Support Vector Machine Classification of Vocal Fold Vibrations Based on Phonovibrogram Features
Michael Döllinger, Jörg Lohscheller, Jan G. Švec, Andrew J. McWhorter, Melda Kunduk · InTech eBooks · 2011
IntroductionVoice is invaluable for our livelihood, as it takes place in humans everyday lives, like talking, laughing, crying, singing, screaming, shouting etc.Over the past 200 000 years, humans use the lung, larynx, tongue, and lips, to produce and modify the highly intricate arrays of voice (Titze, 2006) for realizing verbal communication and emotional expression.Among the participating tissues, the vocal folds within the human larynx have evolved to be a key organ in the creation of human voice.Their vibrations serve as origin of the primary voice signal.The process of voice production is called phonation (Titze, 2006), and is the preliminary stage for speech.In our knowledge-based societies, communication skills have become more and more important.Communication disorders became a socio economic factor: A study in the year 2000 estimated losses within the Gross National Product of the USA being up to $186 billion annually (Ruben, 2000), on the basis that approx.10% of the entire population suffers from communication disturbances.To increase the quality of life of the people concerned on one hand and to keep the economic costs under control on the other, appropriate technologies have to be developed to disclose all factors conducive to communication disorders.Also, analysis methods have to be applied to objectively quantify grades of disease, document therapy, and to guide surgical interventions.A high number of communication disorders are due to a disturbance in voice, i.e. disturbed vocal fold vibrations.Examination of vocal fold vibrations (100 Hz -300 Hz) and the acoustic signal are the basic components of clinical voice assessment.It is widely held that vocal fold vibration irregularities lead to an impairment of the voice signal.Irregularities being present in vocal fold vibrations during sound production can be determined by direct (i.e.endoscopic www.intechopen.