Cepstral peak prominence as a measure for overall voice quality in vowel as well as in continuous speech segments
Youri Maryn, Paul Corthals, Marc de Bodt, Paul van Cauwenberghe
Acoustic measurement of voice quality, due to several technical challenges associated with extracting F0 and perturbation measures in continuous speech, traditionally relies on the analysis of a vowel (segment). Clinical and objective voice quality assessment in continuous speech on the other hand is less artificial and more realistic. One of the acoustic analyses that can be used in continuous speech is cepstral peak prominence (CPP) or smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPs) (Hillenbrand & Houde, 1996). In this study, the predictive criterion-related validity of CPP/CPPs was investigated in sustained vowel (3 seconds of /a/) as well as in continuous speech (the first 2 sentences of a standard text) samples provided by 251 subjects with various voice disorders. Furthermore, this validity was also investigated in speech samples containing a concatenation of both. Results, based on correlation statistics, reveal the strong predictive power of CPP, underlining its clinical feasability. Results are discussed in the context of the available literature.
Youri Maryn, MSc
Sint-Jan General Hospital Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology Bruges, Belgium
Paul Corthals, PhD
UniversityCollege of Ghent Department of Healthcare Vesalius Ghent, Belgium
Universityof Ghent Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology Ghent, Belgium
Marc De Bodt, PhD
University Hospital of Antwerp - Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery Department of Communication Disorders Antwerp, Belgium
Paul Van Cauwenberge, PhD
University Hospital of Ghent - Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery Ghent, Belgium
Correspondence:
Youri Maryn
Sint-JanGeneral Hospital
Department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology
Ruddershove 10
8000 Bruges
Belgium
Tel.: +32 50 452448 Fax: +32 50 452290
E-mail: youri.maryn@azbrugge.be