Correlating an Ambulatory Voice Measure to Electrodermal Activity in Patients with Vocal Hyperfunction

We investigate the connection between the autonomic nervous system and the voice in patients with vocal hyperfunction and healthy-control groups. We present a methodology and preliminary results of two multi-modal measurement streams that capture this relationship. Subjects were instrumented for daily, ambulatory collection of their voice and wrist-based electrodermal activity. Measures of vocal function (e.g., fundamental frequency) were computed, as well as measures of autonomic function (e.g., skin conductance response). Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to measure the relationship between vocal and autonomic function over sliding windows throughout each observation day. We found preliminary evidence that patients with a subtype of vocal hyperfunction (non-phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction) exhibit a coupling between the autonomic nervous system and the vocal system. Understanding how the autonomic nervous system interacts with the voice may provide new insights into the etiology/pathophysiology of vocal hyperfunction and improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of these disorders.