The Voice Foundation Vocal fatigue is a frequent symptom and a debilitating condition affecting individuals with voice disorders. In spite of the various attempts to define and quantify vocal fatigue, this complex trait has not been well understood. Mokken scaling was performed on the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) to develop a hierarchical understanding of the latent trait of vocal fatigue. Two hundred nine patients with voice disorders completed the VFI and provided the item responses necessary to complete the Mokken scaling. Results revealed a moderately strong Mokken scale and that the VFI presents a hierarchical structure to the underlying trait of vocal fatigue. Mokken scaling contributes to the ongoing investigation to the underlying construct of vocal fatigue and may provide additional information about specific complaints within the population of those with voice disorders.

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Purpose The purpose of this document is threefold: (a) review the uses of the terms “vocal fatigue,” “vocal effort,” “vocal load,” and “vocal loading” (as found in the literature) in order to track the occurrence and the related evolution of research; (b) present a “linguistically modeled” definition of the same from the review of literature on the terms; and (c) propose conceptualized definitions of the concepts. Method A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Scientific Electronic Library Online. Four terms (“vocal fatigue,” “vocal effort,” “vocal load,” and “vocal loading”), as well as possible variants, were included in the search, and their usages were compiled into conceptual definitions. Finally, a focus group of eight experts in the field (current authors) worked together to make conceptual connections and proposed consensus definitions. Results The occurrence and frequency of “vocal load,” “vocal loading,” “vocal effort,” and “vocal fatigue” in the literature are presented, and summary definitions are developed. The results indicate that these terms appear to be often interchanged with blurred distinctions. Therefore, the focus group proposes the use of two new terms, “vocal demand” and “vocal demand response,” in place of the terms “vocal load” and “vocal loading.” We also propose standardized definitions for all four concepts. Conclusion Through a comprehensive literature search, the terms “vocal fatigue,” “vocal effort,” “vocal load,” and “vocal loading” were explored, new terms were proposed, and standardized definitions were presented. Future work should refine these proposed definitions as research continues to address vocal health concerns.

Primary Sjögren's Syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune disease that causes dehydration of the eyes, mouth, and throat. Individuals with Primary SS are at risk for voice problems associated with vocal fold dehydration. Topical hydration treatments show promise in reducing the negative effects of vocal fold dehydration on voice production. However, no studies have examined the preventive effects of topical hydration treatments on voice production in individuals at risk for vocal fold dehydration. The purpose of this study was to quantify the effects of a topical vocal fold hydration treatment on voice production in individuals with Primary SS using the Cepstral Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID). Eight participants with Primary SS completed an eight-week study involving twice-daily audio recordings of sustained vowels and the Rainbow Passage. Participants received 9 mL of nebulized isotonic saline (0.9% Na+Cl-) immediately following morning and evening voice recordings during weeks 3, 4, 7, and 8 using an ABAB within-subjects experimental design. Baseline CSID values were in the mild range. Although CSID values decreased (improved) during the treatment phases of the study, no statistically significant changes were observed from baseline to treatment. Statistically significant correlations were observed among CSID values and patient-based ratings of vocal effort and dryness, which did improve with treatment (p < .05). These results indicate that topical saline treatments may prevent and treat some voice problems associated with vocal fold dehydration in at-risk populations.

Hydration of the vocal folds is important for the production of normal voice. Dehydration makes voice production more difficult and increases vocal effort. Laryngeal desiccation has been shown to increase phonation threshold pressure (PTP) and self-perceived phonatory effort (PPE) in females. Nebulized saline may reverse or offset this effect. However, few data exist regarding the effects of laryngeal desiccation and nebulized treatments in males. Further, the dose-response relationship between laryngeal desiccation and nebulized hydration treatments is unknown. This study examined the effects of two doses of nebulized isotonic saline following a laryngeal desiccation challenge in healthy male speakers. In a double-blinded, within-subjects design, 10 male college students (age range 18-26 years) attended two data collection sessions involving a 30-minute desiccation challenge followed by 3 mL or 9 mL of nebulized isotonic saline. PTP for the 10th and 80th fundamental frequency (F0) percentiles and PPE were collected before and after the desiccation challenge and at 5, 35, and 65 minutes after the nebulized treatment. PPE increased significantly following the laryngeal desiccation challenge (p < .01). Following nebulization, PPE decreased toward baseline for both doses of isotonic saline (p < .01), but failed to reverse the desiccation effect completely. No statistically significant changes in PTP occurred following the laryngeal desiccation challenge or subsequent treatments. Compared with previous research involving females, these results suggest males may respond differently to laryngeal desiccation and nebulized hydration treatments.

Vocal fold hydration is important for healthy function of the vocal mechanism. Vocal fold surface fluid protects the mucosa and facilitates efficient vocal fold oscillation. Dry air exposure, mouth breathing, insufficient intake of liquids, and behavioral factors may contribute to laryngeal dehydration. Singers are believed to be particularly at risk for voice problems related to dehydration due to environmental and voice use factors. Laryngeal desiccation and nebulized hydration treatments have been shown to influence phonation threshold pressure (PTP) and self-perceived phonatory effort (PPE) in females. However, little research exists exploring the effects of hydration in males. Additionally, few studies have examined the dose-response relationship of hydration treatments. This investigation examined the effects of a laryngeal desiccation challenge and two different doses of nebulized isotonic saline on voice production in trained male singers. In a double-blind, within-subjects repeated measures crossover investigation, 10 male singers (ages 18 to 24) received a 30 minute laryngeal desiccation challenge followed by either 3 mL or 9 mL of nebulized isotonic saline on two consecutive weeks. PTP, PPE, and self-perceived mouth and throat dryness were sampled during the following observations: predesiccation, post-desiccation, and at 5, 35, and 65 minutes post-nebulization. No differences in PTP were observed after desiccation or nebulized treatment. PPE, however, rose significantly after desiccation and returned near baseline after treatment. No significant differences between dosages were observed.

Cette thèse porte sur la transformation de la voix d’un locuteur dans l’objectif d’indiquer la distance de celui-ci : une transformation en voix chuchotée pour indiquer une distance proche et une transformation en voix criée pour une distance plutôt éloignée. Nous effectuons dans un premier temps des analyses approfondies pour déterminer les paramètres les plus pertinentes dans une voix chuchotée et surtout dans une voix criée (beaucoup plus difficile). La contribution principale de cette partie est de montrer la pertinence des paramètres prosodiques dans la perception de l’effort vocal dans une voix criée. Nous proposons ensuite des descripteurs permettant de mieux caractériser les contours prosodiques. Pour la transformation proprement dite, nous proposons plusieurs nouvelles règles de transformation qui contrôlent de manière primordiale la qualité des voix transformées. Les résultats ont montré une très bonne qualité des voix chuchotées transformées ainsi que pour des voix criées pour des structures linguistiques relativement simples (CVC, CVCV, etc.). / This thesis focuses on speaker voice transformation in the aim to indicate the distance of it: a spokento-whispered voice transformation to indicate a close distance and a spoken-to-shouted voicetransformation for a rather far distance. We perform at first, in-depth analysis to determine mostrelevant features in whispered voices and especially in shouted voices (much harder). The maincontribution of this part is to show the relevance of prosodic parameters in the perception of vocaleffort in a shouted voice. Then, we propose some descriptors to better characterize the prosodiccontours. For the actual transformation, we propose several new transformation rules whichimportantly control the quality of transformed voice. The results showed a very good quality oftransformed whispered voices and transformed shouted voices for relatively simple linguisticstructures (CVC, CVCV, etc.).

Vocal fatigue is a frequent symptom and a debilitating condition affecting individuals with voice disorders. In spite of the various attempts to define and quantify vocal fatigue, this complex trait has not been well understood. Mokken scaling was performed on the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI) to develop a hierarchical understanding of the latent trait of vocal fatigue. Two hundred nine patients with voice disorders completed the VFI and provided the item responses necessary to complete the Mokken scaling. Results revealed a moderately strong Mokken scale and that the VFI presents a hierarchical structure to the underlying trait of vocal fatigue. Mokken scaling contributes to the ongoing investigation to the underlying construct of vocal fatigue and may provide additional information about specific complaints within the population of those with voice disorders.

This work identifies the causes for unsatisfactory reliability of contemporary systems for automatic speech recognition when deployed in demanding conditions. The impact of the individual sources of performance degradation is documented and a list of known methods for their identification from the recognized signal is given. An overview of the usual methods to suppress the impact of the disruptive influences on the performance of speech recognition is provided. The essential contribution of the work is the formulation of new approaches to constructing acoustical models of noisy speech and nonstationary noise allowing high recognition performance in challenging conditions. The viability of the proposed methods is verified on an isolated-word speech recognizer utilizing several-hour-long recording of the real operating room background acoustical noise recorded at the Uniklinikum Marburg in Germany. This work is the first to identify the impact of changes in speaker’s vocal effort on the reliability of automatic speech recognition in the full vocal effort range (i.e. whispering through shouting). A new concept of a speech recognizer immune to the changes in vocal effort is proposed. For the purposes of research on changes in vocal effort, a new speech database, BUT-VE1, was created.

Les salles de classe sont des milieux bruyants auditivement et visuellement. Au Québec, le bruit auditif dans les écoles s’avère une problématique qui règne depuis des dizaines d’années et qui reste encore d’actualité aujourd’hui. Le bruit environnant peut impacter négativement le bien-être et les apprentissages des élèves et le bien-être des enseignant·es. D’autant plus, souvent, la source principale de bruit dans les écoles provient de la parole, un comportement qui peut être contrôlé. Les élèves et surtout les enseignant·es surchargent leur système vocal pour pouvoir faire passer leur message oral à travers le bruit auditif, augmentant leur niveau d’effort vocal. Dans les salles de classe, les distractions visuelles telles que les affiches murales contribuent à l’encombrement visuel, qui peut être considéré comme du « bruit visuel ». Celui-ci peut également impacter négativement le bien-être des élèves et leurs apprentissages. Considérant la nature multimodale, ou audiovisuelle, de la parole, nous nous questionnions sur l’influence de l’encombrement visuel sur la parole. Ce mémoire de maîtrise, composé de deux études, avait pour but de 1) étudier la perception subjective des élèves québécois de leur salle de classe en relation avec des données acoustiques objectives, et 2) étudier l’effet de l’encombrement visuel sur l’effort vocal en termes de paramètres acoustiques (SPL, f0 et CPP) et de perception auto-rapportée de locutrices. Les deux études se sont basées sur des méthodes mixtes, intégrant des méthodes quantitatives similaires (ex. : collecte de mesures objectives acoustiques, analyses acoustiques) et des méthodes qualitatives similaires (ex. : collecte de données subjectives perceptuelles, analyse inductive de questions ouvertes). Les analyses quantitatives et qualitatives des deux études révèlent que bien que les résultats relatifs aux données objectives (mesures acoustiques) n’étaient pas statistiquement significatifs, les résultats relatifs aux données subjectives (perception) l’étaient. Par exemple, dans la première étude, les niveaux d’appréciation du son des élèves (EAE) n’étaient pas tous corrélés avec les SPLs, et dans la deuxième étude, le niveau d’encombrement visuel n’était pas corrélé aux paramètres acoustiques de SPL, f0 et CPP. Ces résultats mettent en lumière l’importance de considérer et d’inclure des données subjectives et perceptuelles dans les études portant sur les paysages sonores éducatifs et sur l’effort vocal, car ce sont des expériences vécues par des humains. / Classrooms are acoustically and visually noisy environments. In Quebec, auditory noise in schools is a problem that has existed for decades and is still relevant today. Background noise can negatively impact the well-being and learning of students and the well-being of teachers. Moreover, the main source of noise in schools comes from speech, a behavior that can be controlled. Students and especially teachers put pressure on their vocal system to be able to convey their oral message through auditory noise, increasing their level of vocal effort. In classrooms, visual distractions such as wall posters can be considered as visual clutter, or visual noise, an element that can also negatively impact students’ well-being and learning. Considering the multimodal, or audiovisual, nature of speech, we question the influence of visual clutter on speech. This master's thesis, composed of two studies, aimed to 1) study the subjective perception of Quebec students of their classroom in relation to objective acoustic data, and 2) study the effect of visual clutter on vocal effort in terms of acoustic parameters (SPL, f0 and CPP) and self-reported perception of female speakers. Both studies were based on mixed methods, integrating similar quantitative methods (e.g., collection of objective acoustic measurements, acoustic analyses) and similar qualitative methods (e.g., collection of subjective perceptual data, inductive analysis of open-ended questions). Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the two studies reveal that although the results relating to the objective data (acoustic measurements) were not statistically significant, the results relating to the subjective data (perception) were. For example, in the first study, students' Evaluation of the Acoustic Environment (EAE) were not all correlated with measured SPLs, and in the second study, the level of visual clutter was not correlated with acoustic parameters of SPL, f0 and CPP. These findings highlight the importance of considering and including subjective and perceptual data in studies of educational soundscapes and vocal effort, as the human experience is subjective.