The estimation of signal-to-noise ratio in continuous speech for disordered voices

Presented is a method of estimating the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of cont inuous utterances for patients with various types of voice disorders that r anged in severity of dysphonia from mild to severe, The SNR is estimated ba sed on the residual that is left after systematically removing the short- a nd long-term correlations that exist in the speech signal. Results indicate that the SNR is consistent with human perceptual judgments, particularly t hose that consistently differentiate close-to-normal versus highly disphoni c voices. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(99)01604-5].