Towards Standardizing Perceptual Voice Quality Measures

迈向标准化感知语音质量测量

• 批准号: 7157617
• 负责人: JODY E KREIMAN
• 金额: $ 48.67万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-12-01 至 2010-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7157617
• 关键词: Acoustics; Agreement; Area; Attention; Bypass; Characteristics; Clinic; Clinical; Complex; Data; Development; Dimensions; Elements; Error Sources; Evaluation; Funding; Goals; Hearing; Hoarseness; Individual; Judgment; Just-Noticeable Differences; Label; Link; Measurement; Measures; Memory; Methods; Modeling; Noise; Pathologic; Patients; Perception; Pliability; Protocols documentation; Rate; Research; Research Personnel; Sampling; Severities; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Source; Speech; Speech Synthesizers; Standards of Weights and Measures; Stimulus; Techniques; Testing; Validation; Validity and Reliability; Voice; Voice Quality; auditory stimulus; base; experience; indexing; programs; response; tool

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Judgments of voice quality contribute greatly to patients' opinions of their voice, and to a clinician's decision to initiate and continue treatment. Quality judgments are also used as a standard against which instrumental measures of voice are validated. Nevertheless, these "subjective" measures of voice quality are not highly regarded as either clinical or research tools, because of problems with reliability and untested validity. We hypothesize that problems in voice quality measurement do not originate within the listener, but rather derive from the methods used to measure what listeners hear. The proposed research departs from traditional rating scale methods by applying a speech synthesizer for pathological voice quality to study basic issues concerning reliability and validity of voice quality measures, and to determine the perceptual importance of the acoustic elements that underlie voice quality perception. In this approach, listeners adjust synthesizer parameters to achieve a perceptual match to the original voice. This method of adjustment technique explicitly links the acoustic signal to voice quality. We hypothesize that this linkage across the speech chain increases the validity, reliability, and utility of the resulting perceptual responses, by providing listeners with an objective tool (a synthesizer) for quantifying what they hear. The proposed research focuses on four specific aims. First, we will expand, refine, and automate our synthesizer, to increase power, flexibility, and ease of use. Secondly, we will apply the synthesizer to examine the perceptual importance of several key aspects of pathologic voices, including the shape of the source spectrum, period doubling, and the perceptual interactions of harmonic and inharmonic (noise) energy in the voice source. In each case, we will determine which acoustic features are perceptually important and whether these features interact with others, and we will estimate just-noticeable-differences for the parameter as an index of the amount of acoustic change that is clinically meaningful on that dimension. Thirdly, we will evaluate clinicians' ability to apply the synthesizer as a tool for measuring voice quality in the clinic. We will also revisit the use of synthetic anchors in rating protocols as an alternative to the method of adjustment task. Finally, we will evaluate the external validity of the synthesis technique by comparing perceptual measures derived from sustained vowels to those derived from continuous speech. By increasing the power and ease of the synthesizer's use, examining listener sensitivity to important acoustic variables, and studying the generalizability of this approach, the proposed research will bring our goal of a standardized voice quality evaluation protocol within reach.

描述（由申请人提供）：对声音质量的判断极大地影响了患者对其声音的看法，以及临床医生开始和继续治疗的决定。质量判断也被用作验证语音仪器测量的标准。然而，由于可靠性和未经测试的有效性问题，这些语音质量的“主观”测量并没有被高度视为临床或研究工具。我们假设语音质量测量中的问题并非源于收听者内部，而是源于用于测量收听者听到的内容的方法。该研究脱离了传统的评级量表方法，通过应用病理语音质量的语音合成器来研究有关语音质量测量的可靠性和有效性的基本问题，并确定构成语音质量感知的声学元素的感知重要性。在这种方法中，听众调整合成器参数以实现与原始声音的感知匹配。这种调整技术方法明确地将声学信号与语音质量联系起来。我们假设，这种跨越语音链的联系通过为听众提供量化他们所听到的内容的客观工具（合成器）来提高所产生的感知响应的有效性、可靠性和实用性。拟议的研究重点关注四个具体目标。首先，我们将扩展、完善和自动化我们的合成器，以提高功能、灵活性和易用性。其次，我们将应用合成器来检查病理声音的几个关键方面的感知重要性，包括源频谱的形状、周期倍增以及声音源中谐波和不和谐（噪声）能量的感知相互作用。在每种情况下，我们将确定哪些声学特征在感知上很重要，以及这些特征是否与其他特征相互作用，并且我们将估计参数的可察觉差异，作为在该维度上具有临床意义的声学变化量的指标。第三，我们将评估临床医生应用合成器作为临床测量语音质量的工具的能力。我们还将重新审视在评级协议中使用合成锚作为调整任务方法的替代方法。最后，我们将通过比较源自持续元音的感知测量与源自连续语音的感知测量来评估合成技术的外部有效性。通过提高合成器的功能和易用性、检查听者对重要声学变量的敏感性以及研究这种方法的普遍性，所提出的研究将使我们实现标准化语音质量评估协议的目标。