Advancements in whisper-island detection within normally phonated audio streams

Abstract

In this study, several improvements are proposed for improved whisper-island detection within normally phonated audio streams. Based on our previous study, an improved feature, which is more sensitive to vocal effort change points between whisper and neutral speech, is developed and utilized in vocal effort change point(VECP) detection and vocal effort classification. Evaluation is based on the proposed multi-error score, where the improved feature showed better performance in VECPs detection with the lowest MES of 19.08. Furthermore, a more accurate whisper-island detection was obtained using the improved algorithm. Finally, the experimental detection rate results of 95.33% reflects better whisper-island detection performance for the improved algorithm versus that of the original baseline algorithm.