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Cepstral Measures to Analyze Vocal Fatigue in Individuals With Hyperfunctional Voice Disorder
Shenbagavalli Mahalingam1, Prakash Boominathan1, Ravikumar Arunachalam2
1Department of Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to Be University), Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Objective:
Cepstral measures are sensitive to slightest deviance in voice quality. Vocal fatigue is an initial symptom of a voice disorder. This study aimed (1) to assess the correlation of vocal fatigue and cepstral measures and (2) to identify a measure for analyzing voice change due to vocal fatigue in individuals with hyperfunctional voice disorders.
Study Design:
Cross-sectional.
Methods:
A total of 100 subjects participated in the study, that is Group I (50 cases) and Group II (50 controls). Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI-T) in Tamil was administered to identify the presence of fatigue. Voice samples (sustained vowel and conversational speech) were recorded using the Computerized Speech Lab (Model 4150). Mic to mouth distance was maintained at 10 cm. Extraction of cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and smoothened cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) for a vowel (v) and connected speech (cs) was done using Praat software (version 6.0.39, Boersma & Weenink, 2018).
Results:
Independent t test was used to compare the cepstral measures between cases and controls. Individuals with vocal fatigue (cases) showed significantly lower cepstral values and higher VFI scores compared to the controls. Spearman's rho revealed moderate to strong negative correlation between factors of VFI and cepstral measures. On stepwise multiple linear regression, CPPcs was retained as a sensitive measure to analyze vocal fatigue in individuals with hyperfunctional voice disorder.
Conclusion:
Cepstral measures can be applied to analyze vocal fatigue.
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