Title Effects of Cultural and Linguistic Backgrounds on Perceptual Voice Quality Rating Effects of Cultural and Linguistic Backgrounds on Perceptual Voice Quality Rating

Perceptual voice judgment is a standard procedure in voice quality evaluation. However, the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the judges often affect its reliability. Use of anchors has been shown to improve the reliability of the procedure. Therefore, this study aimed to develop female synthesized anchors in Cantonese, English, and Putonghua and investigate the reliability of perceptual voice rating across speakers of three native languages using an anchor-matching method. Ten native Cantonese speakers, 10 native English speakers and 10 native Putonghua speakers were recruited to rate the severity of breathiness and roughness of pathological voice samples in Cantonese, English and Putonghua. Results showed high intra-rater agreement (average 87.23%) and inter-rater reliability (average 0.94) across listener groups and stimuli sets. The Putonghua listeners in this study demonstrated significantly lower intra-rater agreement than the Cantonese listeners, suggesting possible cultural and linguistic differences in perceptual voice evaluation between Putonghua and Cantonese listeners.