TY - JOUR
T1 - The impact of dysphonic voices on healthy listeners
T2 - Listener reaction times, speech intelligibility, and listener comprehension
AU - Evitts, Paul M.
AU - Starmer, Heather
AU - Teets, Kristine
AU - Montgomery, Christen
AU - Calhoun, Lauren
AU - Schulze, Allison
AU - MacKenzie, Jenna
AU - Adams, Lauren
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to first thank all of the participants for volunteering their time and voices to this study. The authors would like to also extend a sincere thank you to Barbara Messing of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center for acting as an expert listener and to Dr. Mary Carter, Towson University, for her expert statistical assistance. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Krista Wilkinson and Dr. Preeti Sivasankar along with two other anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and supportive edits on previous versions of this manuscript. Portions of this article were presented at the annual convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Chicago, IL in 2013.’
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
PY - 2016/11
Y1 - 2016/11
N2 - Purpose: There is currently minimal information on the impact of dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma on listeners. Considering the high incidence of voice disorders with professional voice users, it is important to understand the impact of a dysphonic voice on their audiences. Methods: Ninety-one healthy listeners (39 men, 52 women; mean age = 23.62 years) were presented with speech stimuli from 5 healthy speakers and 5 speakers diagnosed with dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma. Dependent variables included processing speed (reaction time [RT] ratio), speech intelligibility, and listener comprehension. Voice quality ratings were also obtained for all speakers by 3 expert listeners. Results: Statistical results showed significant differences between RT ratio and number of speech intelligibility errors between healthy and dysphonic voices. There was not a significant difference in listener comprehension errors. Multiple regression analyses showed that voice quality ratings from the Consensus Assessment Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (Kempster, Gerratt, Verdolini Abbott, Barkmeier-Kraemer, & Hillman, 2009) were able to predict RT ratio and speech intelligibility but not listener comprehension. Conclusions: Results of the study suggest that although listeners require more time to process and have more intelligibility errors when presented with speech stimuli from speakers with dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma, listener comprehension may not be affected.
AB - Purpose: There is currently minimal information on the impact of dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma on listeners. Considering the high incidence of voice disorders with professional voice users, it is important to understand the impact of a dysphonic voice on their audiences. Methods: Ninety-one healthy listeners (39 men, 52 women; mean age = 23.62 years) were presented with speech stimuli from 5 healthy speakers and 5 speakers diagnosed with dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma. Dependent variables included processing speed (reaction time [RT] ratio), speech intelligibility, and listener comprehension. Voice quality ratings were also obtained for all speakers by 3 expert listeners. Results: Statistical results showed significant differences between RT ratio and number of speech intelligibility errors between healthy and dysphonic voices. There was not a significant difference in listener comprehension errors. Multiple regression analyses showed that voice quality ratings from the Consensus Assessment Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (Kempster, Gerratt, Verdolini Abbott, Barkmeier-Kraemer, & Hillman, 2009) were able to predict RT ratio and speech intelligibility but not listener comprehension. Conclusions: Results of the study suggest that although listeners require more time to process and have more intelligibility errors when presented with speech stimuli from speakers with dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma, listener comprehension may not be affected.
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U2 - 10.1044/2016_AJSLP-14-0183
DO - 10.1044/2016_AJSLP-14-0183
M3 - Article
C2 - 27784031
AN - SCOPUS:84997170393
SN - 1058-0360
VL - 25
SP - 561
EP - 575
JO - American journal of speech-language pathology
JF - American journal of speech-language pathology
IS - 4
ER -