How do differing shapes of the acoustic signal onset affect the perception in hard onset ? (In collaboration with Prof. Sheila Stager from George Washington University, Washingtion DC, USA)

Details

Supervisors

Maryn, Youri ; Stager, Sheila

Faculty

Faculté de psychologie, logopédie, sexologie et des sciences de la famille

Degree label

Master [120] en logopédie, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Voice onsets have been studied by using several objective and subjective methods. Previous studies demonstrated an important inter-rater variability especially regarding the hard onsets. The goal of this present study is to determine whether there is a relationship between a visual categorisation of onsets and a perceptual categorisation. For that purpose, samples from unilateral vocal fold paralysis patients and controlled subjects were listened and categorised by five speech-language pathologists. The shape of the acoustic signal of theses samples was visually analysed in order to identify which of their aspects differ between the onset types. The same analyses were made between the same onset types with different percentage of agreement among the judges. The hypotheses were that (1) a relationship between the two ways of categorisation would be observed, (2) that differences in the shape of the acoustic signal would be observed between the different onsets and (3) between the different agreement and that (4) a training would have effect on the ability of the judges to perceptually categorise the voice onsets. The results showed that visually classified onsets tend to be perceptually classified in the same category. Two of the three measures taken were different among the onset types. Regarding to the differences between the agreement, differences were observed for two types of onsets. Finally, the training proposed in this present study did not have an influence on the performances of the judges.