Is the perception of voice quality language-dependant? A comparison of French and Italian listeners and dysphonic speakers

We present an experiment where voice quality of French and Italian dysphonic speakers was evaluated by French and Italian listeners, specialists in phoniatrics. Results showed that both groups of speakers were perceived in the same way by the two groups of listeners in term of overall severity and breathiness. But the perception of roughness is clearly language dependant. Italian listeners underestimate roughness compare to French listeners. If we link these results obtained in perception with measures obtained in speech production, we can make the hypothesis that it is a case of perception/ production adaptation process.