Acoustic diagnosis of vocal tremor

Authors

  • Colin Li Huawei Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.
  • Hilmi R. Dajani School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
  • Wong Willy Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.
  • Pascal Van Lieshout Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.

Keywords:

Contour measurement, Diseases, Hearing aids, Speech, Speech analysis, Acoustic signal, Fine Structure Spectrogram, Fundamental frequency, Voice signal

Abstract

The primary non-invasive quantification of the vocal tremor was analyzed through acoustic analysis that involves measuring the variation in the pitch contour or the fundamental frequency in a sustained voice signal. Fine Structure Spectrogram is proposed as a potential analysis tool for abnormal phonations, particularly in Parkinson's disease. Vocal tremor characteristics were analyzed in terms of modulations in the fundamental frequency that is the pitch contour. The raw acoustic signal was first preprocessed by performing half-wave rectification, then down sampling to reduce computational time. The average F0 was then extracted and a band-pass filter with cut-off frequencies 15Hz above and below the average F0 is applied to eliminate undesired noise. The results show that the modulations in F0 is the primary difference between the normal and pathological speech.

Additional Files

Published

2007-09-01

How to Cite

1.
Huawei CL, Dajani HR, Willy W, Van Lieshout P. Acoustic diagnosis of vocal tremor. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2007 Sep. 1 [cited 2025 Feb. 13];35(3):104-5. Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/1922

Issue

Vol. 35 No. 3 (2007)

Section

Proceedings of the Acoustics Week in Canada

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