A study of intra-speaker and inter-speaker affective variability using electroglottograph and inverse filtered glottal waveforms

It is well-known that different speakers utilize their vocal instruments in diverse ways to express linguistic intention with some paralinguistic coloring such as emotional quality. The study of voice source features, which describe the action of the vocal folds, is important for a deeper understanding of emotion encoding in speech. In this study we investigate inter and intra-speaker differences in voicing activities as a function of emotion using electroglottography (EGG) and an inverse filtering technique. Results demonstrate that while voice quality features are good indicators of affective state, voice source descriptors vary in affective information across speakers. Glottal ratio measurements taken directly from the EGG signal are more reliable than measurements from the inverse-filtered glottal airflow signal, but the spectral harmonic amplitude differences of EGG are less useful than from inverse filtering.