The relationship between voice source parameters and the maxima dispersion quotient (MDQ)

This study examines the relationship between the Maxima Dispersion Quotient (MDQ), a recently proposed measure of the tense-lax dimension of voice quality, and voice source parameters manually measured from glottal flow data, where there is linguistically and paralinguistically determined voice source modulation. MDQ was found to correlate most closely to the open quotient (OQ) and the RD parameter. The paralinguistically varying data, which involved more extensive voice source modulation than the linguistic, also showed a higher degree of correlation with these parameters, and higher correlations overall with a range of voice source parameters. The high correlation with OQ and RD found in these analyses would suggest that MDQ can be a useful, additional parameter for the analysis of glottal source dynamics.