Revisión de los modelos de producción de voz después de una laringectomía total: opciones de calidad de voz

The laryngectomized patient is one who because of a carcinogenic process has undergone surgery which results in complete removal of the larynx. Following this operation the patient undergoes a series of anatomical changes that involve the alteration and/or loss of certain functions, being the voice loss, and the oral communication, the main problem faced by the patients. Therefore, the restoration of the oral communication is one of the main objectives in the treatment process and post-surgical rehabilitation. This should give the patient a new sound source, which will have to replace or emulate the function of the laryngeal glottis. The objective of this work is to analyze from a biomechanical and acoustic perspective the different types of voices that can postulated as an option for laryngectomized patients. We show the advantages and limitations of each model of production, in a clear, objective and understandable way for both clinicians and patients, to guide the decision-making. Finally, an analysis of the voice sound of four female laryngectomized patients is carried out. Each voice sample corresponds to a different voice production model: artificial larynx, phonatory prosthesis and erygmophony. The results provide an objective assessment of the acoustic characteristics of each voice

Evaluation of the neo-glottal closure based on the source description in esophageal voice

The characteristics of esophageal voice render its study by traditional acoustic means to be limited and complicate. These limitations are even stronger when working with patients lacking minimal skills to control the required technique. Nevertheless the speech therapist needs to know the performance and mechanics developed by the patient in producing esophageal voice, as the specific techniques required in this case are not as universal and well-known as the ones for normal voicing. Each patient develops different strategies for producing esophageal voice due to the anatomical changes affecting the crico-pharyngeal sphincter (CPS) and the functional losses resulting from surgery. Therefore it is of fundamental relevance that practitioners could count on new instruments to evaluate esophageal voice quality, which on its turn could help in the enhancement of the CPS dynamics. The present work carries out a description of the voice of four patients after undergoing laryngectomy on data obtained from the study of the neo-glottal wave profile. Results obtained after analyzing the open-close phases and the tension of the muscular body on the CPS are shown

Revisión de los modelos de producción de voz después de una laringectomía total: opciones de calidad de voz

El paciente laringectomizado es aquel que debido a un proceso cancerígeno ha sido sometido a una intervención quirúrgica cuyo resultado es la extirpación total de la laringe. Como consecuencia de esta operación el paciente sufre una serie de modificaciones anatómicas que conllevan la alteración y/o pérdida de determinadas funciones. Siendo la pérdida de la voz, y por tanto de la comunicación oral, la limitación principal a la que se enfrentan estos pacientes

Índice acústico de discapacidad vocal (IADV) en población adulta: diseño de la escala, resultados y correlatos anatómico-fisiológicos

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Medicina, Departamento de Toxicología y Legislación Sanitaria, leída el 22-02-2013Depto. de Medicina Legal, Psiquiatría y PatologíaFac. de MedicinaTRUEunpu

Valoración del cierre neo-glótico en voz esofágica.

Las características de la voz esofágica hacen que su estudio a través de un análisis acústico tradicional sea complicado y limitado. Estas limitaciones son mayores cuando se trabaja con pacientes que no tienen un gran dominio de la técnica. Sin embargo, el rehabilitador necesita obtener información sobre la mecánica desarrollada por el paciente para la producción de la voz esofágica. Ya que el mecanismo de producción en voz esofágica a diferencia de la voz laríngea no es universal ni tan transparente. Cada paciente, debido a los cambios anatómicos que afectan al esfínter cricofaríngeo (ECF) y a las pérdidas funcionales derivadas de la cirugía, desarrolla diferentes estrategias para producir voz. Por todo ello, es fundamental que los clínicos puedan contar con nuevos instrumentos para valorar la calidad de la voz esofágica, que a su vez le aproximen al conocimiento de la dinámica del ECF. El presente trabajo realiza una descripción de la voz de cuatro pacientes laringectomizados basada en el estudio del perfil de la onda neo-glótica. Se muestran los resultados obtenidos tras analizar las fases de abierto-cerrado y la tensión del cuerpo muscular a nivel del ECF

Glottal-Source Spectral Biometry for Voice Characterization

The biometric signature derived from the estimation of the power spectral density singularities of a speaker’s glottal source is described in the present work. This consists in the collection of peak-trough profiles found in the spectral density, as related to the biomechanics of the vocal folds. Samples of parameter estimations from a set of 100 normophonic (pathology-free) speakers are produced. Mapping the set of speaker’s samples to a manifold defined by Principal Component Analysis and clustering them by k-means in terms of the most relevant principal components shows the separation of speakers by gender. This means that the proposed signature conveys relevant speaker’s metainformation, which may be useful in security and forensic applications for which contextual side information is considered relevant

Bio-inspired Dynamic Formant Tracking for Phonetic Labelling

It is a known fact that phonetic labeling may be relevant in helping current Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) when combined with classical parsing systems as HMM's by reducing the search space. Through the present paper a method for Phonetic Broad-Class Labeling (PCL) based on speech perception in the high auditory centers is described. The methodology is based in the operation of CF (Characteristic Frequency) and FM (Frequency Modulation) neurons in the cochlear nucleus and cortical complex of the human auditory apparatus in the automatic detection of formants and formant dynamics on speech. Results obtained informant detection and dynamic formant tracking are given and the applicability of the method to Speech Processing is discussed

A Hybrid Parameterization Technique for Speaker Identification

Classical parameterization techniques for Speaker Identification use the codification of the power spectral density of raw speech, not discriminating between articulatory features produced by vocal tract dynamics (acoustic-phonetics) from glottal source biometry. Through the present paper a study is conducted to separate voicing fragments of speech into vocal and glottal components, dominated respectively by the vocal tract transfer function estimated adaptively to track the acoustic-phonetic sequence of the message, and by the glottal characteristics of the speaker and the phonation gesture. The separation methodology is based in Joint Process Estimation under the un-correlation hypothesis between vocal and glottal spectral distributions. Its application on voiced speech is presented in the time and frequency domains. The parameterization methodology is also described. Speaker Identification experiments conducted on 245 speakers are shown comparing different parameterization strategies. The results confirm the better performance of decoupled parameterization compared against approaches based on plain speech parameterization

Articulatory Feature Detection based on Cognitive Speech Perception

Cognitive Speech Perception is a field of growing interest as far as studies in cognitive sciences have advanced during the last decades helping in providing better descriptions on neural processes taking place in sound processing by the Auditory System and the Auditory Cortex. This knowledge may be applied to design new bio-inspired paradigms in the processing of speech sounds in Speech Sciences, especially in Articulatory Phonetics, but in many others as well, as Emotion Detection, Speaker’s Characterization, etc. The present paper reviews some basic facts already established in Speech Perception and the corresponding paradigms under which these may be used in designing new algorithms to detect Articulatory (Phonetic) Features in speech sounds which may be later used in Speech Labelling, Phonetic Characterization or other similar tasks

Cambios en la clasificación de la voz femenina después del tratamiento de la patología vocal

En general en los estudios de patología es importante tener en cuenta factores relacionados con el género. En voz esto se hace más decisivo al existir claras diferencias acústicas y biomecánicas que vienen marcadas por el género. Algunas de estas diferencias son observables en el estudio acústico, pero la relación voz -genero se hace más notable al analizar la fuente glótica. La fuente glótica puede ser obtenida mediante métodos de filtrado inverso en los cuales se elimina toda influencia del tracto vocal en la señal de voz resultante. Un posterior análisis del perfil del espectro de densidad de energía y del perfil de la onda glótica nos permite establecer una serie de puntos singulares que son cruciales para la discriminación del género. Igualmente se pueden extraer de la fuente glótica una serie de parámetros acústicos y biomecánicos que permiten clasificar la voz en función del grado patología. Para el siguiente trabajo se muestra los resultados obtenidos en la clasificación de patología para una voz de mujer, en condición pre y post tratamiento, al compararlo con un grupo de voces no-patológicas de su mismo género