TY - CHAP
T1 - An Evaluation of the Effect of Anxiety on Speech - Computational Prediction of Anxiety from Sustained Vowels
AU - Baird, Alice
AU - Cummins, Nicholas
AU - Schuller, Bjoern
PY - 2020/10
Y1 - 2020/10
N2 - The current level of global uncertainty is having an implicit effect on those with a diagnosed anxiety disorder. Anxiety can impact vocal qualities, particularly as physical symptoms of anxiety include muscle tension and shortness of breath. To this end, in this study, we explore the effect of anxiety on speech - focusing on four classes of sustained vowels (sad, smiling, comfortable, and powerful) - via feature analysis and a series of regression experiments. We extract three well-known acoustic feature sets and evaluate the efficacy of machine learning for prediction of anxiety based on the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) score. Of note, utilising a support vector regressor, we find that the effects of anxiety in speech appear to be stronger at higher BAI levels. Significant differences (p < 0.05) between test predictions of Low and High-BAI groupings support this. Furthermore, when utilising a High-BAI grouping for the prediction of standardised BAI, significantly higher results are obtained for smiling sustained vowels, of up to 0.646 Spearman's Correlation Coefficient (?), and up to 0.592 ? with all sustained vowels. A significantly stronger (Cohens d of 1.718) result than all data combined without grouping, which achieves at best 0.234 ?.
AB - The current level of global uncertainty is having an implicit effect on those with a diagnosed anxiety disorder. Anxiety can impact vocal qualities, particularly as physical symptoms of anxiety include muscle tension and shortness of breath. To this end, in this study, we explore the effect of anxiety on speech - focusing on four classes of sustained vowels (sad, smiling, comfortable, and powerful) - via feature analysis and a series of regression experiments. We extract three well-known acoustic feature sets and evaluate the efficacy of machine learning for prediction of anxiety based on the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) score. Of note, utilising a support vector regressor, we find that the effects of anxiety in speech appear to be stronger at higher BAI levels. Significant differences (p < 0.05) between test predictions of Low and High-BAI groupings support this. Furthermore, when utilising a High-BAI grouping for the prediction of standardised BAI, significantly higher results are obtained for smiling sustained vowels, of up to 0.646 Spearman's Correlation Coefficient (?), and up to 0.592 ? with all sustained vowels. A significantly stronger (Cohens d of 1.718) result than all data combined without grouping, which achieves at best 0.234 ?.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098229155&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.21437/Interspeech.2020-1801
DO - 10.21437/Interspeech.2020-1801
M3 - Conference paper
VL - 2020-October
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH
SP - 4951
EP - 4955
BT - Proceedings INTERSPEECH 2020
PB - ISCA-INST SPEECH COMMUNICATION ASSOC
ER -