title: The psychophysics of roughness applied to dysphonic voice.
abstract: Roughness is a sound quality that has been related to the amplitude modulation characteristics of the acoustic stimulus. Roughness also is considered one of the primary elements of voice quality associated with natural variations across normal voices and is a salient feature of many dysphonic voices. It is known that the roughness of tonal stimuli is dependent on the frequency and depth of amplitude modulation and on the carrier frequency. Here, it is determined if similar dependencies exist for voiced speech stimuli. Knowledge of such dependencies can lead to a better understanding of the acoustic characteristics of vocal roughness along the continuum of normal to dysphonic and may facilitate computational estimates of vocal roughness. Synthetic vowel stimuli were modeled after talkers selected from the Satloff/Heman-Ackah disordered voice database. To parametrically control amplitude modulation frequency and depth, synthesized stimuli had minimal amplitude fluctuations, and amplitude modulation was superimposed with the desired frequency and depth. Perceptual roughness judgments depended on amplitude modulation frequency and depth in a manner that closely matched data from tonal carriers. The dependence of perceived roughness on amplitude modulation frequency and depth closely matched the roughness of sinusoidal carriers as reported by Fastl and Zwicker [(2007) Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models, 3rd ed. (Springer, New York)].
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, PCD 1017, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Eddins
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University, 1026 Red Cedar Road, Room 109, Oyer Speech and Hearing Building, East Lansing Michigan 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Kopf
authors.affiliation: Office of the Vice President for Instruction, University of Georgia, 0309 New College, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA.
authors.forename: Rahul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shrivastav
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000162:Acoustics; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D055154:Dysphonia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult