Smartphones Offer New Opportunities in Clinical Voice Research

Area of Science:

• Speech and Hearing Sciences
• Biomedical Engineering
• Digital Health

Background:

• Smartphone technology offers novel methods for collecting standardized voice samples.
• Efficient data collection is crucial for research on voice treatment efficacy.
• The acoustic quality of smartphone recordings for pathologic voices requires validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the suitability of smartphones for recording and digitizing pathologic voices.
• To compare smartphone voice recordings with direct microphone recordings.
• To evaluate the accuracy of smartphone recordings for voice perturbation analysis.

Main Methods:

• Two smartphones (inexpensive and high-level) were used to record synthesized deviant voice samples.
• Voice stimuli featured variations in fundamental frequency (120 and 200 Hz), jitter, and noise.
• Recordings were compared to direct microphone recordings in a soundproof room using PRAAT software.

Main Results:

• High correlations were found for jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio between smartphone recordings and direct measurements.
• Both tested smartphones demonstrated accurate digitization of voice parameters.
• No significant distortion was observed in smartphone recordings of pathologic voice features.

Conclusions:

• Smartphones are adequate for the reliable recording and digitization of pathologic voices.
• This technology can significantly improve baseline data collection for voice research.
• Smartphone-based voice analysis holds promise for clinical research and potentially remote patient monitoring.