stimuli in the breathiness continuum (1 = <i>least breathy</i> to 10 = <i>most breathy</i>); see Table 1 in Park et al. (2019) for <i>t</i><sub>a</sub> and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR) values in each stimulus.<br>Park, Y., Perkell, J. S., Matthies, M. L., &amp; Stepp, C. E. (2019). Categorization in the perception of breathy voice quality and its relation to voice production in healthy speaker [...]

Research paper thumbnail of Test–retest reliability of RFF and voice measures (Park & Stepp, 2019)

<b>Purpose: </b>Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamen... more <b>Purpose: </b>Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has potential for the assessment of excessive laryngeal tension and vocal effort associated with functional and neurological voice disorders. This study presents an analysis of the test–retest reliability of RFF in individuals with healthy voices and a comparison of reliability between RFF and conventional measures of voice.<b>Method: </b>Acoustic and aerodynamic measurements and Consensus Auditory–Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) were performed on 28 individuals with healthy voices on 5 consecutive days. Participants produced RFF stimuli, a sustained /ɑ/, and a reading passage to allow for extraction of acoustic measures and CAPE-V ratings; /pa/ trains were produced to allow for extraction of aerodynamic measures.<b>Results: </b>Moderate reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = .64–.71) were found for RFF values. Mean vocal fundamental frequency, smoothed cepstral peak prominence, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and mean airflow rate exhibited good-to-excellent reliabilities (ICC = .76–.99). ICCs for jitter and phonation threshold pressure were moderately reliable (ICC = .67–.74). ICCs for subglottal pressure estimates and all CAPE-V parameters showed poor reliabilities (ICC = .31–.58).<b>Conclusion: </b>RFF has comparable reliability to conventional measures of voice. This expands the potential for clinical application of RFF.<br><b>Supplemental Material S1.</b> MATLAB scripts for obtaining mean airflow and subglottic pressure estimates from PAS data.<br>Park, Y., &amp; Stepp, C. E. (2019). Test–retest reliability of relative fundamental frequency and conventional acoustic, aerodynamic, and perceptual measures in individuals with healthy voices. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, </i>1707–1718. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-18-0507

Research paper thumbnail of Interactions Between Breathy and Rough Voice Qualities and Their Contributions to Overall Dysphonia Severity

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Dysphonic voices typically present multiple voice quality dimensions. This study investi... more Purpose: Dysphonic voices typically present multiple voice quality dimensions. This study investigated potential interactions between perceived breathiness and roughness and their contributions to overall dysphonia severity. Method: Synthetic stimuli based on four talkers were created to systematically map out potential interactions. For each talker, a stimulus matrix composed of 49 stimuli (seven breathiness steps × seven roughness steps) was created by varying aspiration noise and open quotient to manipulate breathiness and superimposing amplitude modulation of varying depths to simulate roughness. One-dimensional matching (1DMA) and magnitude estimation (1DME) tasks were used to measure perceived breathiness, roughness, their potential interactions, and overall dysphonia severity. Additional 1DME tasks were used to assess a set of natural stimuli that varied along both breathiness and roughness. Results: For the synthetic stimuli, the 1DMA task indicated little interaction betwee...

Research paper thumbnail of Development and Validation of a Single-Variable Comparison Stimulus for Matching Strained Voice Quality Using a Psychoacoustic Framework

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Acoustic and perceptual quantification of vocal strain has been a vexing problem for yea... more Purpose: Acoustic and perceptual quantification of vocal strain has been a vexing problem for years. To increase measurement rigor, a suitable single-variable matching stimulus for strain was developed and validated, based on the matching stimulus used previously for breathy and rough voice qualities. Method: A set of 21 comparison stimuli for a single-variable matching task (SVMT) was synthesized based on a speech-shaped sawtooth waveform mixed with speech-shaped noise. Variable bandpass filter gain in mid-to-high frequencies achieved a wide range of computed sharpness (in constant sharpness steps) and served as the independent variable for the SVMT. Ten natural /ɑ/ stimuli with a wide range of the primary voice quality of strain and a minimum of breathiness or roughness were selected and assessed using the SVMT. Natural voice samples and synthetic comparison stimuli were also assessed using a perceptual magnitude estimation (ME) task. Results: ME data validated the correspondence ...

Research paper thumbnail of Vocal fold kinematics and relative fundamental frequency as a function of obstruent type and speaker age

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2021

The acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has been proposed as an objective met... more The acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has been proposed as an objective metric for assessing vocal hyperfunction; however, its underlying physiological mechanisms have not yet been fully characterized. This study aimed to characterize the relationship between RFF and vocal fold kinematics. Simultaneous acoustic and high-speed videoendoscopic (HSV) recordings were collected as younger and older speakers repeated the utterances /ifi/ and /iti/. RFF values at voicing offsets and onsets surrounding the obstruents were estimated from acoustic recordings, whereas glottal angles, durations of voicing offset and onset, and a kinematic estimate of laryngeal stiffness (KS) were obtained from HSV images. No differences were found between younger and older speakers for any measure. RFF did not differ between the two obstruents at voicing offset; however, fricatives necessitated larger glottal angles and longer durations to devoice. RFF values were lower and glottal angles ...

Research paper thumbnail of Perceptual and Acoustic Assessment of Strain Using Synthetically Modified Voice Samples

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 2020

Purpose Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory... more Purpose Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory-perceptual evaluation and lack of strong acoustic correlates. This study evaluated the contributions of relative fundamental frequency (RFF) and mid-to-high frequency noise to the perception of strain. Method Stimuli were created using recordings of speakers producing /ifi/ with a comfortable voice and with maximum vocal effort. RFF values of the comfortable voice samples were synthetically lowered, and RFF values of the maximum vocal effort samples were synthetically raised. Mid-to-high frequency noise was added to the samples. Twenty listeners rated strain in a visual sort-and-rate task. The effects of RFF modification and added noise on strain were assessed using an analysis of variance; intra- and interrater reliability were compared with and without noise. Results Lowering RFF in the comfortable voice samples increased their perceived strain, whereas raising RFF in the maximum voca...

Research paper thumbnail of Prediction of vocal roughness using measures of temporal envelope fluctuation obtained from an auditory model

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Research paper thumbnail of Perceptual and acoustic assessment of strain (Park et al., 2020)

Purpose: Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditor... more Purpose: Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory-perceptual evaluation and lack of strong acoustic correlates. This study evaluated the contributions of relative fundamental frequency (RFF) and mid-to-high frequency noise to the perception of strain.Method: Stimuli were created using recordings of speakers producing /ifi/ with a comfortable voice and with maximum vocal effort. RFF values of the comfortable voice samples were synthetically lowered, and RFF values of the maximum vocal effort samples were synthetically raised. Mid-to-high frequency noise was added to the samples. Twenty listeners rated strain in a visual sort-and-rate task. The effects of RFF modification and added noise on strain were assessed using an analysis of variance; intra- and interrater reliability were compared with and without noise.Results: Lowering RFF in the comfortable voice samples increased their perceived strain, whereas raising RFF in the maximum voc...

Research paper thumbnail of Categorization in the Perception of Breathy Voice Quality and Its Relation to Voice Production in Healthy Speakers

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Research paper thumbnail of The Effects of Stress Type, Vowel Identity, Baseline f0, and Loudness on the Relative Fundamental Frequency of Individuals With Healthy Voices

Research paper thumbnail of Test–Retest Reliability of Relative Fundamental Frequency and Conventional Acoustic, Aerodynamic, and Perceptual Measures in Individuals With Healthy Voices

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF),... more Purpose Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has potential for the assessment of excessive laryngeal tension and vocal effort associated with functional and neurological voice disorders. This study presents an analysis of the test–retest reliability of RFF in individuals with healthy voices and a comparison of reliability between RFF and conventional measures of voice. Method Acoustic and aerodynamic measurements and Consensus Auditory–Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) were performed on 28 individuals with healthy voices on 5 consecutive days. Participants produced RFF stimuli, a sustained /ɑ/, and a reading passage to allow for extraction of acoustic measures and CAPE-V ratings; /pa/ trains were produced to allow for extraction of aerodynamic measures. Results Moderate reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = .64–.71) were found for RFF values. Mean vocal fundamental frequency, smoothed cepstral peak promin...

Research paper thumbnail of Effects of Vibratory Source on Auditory-Perceptual and Bio-Inspired Computational Measures of Pediatric Voice Quality

Journal of Voice, Aug 31, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluating the Effect of Voice Quality Covariance on Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation Using a Novel Two-Dimensional Magnitude Estimation Task

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, Dec 10, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Improving auditory-perceptual evaluation of disordered voice quality using a novel three-dimensional matching task

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Sep 30, 2023

Research paper thumbnail of Predicting Perceived Vocal Roughness Using a Bio-Inspired Computational Model of Auditory Temporal Envelope Processing

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, Aug 17, 2022

Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness... more Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness mainly depends on the subjective auditory-perceptual evaluation and lacks acoustic correlates. This study aimed to apply the concept of roughness in general sound quality perception to vocal roughness assessment and to characterize the relationship between vocal roughness and temporal envelop fluctuation measures obtained from an auditory model. Method: Ten /ɑ/ recordings with a wide range of roughness were selected from an existing database. Ten listeners rated the roughness of the recordings in a single-variable matching task. Temporal envelope fluctuations of the recordings were analyzed with an auditory processing model of amplitude modulation that utilizes a modulation filterbank of different modulation frequencies. Pitch strength and the smoothed cepstral peak prominence were also obtained for comparison. Results: Individual simple regression models yielded envelope standard deviation from a modulation filter with a low center frequency (64.3 Hz) as a statistically significant predictor of vocal roughness with a strong coefficient of determination ( r 2 = .80). Pitch strength and CPPS were not significant predictors of roughness. Conclusion: This result supports the possible utility of envelope fluctuation measures from an auditory model as objective correlates of vocal roughness.

Research paper thumbnail of Predicting Perceived Vocal Roughness Using a Bio-Inspired Computational Model of Auditory Temporal Envelope Processing

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness... more Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness mainly depends on the subjective auditory-perceptual evaluation and lacks acoustic correlates. This study aimed to apply the concept of roughness in general sound quality perception to vocal roughness assessment and to characterize the relationship between vocal roughness and temporal envelop fluctuation measures obtained from an auditory model. Method: Ten /ɑ/ recordings with a wide range of roughness were selected from an existing database. Ten listeners rated the roughness of the recordings in a single-variable matching task. Temporal envelope fluctuations of the recordings were analyzed with an auditory processing model of amplitude modulation that utilizes a modulation filterbank of different modulation frequencies. Pitch strength and the smoothed cepstral peak prominence were also obtained for comparison. Results: Individual simple regression models yielded envelope standard devia...

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluating the translational potential of relative fundamental frequency

Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is an acoustic measure that quantifies short-term changes in... more Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is an acoustic measure that quantifies short-term changes in fundamental frequency during voicing transitions surrounding a voiceless consonant. RFF is hypothesized to be decreased by increased laryngeal tension during voice production and has been considered a potential objective measure of vocal hyperfunction. Previous studies have supported claims that decreased RFF values may indicate the severity of vocal hyperfunction and have attempted to improve the methods to obtain RFF. In order to make progress towards developing RFF into a clinical measure, this dissertation aimed to investigate further the validity and reliability of RFF. Specifically, we examined the underlying physiological mechanisms, the auditory-perceptual relationship with strained voice quality, and test-retest reliability. The first study evaluated one of the previously hypothesized physiological mechanisms for RFF, vocal fold abduction. Vocal fold kinematics and RFF were obtained from both younger and older typical speakers producing RFF stimuli with voiceless fricatives and stops during high-speed videoendoscopy. We did not find any statistical differences between younger and older speakers, but we found that vocal folds were less adducted and RFF was lower at voicing onset after the voiceless stop compared to the fricative. This finding is in accordance with the hypothesized positive association between vocal fold contact area during voicing transitions and RFF. The second study examined the relationship between RFF and strain, a major auditory-perceptual feature of vocal hyperfunction. RFF values were synthetically modified by exchanging the RFF contours between voice samples that were produced with a comfortable voice and with maximum vocal effort, while other acoustic features remained constant. We observed that comfortable voice samples with the RFF values of maximum vocal effort samples had increased strain ratings, whereas maximum vocal effort samples with the RFF values of comfortable voice samples had decreased strain ratings. These findings support the contribution of RFF to perceived strain. The third study compared the test-retest reliability of RFF with that of conventional voice measures. We recorded individuals with healthy voices during five consecutive days and obtained acoustic, aerodynamic, and auditory-perceptual measures from the recordings. RFF was comparably reliable as acoustic and aerodynamic measures and more reliable than auditory-perceptual measures. This dissertation supports the translational potential of RFF by providing empirical evidence of the physiological mechanisms of RFF, the relationship between RFF and perceived strain, and test-retest reliability of RFF. Clinical applications of RFF are expected to improve objective diagnosis and assessment of vocal hyperfunction, and thus to lead to better voice care for individuals with vocal hyperfunction.2021-09-25T00:00:00

Research paper thumbnail of Perception and production of breathy voice quality (Park et al., 2019)

<b>Purpose:</b> Previous studies of speech articulation have shown that individuals w... more <b>Purpose:</b> Previous studies of speech articulation have shown that individuals who can perceive smaller differences between similar-sounding phonemes showed larger contrasts in their productions of those phonemes. Here, a similar relationship was examined between the perception and production of breathy voice quality.<b>Method: </b>Twenty females with healthy voices were recruited to participate in both a voice production and a perception experiment. Each participant produced repetitions of a sustained vowel, and acoustic correlates of breathiness were calculated. Identification and discrimination tasks were performed with a series of synthetic stimuli along a breathiness continuum. Categorical boundary location and boundary width were obtained from the identification task as a measurement of perception of breathiness. Spearman's correlation analysis was performed to estimate associations between values of boundary location and width and the acoustic correlates of breathiness from the participants' voices.<b>Results: </b>Significant correlations between boundary width (<i>r</i> = −.53 to −.6) and some acoustic correlates were found, but no significant relationships were observed between boundary location and the acoustic correlates.<b>Conclusions:</b> Speakers with small boundary widths, which suggest higher perceptual precision in differentiating breathiness, had typical voices that were less breathy, as estimated with acoustic measures, compared to speakers with large boundary widths. Our findings may support a link between perception and production of breathy voice quality.<br><b>Supplemental Materials S1–S10.</b> Stimuli in the breathiness continuum (1 = <i>least breathy</i> to 10 = <i>most breathy</i>); see Table 1 in Park et al. (2019) for <i>t</i><sub>a</sub> and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR) values in each stimulus.<br>Park, Y., Perkell, J. S., Matthies, M. L., &amp; Stepp, C. E. (2019). Categorization in the perception of breathy voice quality and its relation to voice production in healthy speaker [...]

Research paper thumbnail of Test–retest reliability of RFF and voice measures (Park & Stepp, 2019)

<b>Purpose: </b>Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamen... more <b>Purpose: </b>Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has potential for the assessment of excessive laryngeal tension and vocal effort associated with functional and neurological voice disorders. This study presents an analysis of the test–retest reliability of RFF in individuals with healthy voices and a comparison of reliability between RFF and conventional measures of voice.<b>Method: </b>Acoustic and aerodynamic measurements and Consensus Auditory–Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) were performed on 28 individuals with healthy voices on 5 consecutive days. Participants produced RFF stimuli, a sustained /ɑ/, and a reading passage to allow for extraction of acoustic measures and CAPE-V ratings; /pa/ trains were produced to allow for extraction of aerodynamic measures.<b>Results: </b>Moderate reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = .64–.71) were found for RFF values. Mean vocal fundamental frequency, smoothed cepstral peak prominence, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and mean airflow rate exhibited good-to-excellent reliabilities (ICC = .76–.99). ICCs for jitter and phonation threshold pressure were moderately reliable (ICC = .67–.74). ICCs for subglottal pressure estimates and all CAPE-V parameters showed poor reliabilities (ICC = .31–.58).<b>Conclusion: </b>RFF has comparable reliability to conventional measures of voice. This expands the potential for clinical application of RFF.<br><b>Supplemental Material S1.</b> MATLAB scripts for obtaining mean airflow and subglottic pressure estimates from PAS data.<br>Park, Y., &amp; Stepp, C. E. (2019). Test–retest reliability of relative fundamental frequency and conventional acoustic, aerodynamic, and perceptual measures in individuals with healthy voices. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, </i>1707–1718. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-S-18-0507

Research paper thumbnail of Interactions Between Breathy and Rough Voice Qualities and Their Contributions to Overall Dysphonia Severity

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Dysphonic voices typically present multiple voice quality dimensions. This study investi... more Purpose: Dysphonic voices typically present multiple voice quality dimensions. This study investigated potential interactions between perceived breathiness and roughness and their contributions to overall dysphonia severity. Method: Synthetic stimuli based on four talkers were created to systematically map out potential interactions. For each talker, a stimulus matrix composed of 49 stimuli (seven breathiness steps × seven roughness steps) was created by varying aspiration noise and open quotient to manipulate breathiness and superimposing amplitude modulation of varying depths to simulate roughness. One-dimensional matching (1DMA) and magnitude estimation (1DME) tasks were used to measure perceived breathiness, roughness, their potential interactions, and overall dysphonia severity. Additional 1DME tasks were used to assess a set of natural stimuli that varied along both breathiness and roughness. Results: For the synthetic stimuli, the 1DMA task indicated little interaction betwee...

Research paper thumbnail of Development and Validation of a Single-Variable Comparison Stimulus for Matching Strained Voice Quality Using a Psychoacoustic Framework

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose: Acoustic and perceptual quantification of vocal strain has been a vexing problem for yea... more Purpose: Acoustic and perceptual quantification of vocal strain has been a vexing problem for years. To increase measurement rigor, a suitable single-variable matching stimulus for strain was developed and validated, based on the matching stimulus used previously for breathy and rough voice qualities. Method: A set of 21 comparison stimuli for a single-variable matching task (SVMT) was synthesized based on a speech-shaped sawtooth waveform mixed with speech-shaped noise. Variable bandpass filter gain in mid-to-high frequencies achieved a wide range of computed sharpness (in constant sharpness steps) and served as the independent variable for the SVMT. Ten natural /ɑ/ stimuli with a wide range of the primary voice quality of strain and a minimum of breathiness or roughness were selected and assessed using the SVMT. Natural voice samples and synthetic comparison stimuli were also assessed using a perceptual magnitude estimation (ME) task. Results: ME data validated the correspondence ...

Research paper thumbnail of Vocal fold kinematics and relative fundamental frequency as a function of obstruent type and speaker age

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2021

The acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has been proposed as an objective met... more The acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has been proposed as an objective metric for assessing vocal hyperfunction; however, its underlying physiological mechanisms have not yet been fully characterized. This study aimed to characterize the relationship between RFF and vocal fold kinematics. Simultaneous acoustic and high-speed videoendoscopic (HSV) recordings were collected as younger and older speakers repeated the utterances /ifi/ and /iti/. RFF values at voicing offsets and onsets surrounding the obstruents were estimated from acoustic recordings, whereas glottal angles, durations of voicing offset and onset, and a kinematic estimate of laryngeal stiffness (KS) were obtained from HSV images. No differences were found between younger and older speakers for any measure. RFF did not differ between the two obstruents at voicing offset; however, fricatives necessitated larger glottal angles and longer durations to devoice. RFF values were lower and glottal angles ...

Research paper thumbnail of Perceptual and Acoustic Assessment of Strain Using Synthetically Modified Voice Samples

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 2020

Purpose Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory... more Purpose Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory-perceptual evaluation and lack of strong acoustic correlates. This study evaluated the contributions of relative fundamental frequency (RFF) and mid-to-high frequency noise to the perception of strain. Method Stimuli were created using recordings of speakers producing /ifi/ with a comfortable voice and with maximum vocal effort. RFF values of the comfortable voice samples were synthetically lowered, and RFF values of the maximum vocal effort samples were synthetically raised. Mid-to-high frequency noise was added to the samples. Twenty listeners rated strain in a visual sort-and-rate task. The effects of RFF modification and added noise on strain were assessed using an analysis of variance; intra- and interrater reliability were compared with and without noise. Results Lowering RFF in the comfortable voice samples increased their perceived strain, whereas raising RFF in the maximum voca...

Research paper thumbnail of Prediction of vocal roughness using measures of temporal envelope fluctuation obtained from an auditory model

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Research paper thumbnail of Perceptual and acoustic assessment of strain (Park et al., 2020)

Purpose: Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditor... more Purpose: Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory-perceptual evaluation and lack of strong acoustic correlates. This study evaluated the contributions of relative fundamental frequency (RFF) and mid-to-high frequency noise to the perception of strain.Method: Stimuli were created using recordings of speakers producing /ifi/ with a comfortable voice and with maximum vocal effort. RFF values of the comfortable voice samples were synthetically lowered, and RFF values of the maximum vocal effort samples were synthetically raised. Mid-to-high frequency noise was added to the samples. Twenty listeners rated strain in a visual sort-and-rate task. The effects of RFF modification and added noise on strain were assessed using an analysis of variance; intra- and interrater reliability were compared with and without noise.Results: Lowering RFF in the comfortable voice samples increased their perceived strain, whereas raising RFF in the maximum voc...

Research paper thumbnail of Categorization in the Perception of Breathy Voice Quality and Its Relation to Voice Production in Healthy Speakers

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Research paper thumbnail of The Effects of Stress Type, Vowel Identity, Baseline f0, and Loudness on the Relative Fundamental Frequency of Individuals With Healthy Voices

Research paper thumbnail of Test–Retest Reliability of Relative Fundamental Frequency and Conventional Acoustic, Aerodynamic, and Perceptual Measures in Individuals With Healthy Voices

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Purpose Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF),... more Purpose Recent studies have shown that an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has potential for the assessment of excessive laryngeal tension and vocal effort associated with functional and neurological voice disorders. This study presents an analysis of the test–retest reliability of RFF in individuals with healthy voices and a comparison of reliability between RFF and conventional measures of voice. Method Acoustic and aerodynamic measurements and Consensus Auditory–Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) were performed on 28 individuals with healthy voices on 5 consecutive days. Participants produced RFF stimuli, a sustained /ɑ/, and a reading passage to allow for extraction of acoustic measures and CAPE-V ratings; /pa/ trains were produced to allow for extraction of aerodynamic measures. Results Moderate reliabilities (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = .64–.71) were found for RFF values. Mean vocal fundamental frequency, smoothed cepstral peak promin...