Analysis of mrate, shimmer, jitter, and F0 contour features across stress and speaking style in the SUSAS database

This paper highlights the results of an investigation of several features cross the style classes of the “simulated” portion of the SUSAS database. The features considered here include a previously-introduced measure of speaking rate called mrate, measures of shimmer, measures of jitter, and features derived from fundamental frequency (F₀) contours. The F₀ contour features are the means of F₀ and ΔF₀ over the first, middle, and last thirds of the ordered set of voiced frames for each word. The mrate exhibits differences between the fast, neutral, and slow styles and between the loud, neutral, and soft styles. Shimmer and jitter exhibit differences that are similar to those of mrate; however, the shimmer and jitter differences are less consistent than the mrate differences across the speakers in the database. Several F₀ contour features exhibit differences between the angry, loud, Lombard, and question styles and most of the other styles