June 9, 2019
Publications
>
Article

Smartphone Application for the Analysis of Prosodic Features in Running Speech with a Focus on Bipolar Disorders: System Performance Evaluation and Case Study

Publicated to: SENSORS. 15 (11): 28070-28087 - 2015-11-06 15(11), DOI: 10.3390/s151128070

Authors:

Guidi, A; Salvi, S; Ottaviano, M; Gentili, C; Bertschy, G; de Rossi, D; Scilingo, EP; Vanello, N
[+]

Affiliations

Univ Padua, Dept Gen Psychol, I-35131 Padua, Italy - Author
Univ Pisa, Dept Surg Med Mol Pathol & Crit Care, I-56126 Pisa, Italy - Author
Univ Pisa, Dipartimento Ingn Informaz, I-56122 Pisa, Italy - Author
Univ Pisa, Res Ctr E Piaggio, I-56122 Pisa, Italy - Author
Univ Politecn Madrid, Life Supporting Technol, E-28040 Madrid, Spain - Author
Univ Strasbourg, Strasbourg Univ Hosp, Dept Psychiat & Mental Hlth, Translat Med Federat,INSERM U1114, F-67000 Strasbourg, France - Author
See more

Abstract

Bipolar disorder is one of the most common mood disorders characterized by large and invalidating mood swings. Several projects focus on the development of decision support systems that monitor and advise patients, as well as clinicians. Voice monitoring and speech signal analysis can be exploited to reach this goal. In this study, an Android application was designed for analyzing running speech using a smartphone device. The application can record audio samples and estimate speech fundamental frequency, F-0, and its changes. F-0-related features are estimated locally on the smartphone, with some advantages with respect to remote processing approaches in terms of privacy protection and reduced upload costs. The raw features can be sent to a central server and further processed. The quality of the audio recordings, algorithm reliability and performance of the overall system were evaluated in terms of voiced segment detection and features estimation. The results demonstrate that mean F-0 from each voiced segment can be reliably estimated, thus describing prosodic features across the speech sample. Instead, features related to F-0 variability within each voiced segment performed poorly. A case study performed on a bipolar patient is presented.
[+]

Keywords

bipolar disordersfundamental frequencypitch strengthsmartphone applicationvoice monitoring systemAdultBipolar disorderBipolar disordersClinical depressionFemaleFundamental frequencyHumansMaleMental-healthMobile applicationsMonitoring, physiologicMusicPilot projectsPitch strengthRiskSmartphoneSmartphone applicationSpectrumSpeechVoiceVoice monitoring systemVoice segmentation

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal SENSORS due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2015, it was in position 16/27, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Electrochemistry.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 1.34. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 1.12 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-27, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 38
  • Scopus: 41
  • Europe PMC: 15
  • Google Scholar: 53
[+]

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-27:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 144.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 144 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 2 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/87211/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 140
  • Downloads: 22
[+]

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: France; Italy.

[+]

Awards linked to the item

This study is part of the European project PSYCHE (Personalised monitoring Systems for Care in mental HEalth) funded by the FP7-ICT Framework Programme, Grant Agreement No. 247777. The authors are grateful to Laura Maley for kindly revisiting the manuscript.
[+]