Keiko Ishikawa, Joel MacAuslan, Suzanne Boyce
People don’t understand me in noisy places” is one of the most commonly reported concerns among individuals with dysphonia. Dysphonia is often a result of laryngeal pathology, which elicits greater aperiodicity and instability in a speech signal. These acoustic abnormalities likely contribute to the intelligibility deficit reported by these individuals.
Acoustic analysis is commonly used in dysphonia evaluation. Multiple algorithms are available for characterizing the degree of aperiodicity in speech. Typically, the degree of aperiodicity is measured over a particular length of voicing or speech selected by a user. While such algorithms are effective for describing degree of dysphonic voice quality perceived by listeners, an algorithm that describes timing and frequency of aperiodic moments may provide information more relevant to intelligibility.