Collinearity and Sample Coverage Issues in the Objective Measurement of Vocal Quality: The Case of Roughness and Breathiness

Purpose

The aim of the study was to address the reported inconsistencies in the relationship between objective acoustic measures and perceptual ratings of vocal quality.

Method

This tutorial moves away from the more widely examined problems related to obtaining the perceptual ratings and the acoustic measures and centers in less scrutinized issues regarding the procedure to establish the correspondence. Expressions for the most common measure of association between perceptual and acoustic measures (Pearson's r) are derived using a multiple linear regression model. The particular case where the multiple linear regression involves only roughness and breathiness is discussed to illustrate the issues.

Results

Most problems reported regarding inconsistent findings in the relationship between given acoustic measures and particular perceptual ratings could be linked to sample properties not directly related to the actual relationship. The influential sample properties are the collinearity between the regressors in the multiple linear regression and their relative variances. Recommendations on how to rule out this possible cause of inconsistency are given, varying in scope from data collection, reporting, manipulation, and results interpretation.

Conclusions

The problems described can be extended to more general cases than the exemplified roughness and breathiness sample's coverage. Ruling out this possible cause of inconsistency would increase the validity of the results reported.

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