| Abstract | Objective: To investigate the auditory perception of vocal deviation by dysphonic and non-dysphonic women.
Method: 24 dysphonic and 10 non-dysphonic women (CG) participated. We used a database with 48 sustained vowel signals and connected speech from women, 38 dysphonic and 10 non-dysphonic samples. Three SLPs made perceptual-auditory judgments of the participants’ voices using the GRBAS scale and identified the predominant vocal quality (rough or breathy). We extracted 11 acoustic measurements from the sustained vowel of participants and database. We conducted two perception experiments: the first involved auditory categorization (“Is the voice healthy or deviant?”), and the second required participants to discriminate between paired voices to identify the more deviant one.
Results: Dysphonic women had a lower accuracy rate in identifying dysphonic voices compared to the accuracy rate of non-dysphonic women. Dysphonic women showed a lower accuracy rate in identifying predominantly rough and breathy voices, compared to the accuracy rate of non-dysphonic women. There was a moderate negative correlation between the hit rate of non-dysphonic women and the shimmer values. As for discrimination of GR, non-dysphonic women had a higher rate of correct discrimination between mild and moderate degrees, compared to dysphonic women with a predominance of mild and moderate roughness; and moderate and intense, compared to women with a predominance of moderate roughness. As for breathiness, non-dysphonic women had a higher accuracy rate in discriminating between voices without breathiness and those with mild GB, compared to women with a predominance of mild breathiness. Non-dysphonic women showed a lower accuracy rate in discriminating between mild and moderate breathiness, compared to women with mild breathiness, predominantly mild breathiness and moderate breathiness.
CONCLUSION: Dysphonic women had a lower accuracy rate in identifying dysphonic voices when compared to non-dysphonic women. Dysphonic women with predominantly breathy voices had a lower rate of correct perception of breathy voices, while dysphonic women with predominantly rough voices had a lower rate of correct perception of rough voices. Shimmer was the only acoustic measure associated with the rate of correct answers when identifying dysphonic voices.
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