Investigation of Normalised Time of Increasing Vocal Fold Contact as a Discriminator of Emotional Voice Type

摘要

To date, descriptions of the categorisation of emotional voice type have mostly been provided in terms of fundamental frequency (f0), amplitude and duration. It is of interest to seek additional cues that may help to improve recognition of emotional colouring in speech, and, expressiveness in speech synthesis. The present contribution examines a specific laryngeal measure - the normalised time of increasing contact of the vocal folds (NTIC) i.e. increasing contact time divided by cycle duration - as estimated from the electroglottogram signal. This preliminary study, using a single female speaker, analyses the sustained vowel [a:], produced when simulating the emotional states anger, joy, neutral, sad and tender. The results suggest that NTIC may not be ideally suited for emotional voice discrimination. Additional measures are suggested to further characterise the emotional portrayals.