Acoustic correlates of breathy vocal quality

In an earlier study, we evaluated the effectiveness of several acoustic measures in predicting breathiness ratings for sustained vowels spoken by nonpathological talkers who were asked to produce nonbreathy, moderately breathy, and very breathy phonation (Hillenbrand, Cleveland, & Erickson, 1994). The purpose of the present study was to extend these results to speakers with laryngeal pathologies and to conduct tests using connected speech in addition to sustained vowels. Breathiness ratings were obtained from a sustained vowel and a 12-word sentence spoken by 20 pathological and 5 nonpathological talkers. Acoustic measures were made of (a) signal periodicity, (b) first harmonic amplitude, and (c) spectral tilt. For the sustained vowels, a frequency domain measure of periodicity provided the most accurate predictions of perceived breathiness, accounting for 92 % of the variance in breathiness ratings. The relative amplitude of the first harmonic and two measures of spectral tilt correlated moderately with breathiness ratings. For the sentences, both signal periodicity and spectral tilt provided accurate predictions of breathiness ratings, accounting for 70%-85 % of the variance. KEY WORDS: breathy voice, voice disorders, acoustic analysis, dysphonia, periodicity Interest in the physiology, acoustics, and perception of breathy vocal quality arises from several sources. For example, breathy voice serves a contrastive function in the phonological systems of several languages (e.g., Fischer-Jorgensen, 1967; Huffman, 1987; Ladefoged, 1975, 1983). Breathiness is also a very common symptom of both organic and functional voice disorders (Aronson, 1971, 1990; Boone & McFarlane, 1988; Colton & Casper, 1990). There is also some evidence that breathiness i