Can Specific Voice Pathologies be Identified Based on Acoustic Analysis?
Ofer Amir, Adi Primove-Fever, Dana Yedwab, Michael Wolf
Acoustic analyses of voice have been used to quantify physical properties of the voice signal. While some studies have suggested that several acoustic measures could differentiate among pathological categories (e.g., organic vs. functional), most studies concluded that acoustic analysis of voice cannot reliably identify a specific laryngeal pathologies or even a pathological category.
The purpose of this study was to learn whether acoustic analysis can serve to differentiate among specific vocal pathologies within a single pathological category. Forty-six women with mass lesions on their vocal folds were included in the study. Of these women, 12 were diagnosed with vocal nodules, 13 with polyps and the remaining 21 women were diagnosed with vocal fold cysts. All women were recorded while producing the vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/ six times in a random order. Acoustic analysis included measures of fundamental frequency (F0), frequency- and amplitude-perturbation and noise indices. Comparisons were made among the three laryngeal pathologies with reference to the laterality of the lesion.
Preliminary results show a tendency for higher values of F0 and frequency-perturbation in the cyst group, in comparison to the nodules and polyps groups. These trends, however, failed to reach statistical significance due to large inter-subject variability. Patients with bilateral lesions exhibited higher group mean values for F0, frequency- and amplitude-perturbation, but not for the noise indices. These trends, too, failed to reach statistical significance. Based on the current results, acoustic analysis does not appear to differentiate among the specific pathologies examined, yet it provides intriguing possibilities for future research. Additional demographic and clinical considerations will be discussed.
Dr. Ofer Amir (Ph.D.), Dept. of Comm. Dis., Tel-Aviv University, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, 52621, Israel.
Ofer Amir1,2, Adi Primove-Fever2, Dana Yedwab2, Michael Wolf1,3
1Dept. of Communication Disorders, Tel-Aviv University, 2Voice Clinic, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, 3Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University.
Fax #: +972-3-5352868 Phone #: +972-3-5349817 (ext. 218)
oferamir@post.tau.ac.il