Prosodic analysis of neutral, stress-modified and rhymed speech in patients with Parkinson's disease

@article{1367386,
   author = {Galaz, Zoltan and Mekyska, Jiri and Mzourek, Zdenek and Smekal, Zdenek and Rektorová, Irena and Eliášová, Ilona and Košťálová, Milena and Mračková, Martina and Beránková, Dagmar},
   article_location = {Clare},
   article_number = {APR},
   doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2015.12.011},
   keywords = {Parkinson's disease; Hypokinetic dysarthria; Feature selection; Random forests; Dysprosody},
   language = {eng},
   issn = {0169-2607},
   journal = {Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine},
   title = {Prosodic analysis of neutral, stress-modified and rhymed speech in patients with Parkinson's disease},
   volume = {127},
   year = {2016}
}

TY  - JOUR
ID  - 1367386
AU  - Galaz, Zoltan - Mekyska, Jiri - Mzourek, Zdenek - Smekal, Zdenek - Rektorová, Irena - Eliášová, Ilona - Košťálová, Milena - Mračková, Martina - Beránková, Dagmar
PY  - 2016
TI  - Prosodic analysis of neutral, stress-modified and rhymed speech in patients with Parkinson's disease
JF  - Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine
VL  - 127
IS  - APR
SP  - 301-317
EP  - 301-317
PB  - Elsevier Ireland Ltd.
SN  - 01692607
KW  - Parkinson's disease
KW  - Hypokinetic dysarthria
KW  - Feature selection
KW  - Random forests
KW  - Dysprosody
N2  - Background and objective: Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a frequent speech disorder associated with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). It affects all dimensions of speech production. One of the most common features of HD is dysprosody that is characterized by alterations of rhythm and speech rate, flat speech melody, and impairment of speech intensity control. Dysprosody has a detrimental impact on speech naturalness and intelligibility. Methods: This paper deals with quantitative prosodic analysis of neutral, stress-modified and rhymed speech in patients with PD. The analysis of prosody is based on quantification of monopitch, monoloudness, and speech rate abnormalities. Experimental dataset consists of 98 patients with PD and 51 healthy speakers. For the purpose of HD identification, sequential floating feature selection algorithm and random forests classifier is used. In this paper, we also introduce a concept of permutation test applied in the field of acoustic analysis of dysarthric speech. Results: Prosodic features obtained from stress-modified reading task provided higher classification accuracies compared to the ones extracted from reading task with neutral emotion demonstrating the importance of stress in speech prosody. Features calculated from poem recitation task outperformed both reading tasks in the case of gender-undifferentiated analysis showing that rhythmical demands can in general lead to more precise identification of HD. Additionally, some gender-related patterns of dysprosody has been observed. Conclusions: This paper confirms reduced variation of fundamental frequency in PD patients with HD. Interestingly, increased variability of speech intensity compared to healthy speakers has been detected. Regarding speech rate disturbances, our results does not report any particular pattern. We conclude further development of prosodic features quantifying the relationship between monopitch, monoloudness and speech rate disruptions in HD can have a great potential in future PD analysis.
ER  - 

GALAZ, Zoltan, Jiri MEKYSKA, Zdenek MZOUREK, Zdenek SMEKAL, Irena REKTOROVÁ, Ilona ELIÁŠOVÁ, Milena KOŠŤÁLOVÁ, Martina MRAČKOVÁ a Dagmar BERÁNKOVÁ. Prosodic analysis of neutral, stress-modified and rhymed speech in patients with Parkinson's disease. \textit{Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine}. Clare: Elsevier Ireland Ltd., 2016, roč.~127, APR, s.~301-317. ISSN~0169-2607. Dostupné z: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmpb.2015.12.011.