Correlates of sophisticated listener judgments of esophageal air intake noise

Abstract

The literature on esophageal speech has identified the problem of extraneous air intake noise, suggested its possible etiology, and provided practical advice for clinical management. Documentation on the efficacy of specific methodology is lacking in the literature. Such documentation'would be simplified if objective criteria were used to 2 rate the severity of intake noise. The present study was prompted by the lack of basic data regarding listener evaluation of intake noise.The purpose of this study was to identify physical and perceptual correlates of acceptability of esophageal air intake noise. A primary and a secondary question were asked: Twenty-four laryngectomees, ranging widely in esophageal speaking ability, read a standard passage for audio tape recording. Four expert voice clinicians listened to the tapes, rating subjects on the acceptability of air intake noise. Overall esophageal speech proficiency ratings 3 for eighteen of the subjects were obtained from an independent study conducted during the same week.Five objective measures of esophageal speech were extracted from each speech sample, using a real-time intensity display instrument and a storage oscilloscope.Interjudge and intrajudge reliability were determined by computing Pearson product-moment correlation coeff icients. The means of the ratings on intake noise acceptability were entered in a multiple regression analysis as the criterion variable, with the objective measurements and the overall speech proficiency ratings as the predictor variables.Three of the predictor variables were found to be positively correlated with the air intake acceptability ratings beyond the .01 level of significance: the number of syllables uttered per air intake, the mean intensity of intake, and the rate of speech. The ratio of mean speech intensity to mean intake noise intensity was correlated to intake noise acceptability at the .OS level. Neither mean speech intensity nor the overall esophageal speech proficiency variables were significantly correlated with intake noise acceptability. The number of syllables uttered per intake accounted for the largest share of the variance of intake noise acceptability. Mean intake intensity was the second, but far weaker predictor of variance. The remaining variables accounted for a very slight percentage of the total variance.

Naive listener judgments of esophageal air intake noise acceptability

“…The sophisticated listener's ratings of air intake noise were obtained from the study conducted by Eccleston (1982) and were compared to naive listener's ratings obtained in this study. The statistical analysis indicated that naive listener acceptability judgements were significantly correlated with sophisticated listener acceptability judgements of air intake noise with an~ value of .81 (Table II).…”

“…If the pulmonary breathing is not controlled, the laryngectomee may develop excessively loud wheezing noises through the tracheal stoma which are referred to as "stoma noise". The resulting "stoma noise" can mask esophageal speech and it has been found to be a primary factor in determining whether judges find esophageal speech acceptable (Eccleston, 1982;Shipp, 1967).…”

“…The esophageal speech sample collected by Eccleston (1982) was accomplished in the audiometric suite at Eastern Washington University where the audio-tape recordings were made.…”

“…The rating scales used in this study were adopted from Eccleston's (1982) study. The instructions and terminology were identical for both the sophisticated judges from Eccleston's study and the naive judges from the present study.…”

“…Procedures for audio-tape recording the esophageal speech subject sample were obtained from Eccleston's (1982) study.…”