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When and why listeners disagree in voice quality assessment tasks
Jody Kreiman1, Bruce R Gerratt, Mika Ito
1Division of Head and Neck Surgery, UCLA School of Medicine, 31-24 Rehab Center, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. jkreiman@ucla.edu
Listener agreement in voice quality assessments is influenced by task design, not listener unreliability. Optimizing comparison stimuli and scale resolution significantly improves agreement, enhancing voice quality measurement reliability.
Area of Science:
- Speech and Hearing Sciences
- Acoustic Phonetics
- Psychophysics
Background:
- Listener variability poses challenges for reliable voice quality assessment.
- Understanding sources of disagreement is crucial for developing valid measurement protocols.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify factors contributing to interrater variability in voice quality assessment.
- To examine the impact of task design elements on listener agreement.
Main Methods:
- 120 listeners participated in six experiments with varying scale resolution and comparison stimuli.
- Quantified contributions of internal standards, attribute isolation, scale resolution, and attribute magnitude.
- Assessed vocal quality using continuous and six-point scales.
Main Results:
- Task design factors accounted for 84.2% of the variance in listener agreement.
- Matched comparison stimuli doubled exact listener agreement.
- Continuous scales yielded significantly better agreement than six-point scales.
Conclusions:
- Interrater variability in voice quality assessment is primarily a function of task design.
- Listener unreliability is not the main driver of disagreement.
- Optimized task design can significantly enhance the reliability and validity of voice quality assessments.
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