1. Multilingual evaluation of voice disability index using pitch rate
- Author
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Masakazu Higuchi, Shunji Mitsuyoshi, Yasuhiro Omiya, Shuji Shinohara, Mitsuteru Nakamura, Shinichi Tokuno, and Naoki Hagiwara
- Subjects
Index (economics) ,Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous) ,Pitch detection ratio ,Computer science ,Speech recognition ,Jitter ,lcsh:Technology ,050105 experimental psychology ,Read speech ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Shimmer ,Management of Technology and Innovation ,otorhinolaryngologic diseases ,Voice disability ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,lcsh:Science ,Engineering (miscellaneous) ,Pitch rate ,lcsh:T ,05 social sciences ,Multilingual evaluation ,Harmonic to noise ratio ,lcsh:Q ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
We propose the use of the pitch rate of free-form speech recorded by smartphones as an index of voice disability. This research compares the effectiveness of pitch rate, jitter, shimmer, and harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) as indices of voice disability in English, German, and Japanese. Normally, the evaluation of these indices is performed using long-vowel sounds; however, this study included the recitation of a set passage, which is more similar to free-form speech. The results showed that for English, the jitter, shimmer, and HNR were very effective indices for long-vowel sounds, but the shimmer and HNR for read speech were considerably worse. Although the effectiveness of jitter as an index was maintained for read speech, the pitch rate was better in distinguishing between healthy individuals and patients with illnesses affecting their voice. The read speech results in German, Japanese, and English were similar, and the pitch rate showed the greatest efficiency for identification. Nevertheless, compared to English, the identification efficiency for the other two languages was lower.
- Published
- 2017