Voice quality alteration and its potential implications for voice therapy

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2023-10, Vol.154 (4_supplement), p.A352-A352
• Main Authors: Schiller, Isabel S., Krüger, Karolin, Bin Ismail, Firdous, Schlittmeier, Sabine J, Schmidt, Gerhard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/10.0023769

Modulating a speaker’s auditory feedback is a valuable technique for investigating vocal motor control. In auditory feedback alteration (AFA) experiments, participants receive real-time perturbed feedback of their voice through earphones while producing vocalizations into a microphone. Previous studies primarily focused on pitch and amplitude alterations, which typically result in compensatory vocal responses. The purpose of this study is to present a voice resynthesis system, called VQ-Synth, designed for real-time auditory feedback alteration of the speaker’s voice quality in terms of hoarseness. While an initial version of VQ-Synth was implemented using Matlab, the system has now been enhanced in a real-time framework written in ANSI-C to achieve effective voice quality resynthesis with minimal delay. Additionally, a graphical user interface (GUI) was implemented to guide participants through the experiment. This work presents the technical architecture of VQ-Synth and its intended application in AFA experiments involving both healthy and dysphonic speakers. Furthermore, we discuss the potential implications of the system in the context of auditory cognition and voice therapy. We hope that the novel capabilities of VQ-Synth open up exciting possibilities for investigating how alterations in voice quality affect vocal motor control and how this knowledge can be applied in therapeutic settings.