Intonation and Emotions in Dysphonic Patients: When Voice and Speech Get Involved

This contribution looks at the acoustic analysis of the fundamental frequency (f(o)) in identical French sentences with different emotions produced by a dysphonic child (with vocal disorder) and a singer child on the one hand (case study), by 55 dysphonic female patients after thyroidectomy including 28 with suspected Superior Laryngeal Nerve (SLN) involvement, and 27 female controls on the other. fo decreased in all dysphonic subjects for anger and especially joy, with little acoustic differentiation for fo; anger was less well perceived by dysphonic patients than other emotions. Patients with suspected NLS involvement showed the most severe reductions in fo, and more marked feelings of vocal discomfort. A reduction in the degree of freedom of their vocal function reduces the vocal flexibility of these dysphonic patients, whose vocal disorder affects the Intonational side of emotional prosody.