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Perceptual judgment of voice quality in non-dysphonic French speakers: Effect of task-, speaker- and listener-related variables

Jusgement perceptif de la qualité vocale chez des locuteurs français non dysphoniques: effet de la tâche, du locuteur des des variables dûes à l'auditeur.

Abstract : Several perceptual scales have been developed to assess voice quality in dysphonic voices, among which the GRBASI scale is probably the most frequently used. However, this clinical tool has not been properly validated with a normophonic population yet. The aim of the present study was to provide a first set of reference data gathered from a normal population, to serve as a basis of comparison for vocologists and laryngologists working with French-speaking patients. A second goal was to investigate the influence on this normal voice dataset, of variables known to affect perceptual judgments of pathological voice. Sustained vowels and sentences produced by 80 healthy, normophonic French native speakers were perceptually assessed by a panel of 18 raters (9 students, 9 experts) using the GRBASI scale. The average overall grade was close to 1 on the (0 to 3) scale, questioning the notion of "normal" voice as opposed to dysphonic voice. Rating reliability as well as perceptual scores were affected by task-, speaker-, and listener-related factors: speech stimuli led to better rating reliability and were judged less severely than voice stimuli; experts were slightly more reliable and less severe than students; older speakers were unanimously considered as more dysphonic. Multiple interactions between these factors were observed, confirming the multidimensional nature of voice quality.