Performance of Gaussian Mixture Models as a Classifier for Pathological Voice

This study focuses on the classification of pathological voice using GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model) and compares the results to the previous work which was done by ANN (Artificial Neural Network). Speech data from normal people and patients were collected, then diagnosed and classified into two different categories. Six characteristic parameters (Jitter, Shimmer, NHR, SPI, APQ and RAP) were chosen. Then the classification method based on the artificial neural network and Gaussian mixture method was employed to discriminate the data into normal and pathological speech. The GMM method attained 98.4% average correct classification rate with training data and 95.2% average correct classification rate with test data. The different mixture number (3 to 15) of GMM was used in order to obtain an optimal condition for classification. We also compared the average classification rate based on GMM, ANN and HMM.