Comparison of Auditory Perceptual Ratings Between Australian and Cantonese Listeners on Normal and Disordered Voices

This project aimed to compare perceptual ratings of voice quality of normal and disordered voices of Australian English speakers and Hong Kong (HK) Cantonese speakers across speech pathology student listeners who spoke Cantonese (tone) first language vs English (non-tone) first language.

In total, 54 speech pathology students from HK and 54 speech pathology students from Australia participated in this study. After excluding speakers of other languages, 57 Cantonese first language and 37 English first language speakers were included. They rated overall severity (OS), roughness, breathiness, and strain on English and Cantonese voice samples of normal, mildly, and moderately dysphonic severity levels using an online auditory perceptual rating tool. The English and Cantonese samples were equivalent for OS ratings and acoustic values of cepstral peak prominence. Data were analyzed based on listener's first language spoken.

For most voice parameters, intra-rater reliability was moderate-to-good for both Cantonese first language and English first language groups. For English stimuli, English first language listeners perceived breathiness and strain as more severe than did Cantonese first language listeners whilst the two groups did not differ in ratings of OS and roughness. For Cantonese stimuli, English listeners perceived breathiness as more severe than Cantonese listeners, whilst the two groups did not significantly differ in ratings for OS, roughness, and strain.

English first language listeners appeared to be more sensitive to breathiness and strain than Cantonese first language listeners. This implies the possible interaction between the type of first language (tone or non-tone) on auditory perception of voice quality.