title: Instrumental dimensioning of normal and pathological phonation using acoustic measurements.
abstract: The present study deals with the dimensions of normal and pathological phonation. Separation of normal voices from pathological voices is tested under different aspects. Using a new parametrization of voice-quality properties in the acoustic signal, the vowel productions of 534 speakers (267 M, 267 F) without any reported voice pathology and the productions of 534 gender-matched pathological speakers were considered. In a first step, a gender-specific separation of the two groups is supported by a number of significantly different parameter means. In a second step, a clustering technique differentiates three subgroups within each group and gender on the basis of the acoustic parameters. Further, a statistical examination of the correct assignment in the database (DB-classification) as "normal" or "pathological" shows that the two groups overlap to some extent. The overlap of speaker assignment indicates a phonation continuum through the multidimensional space extending from normal to pathological voices. The validity of a categorical distinction of normal and pathological phonation in the sense of an individual or group-orientated labelling of voice quality as "normal" or "pathological", respectively, is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Phonetics, Saarland University, Germany. puetzer@coli.uni-sb.de
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Putzer
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Barry
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010699:Phonation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D014832:Voice Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014833:Voice Quality