The Impact of Dysphonic Voices on Healthy Listeners: Listener Reaction Times, Speech Intelligibility, and Listener Comprehension

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. Ninety-one healthy listeners (39...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of speech-language pathology 2016-11, Vol.25 (4), p.561-575
Main Authors: Evitts, Paul M, Starmer, Heather, Teets, Kristine, Montgomery, Christen, Calhoun, Lauren, Schulze, Allison, MacKenzie, Jenna, Adams, Lauren
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Adult
Alzheimer's disease
Artificial Speech
Comprehension
Employment
Female
Humans
Intelligibility
Male
Multiple Regression Analysis
Quality
Reaction Time
Speech Acoustics
Speech disorders
Speech Intelligibility
Speech Perception
Voice Disorders
Voice Quality
Workloads
Young Adult
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Summary: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. 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. 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. 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.
ISSN:1058-0360
1558-9110
DOI:10.1044/2016_ajslp-14-0183