title: Perceptual and Acoustic Analyses of Good Voice Quality in Male Radio Performers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Good voice quality is an asset to professional voice users, including radio performers. We examined whether (1) voices could be reliably categorized as good for the radio and (2) these categories could be predicted using acoustic measures.
  
  
  METHODS
  Male radio performers (n = 24) and age-matched male controls performed "The Rainbow Passage" as if presenting on the radio. Voice samples were rated using a three-stage paired-comparison paradigm by 51 naive listeners and perceptual categories were identified (Study 1), and then analyzed for fundamental frequency, long-term average spectrum, cepstral peak prominence, and pause or spoken-phrase duration (Study 2).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Study 1: Good inter-judge reliability was found for perceptual judgments of the best 15 voices (good for radio category, 14/15 = radio performers), but agreement on the remaining 33 voices (unranked category) was poor. Study 2: Discriminant function analyses showed that the SD standard deviation of sounded portion duration, equivalent sound level, and smoothed cepstral peak prominence predicted membership of categories with moderate accuracy (R2= 0.328).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Radio performers are heterogeneous for voice quality; good voice quality was judged reliably in only 14 out of 24 radio performers. Current acoustic analyses detected some of the relevant signal properties that were salient in these judgments. More refined perceptual analysis and the use of other perceptual methods might provide more information on the complex nature of judging good voices.
authors.affiliation: Voice Research Laboratory, Discipline of Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: swar0066@uni.sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Warhurst
authors.affiliation: Voice Research Laboratory, Discipline of Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Madill
authors.affiliation: Voice Research Laboratory, Discipline of Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McCabe
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Sten
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ternström
authors.affiliation: Voice Research Laboratory, Division of Speech and Hearing Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Edwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yiu
authors.affiliation: Voice Research Laboratory, Discipline of Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Heard
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D009790:Occupations; D011845:Radio; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014833:Voice Quality; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: broadcaster; perceptual analysis; performance; supranormal; voice