Search Results (5)

The aim of this article is to analyse the fundamental frequency of oesophageal speech (ES) F0 and compare the results with the physiological speech of healthy people. The research focused on spectrogram analysis, taking into account a frequency range that is appropriate for both people following total laryngectomy and healthy people. Therefore, the frequency range of 50 Hz to 200 Hz was proposed for the research. The studied fundamental frequency F0 was determined by segmenting the speech signal using a moving time window. As a result, a frequency vector F0 (for each tested word) was obtained, the length of which depends on the number of frames. The obtained set of fundamental frequencies (pitch listing) was analysed using statistical functions, which led to the determination of the F0 distribution in the range of minimum, maximum, median, and standard deviation values. Voice samples were taken from 12 people aged between 30 and 70 following total laryngectomy. In accordance with the rehabilitation process, words (spoken in Polish) such as “barrel”, “bread roll”, “egg”, “package”, and “snow” were analysed (each as a separate pattern). Full article

This paper presents an approach to extraction techniques for speaker recognition following total laryngectomy surgery. The aim of the research was to develop a pattern of physical features describing the oesophageal speech in people after experiencing laryngeal cancer. Research results may support the speech rehabilitation of laryngectomised patients by improving the quality of oesophageal speech. The main goal of the research was to isolate the physical features of oesophageal speech and to compare their values with the descriptors of physiological speech. Words (in Polish) used during speech rehabilitation were analyzed. Each of these words was divided into phonetic segments from which the physical features of speech were extracted. The values of the acquired speech descriptors were then used to create a vector of the physical features of oesophageal speech. A set of these features will determine a model that should allow us to recognize whether the speech-rehabilitation process is proceeding correctly and also provide a selection of bespoke procedures that we could introduce to each patient. This research is a continuation of the analysis of oesophageal speech published previously. This time, the effectiveness of parameterization was tested using methodologies for analyzing the phonetic segments of each word. Full article

Pathological speech such as Oesophageal Speech (OS) is difficult to understand due to the presence of undesired artefacts and lack of normal healthy speech characteristics. Modern speech technologies and machine learning enable us to transform pathological speech to improve intelligibility and quality. We have used a neural network based voice conversion method with the aim of improving the intelligibility and reducing the listening effort (LE) of four OS speakers of varying speaking proficiency. The novelty of this method is the use of synthetic speech matched in duration with the source OS as the target, instead of parallel aligned healthy speech. We evaluated the converted samples from this system using a collection of Automatic Speech Recognition systems (ASR), an objective intelligibility metric (STOI) and a subjective test. ASR evaluation shows that the proposed system had significantly better word recognition accuracy compared to unprocessed OS, and baseline systems which used aligned healthy speech as the target. There was an improvement of at least 15% on STOI scores indicating a higher intelligibility for the proposed system compared to unprocessed OS, and a higher target similarity in the proposed system compared to baseline systems. The subjective test reveals a significant preference for the proposed system compared to unprocessed OS for all OS speakers, except one who was the least proficient OS speaker in the data set. Full article

(1) Introduction: Laryngeal cancer is one of the most common types of cancer affecting the upper aerodigestive tract. Despite ensuring good oncological outcome in many locoregionally advanced cases, total laryngectomy is associated with relevant physical and psychological sequelae. Treatment through tracheo-esophageal speech, if promising, can lead to very variable outcomes. Not all laryngectomee patients with vocal prosthesis benefit from the same level of rehabilitation mainly due to the development of prosthetic or fistula related problems. The relating sequelae in some cases are even more decisive in the patient quality of life, having a higher impact than communicational or verbal skills. (2) Material and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 63 patients initially enrolled with a history of total laryngectomy and voice rehabilitation, treated at the University Hospital of Catania from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2018. Quality of life (QoL) evaluation through validated self-administrated questionnaires was performed. (3) Results: The Voice-Related Quality of Life questionnaire revealed significantly better outcomes in both socio-emotional and functional domains of the tracheoesophageal patient group compared to the esophageal group (p = 0.01; p = 0.01, respectively), whereas in the Voice Handicap Index assessment, statistically significant scores were not achieved (p = 0.33). (4) Discussion: The significant differences reported through the V-RQOL and Voice Handicap Index scales in the presence of fistula related problems and device lifetime reduction when compared to the oesophageal speech group have demonstrated, as supported by the literature, a crucial role in the rehabilitative prognosis. (5) Conclusions: The criteria of low resistance to airflow, optimal tracheoesophageal retention, prolonged device life, simple patient maintenance, and comfortable outpatient surgery are the reference standard for obtaining good QoL results, especially over time. Furthermore, the correct phenotyping of the patient based on the main outcomes achieved at clinical follow-up guarantees the primary objective of the identification of a better quality of life. Full article

Communication is a huge challenge for oesophageal speakers, be it for interactions with fellow humans or with digital voice assistants. We aim to quantify these communication challenges (both human–human and human–machine interactions) by measuring intelligibility and Listening Effort (LE) of Oesophageal Speech (OS) in comparison to Healthy Laryngeal Speech (HS). We conducted two listening tests (one web-based, the other in laboratory settings) to collect these measurements. Participants performed a sentence recognition and LE rating task in each test. Intelligibility, calculated as Word Error Rate, showed significant correlation with self-reported LE ratings. Speaker type (healthy or oesophageal) had a major effect on intelligibility and effort. More LE was reported for OS compared to HS even when OS intelligibility was close to HS. Listeners familiar with OS reported less effort when listening to OS compared to nonfamiliar listeners. However, such advantage of familiarity was not observed for intelligibility. Automatic speech recognition scores were higher for OS compared to HS. Full article