Psychometric properties associated with perceived vocal roughness using a matching task

Abstract

A psychophysical matching paradigm has been used to better quantify voice quality under laboratory conditions. The goals of this study were to establish which of two candidate comparison stimuli would best ensure that the range of perceived vocal roughness could be adequately bracketed using a matching task and to provide a general solution to the problem of estimating vocal roughness. Psychometric functions for roughness matching indicated that a speech-like sawtooth-plus-noise complex (20 dB signal-to-noise ratio) amplitude modulated by a sinusoidal function raised to the 4th power yielded a comparison stimulus with a perceptual dynamic range well suited for roughness matching.