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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
08:34
Investigation into Deep Breathing through Measurement of Ventilatory Parameters and Observation of Breathing Patterns
Published on: September 16, 2019
Some difference limens for the perception of breathiness
Rahul Shrivastav1, Christine M Sapienza
1Department of Communication Science and Disorders, Dauer Hall, P.O. Box 117420, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA. rahul@csd.ufl.edu
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|August 1, 2006
Summary
Detecting voice breathiness requires significant increases in aspiration noise, especially for normal voices. The required noise increase varies by speaker and frequency characteristics.
Area of Science:
- Acoustic phonetics
- Speech perception
Background:
- Breathy voice quality is perceived through changes in the vowel spectrum.
- These spectral changes relate to aspiration noise intensity and harmonic energy spectral slope.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the minimal change in signal-to-noise ratio for perceiving breathiness.
- To investigate listener thresholds for detecting voice breathiness.
Main Methods:
- Ten young-adult listeners with normal hearing participated.
- An adaptive listening task was used with six synthesized vowel continua (male and female).
- The study measured difference limens for breathiness detection.
Main Results:
- Listeners required up to a 20-dB increase in aspiration noise to perceive breathiness in normal voices.
- Approximately an 11-dB increase was needed to discriminate breathiness against severely breathy voices.
- Difference limens varied across talkers; high-frequency aspiration noise correlated with smaller limens.
Conclusions:
- Perception of breathiness depends on the degree of existing breathiness and acoustic properties of the voice.
- Aspiration noise characteristics significantly influence breathiness detection thresholds.
- No significant gender differences were found in breathiness perception thresholds.
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