Contribution of voice quality to prediction of turn-taking events

Abstract

This paper evaluates the contribution of acoustic voice quality measures to prediction of upcoming floor change and retention. In order to minimize the influence of vocal tract resonances, the measures were calculated from miniature accelerometers attached to the tracheal wall. Overall, speaker changes accom-panied by silence were characterized by lower periodicity and steeper spectral slope than turn-holds and speaker changes in-volving overlapping speech. When used on their own, voice quality features contributed to prediction of turn-taking category, this was particularly true of smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS). At the same time, their importance was limited when used in combination with fundamental frequency and intensity, especially compared to the joint effect of these two predictors.