Dataset Information

Ambulatory Phonation Monitoring With Wireless Microphones Based on the Speech Energy Envelope: Algorithm Development and Validation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Voice disorders mainly result from chronic overuse or abuse, particularly in occupational voice users such as teachers. Previous studies proposed a contact microphone attached to the anterior neck for ambulatory voice monitoring; however, the inconvenience associated with taping and wiring, along with the lack of real-time processing, has limited its clinical application.

Objective

This study aims to (1) propose an automatic speech detection system using wireless microphones for real-time ambulatory voice monitoring, (2) examine the detection accuracy under controlled environment and noisy conditions, and (3) report the results of the phonation ratio in practical scenarios.

Methods

We designed an adaptive threshold function to detect the presence of speech based on the energy envelope. We invited 10 teachers to participate in this study and tested the performance of the proposed automatic speech detection system regarding detection accuracy and phonation ratio. Moreover, we investigated whether the unsupervised noise reduction algorithm (ie, log minimum mean square error) can overcome the influence of environmental noise in the proposed system.

Results

The proposed system exhibited an average accuracy of speech detection of 89.9%, ranging from 81.0% (67,357/83,157 frames) to 95.0% (199,201/209,685 frames). Subsequent analyses revealed a phonation ratio between 44.0% (33,019/75,044 frames) and 78.0% (68,785/88,186 frames) during teaching sessions of 40-60 minutes; the durations of most of the phonation segments were less than 10 seconds. The presence of background noise reduced the accuracy of the automatic speech detection system, and an adjuvant noise reduction function could effectively improve the accuracy, especially under stable noise conditions.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated an average detection accuracy of 89.9% in the proposed automatic speech detection system with wireless microphones. The preliminary results for the phonation ratio were comparable to those of previous studies. Although the wireless microphones are susceptible to background noise, an additional noise reduction function can alleviate this limitation. These results indicate that the proposed system can be applied for ambulatory voice monitoring in occupational voice users.

SUBMITTER: Wang CT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7746501 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Ambulatory Phonation Monitoring With Wireless Microphones Based on the Speech Energy Envelope: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Wang Chi-Te CT Han Ji-Yan JY Fang Shih-Hau SH Lai Ying-Hui YH

JMIR mHealth and uHealth 20201203 12

<h4>Background</h4>Voice disorders mainly result from chronic overuse or abuse, particularly in occupational voice users such as teachers. Previous studies proposed a contact microphone attached to the anterior neck for ambulatory voice monitoring; however, the inconvenience associated with taping and wiring, along with the lack of real-time processing, has limited its clinical application.<h4>Objective</h4>This study aims to (1) propose an automatic speech detection system using wireless microp ...[more]

PMID: 33270033

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Project description:IntroductionSmart devices are widely available and capable of quickly recording and uploading speech segments for health-related analysis. The switch from laboratory recordings with professional-grade microphone setups to remote, smart device-based recordings offers immense potential for the scalability of voice assessment. Yet, a growing body of literature points to a wide heterogeneity among acoustic metrics for their robustness to variation in recording devices. The addition of consumer-grade plug-and-play microphones has been proposed as a possible solution. The aim of our study was to assess if the addition of consumer-grade plug-and-play microphones increases the acoustic measurement agreement between ultra-portable devices and a reference microphone.MethodsSpeech was simultaneously recorded by a reference high-quality microphone commonly used in research and by two configurations with plug-and-play microphones. Twelve speech-acoustic features were calculated using recordings from each microphone to determine the agreement intervals in measurements between microphones. Agreement intervals were then compared to expected deviations in speech in various neurological conditions. Each microphone's response to speech and to silence was characterized through acoustic analysis to explore possible reasons for differences in acoustic measurements between microphones. The statistical differentiation of two groups, neurotypical and people with multiple sclerosis, using metrics from each tested microphone was compared to that of the reference microphone.ResultsThe two consumer-grade plug-and-play microphones favored high frequencies (mean center of gravity difference ≥ +175.3 Hz) and recorded more noise (mean difference in signal to noise ≤ -4.2 dB) when compared to the reference microphone. Between consumer-grade microphones, differences in relative noise were closely related to distance between the microphone and the speaker's mouth. Agreement intervals between the reference and consumer-grade microphones remained under disease-expected deviations only for fundamental frequency (f0, agreement interval ≤0.06 Hz), f0 instability (f0 CoV, agreement interval ≤0.05%), and tracking of second formant movement (agreement interval ≤1.4 Hz/ms). Agreement between microphones was poor for other metrics, particularly for fine timing metrics (mean pause length and pause length variability for various tasks). The statistical difference between the two groups of speakers was smaller with the plug-and-play than with the reference microphone.ConclusionMeasurement of f0 and F2 slope was robust to variation in recording equipment, while other acoustic metrics were not. Thus, the tested plug-and-play microphones should not be used interchangeably with professional-grade microphones for speech analysis. Plug-and-play microphones may assist in equipment standardization within speech studies, including remote or self-recording, possibly with small loss in accuracy and statistical power as observed in the current study.

Dataset Information

Ambulatory Phonation Monitoring With Wireless Microphones Based on the Speech Energy Envelope: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Ambulatory Phonation Monitoring With Wireless Microphones Based on the Speech Energy Envelope: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Similar Datasets

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