F0 Variability Measures Based on Glottal Closure Instants

The periodicity of a voiced-sound signal can reflect physiological conditions such as identity, age, and voice disorder. One way to look into this periodicity is to measure the temporal variability of vocal fundamental frequency (F0). This paper proposes 2 measures of F0 variability based on glottal closure instant (GCI). GCI is essential to the detection of F0 when the signal waveform varies substantially between adjacent cycles, e.g., in breathy voice. Frequency-selective variability measurements are taken from an interpolated sequence of fundamental-period values based on GCIs, including certain spectral-shape parameters which constitute a multi-variate measure. The utility of these measures was demonstrated in two experiments designed for inter- and intra-speaker comparisons, respectively.