14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14) San Francisco, CA, USA August 1-7, 1999

Voice Quality by Eye, Ear and Measurement

Adrian Fourcin, Evelyn Abberton

University College London, UK

Computer facilities now enable complex phonetic laboratory techniques to be applied for application and hypothesis testing in the voice clinic. Three developments are described:

• Earlier phonetic laboratory single flash stroboscopy, in which precise timing during the laryngeal cycle is used for image acquisition, now makes it possible to associate each image with unique acoustic and laryngographic waveforms. Two clinical advantages come from this approach: the images are optimally sharp and their interpretation for the pathological voice is enhanced.
• By using connected speech in addition to sustained sounds phonetically relevant voice dependent parameters can be both measured and displayed.
• The possibility of linking these methods together in one combined system then leads to the application of phonetically motivated speech training methods in which the techniques of assessment are an intrinsic part of therapy.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Fourcin, Adrian / Abberton, Evelyn (1999): "Voice quality by eye, ear and measurement", In ICPhS-14, 1345-1348.