Parameter-Specific Morphing Reveals Contributions of Timbre and Fundamental Frequency Cues to the Perception of Voice Gender and Age in Cochlear Implant Users

Autor/inn/en	Skuk, Verena G.; Kirchen, Louisa; Oberhoffner, Tobias; Guntinas-Lichius, Orlando; Dobel, Christian; Schweinberger, Stefan R.
Titel	Parameter-Specific Morphing Reveals Contributions of Timbre and Fundamental Frequency Cues to the Perception of Voice Gender and Age in Cochlear Implant Users
Quelle	In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63 (2020) 9, S.3155-3175 (21 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Schweinberger, Stefan R.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1092-4388
Schlagwörter	Deafness; Hearing Impairments; Cues; Auditory Perception; Speech Communication; Gender Differences; Age Differences; Assistive Technology; Acoustics; Listening; Adolescents; Adults; Foreign Countries; Auditory Stimuli; Germany + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Gehörlosigkeit; Taubstummheit; Hearing impairment; Hörbehinderung; Stichwort; Auditive Wahrnehmung; Akustische Wahrnehmung; Akustik; Geschlechterkonflikt; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Hörvorgang; Zuhören; Adolescent; Adolescence; Adoleszenz; Jugend; Jugendalter; Jugendlicher; Ausland; Auditive Stimulation; Deutschland
Abstract	Purpose: Using naturalistic synthesized speech, we determined the relative importance of acoustic cues in voice gender and age perception in cochlear implant (CI) users. Method: We investigated 28 CI users' abilities to utilize fundamental frequency (F0) and timbre in perceiving voice gender (Experiment 1) and vocal age (Experiment 2). Parameter-specific voice morphing was used to selectively control acoustic cues (F0; time; timbre, i.e., formant frequencies, spectral-level information, and aperiodicity, as defined in TANDEM-STRAIGHT) in voice stimuli. Individual differences in CI users' performance were quantified via deviations from the mean performance of 19 normal-hearing (NH) listeners. Results: CI users' gender perception seemed exclusively based on F0, whereas NH listeners efficiently used timbre. For age perception, timbre was more informative than F0 for both groups, with minor contributions of temporal cues. While a few CI users performed comparable to NH listeners overall, others were at chance. Separate analyses confirmed that even high-performing CI users classified gender almost exclusively based on F0. While high performers could discriminate age in male and female voices, low performers were close to chance overall but used F0 as a misleading cue to age (classifying female voices as young and male voices as old). Satisfaction with CI generally correlated with performance in age perception. Conclusions: We confirmed that CI users' gender classification is mainly based on F0. However, high performers could make reasonable usage of timbre cues in age perception. Overall, parameter-specific morphing can serve to objectively assess individual profiles of CI users' abilities to perceive nonverbal social-communicative vocal signals. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01