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Main Authors: Matton, Katie, Balaji, Purvaja, Ghasemzadeh, Hamzeh, Cooper, Jameson C., Mehta, Daryush D., Van Stan, Jarrad H., Hillman, Robert E., Picard, Rosalind, Guttag, John, Abulnaga, S. Mazdak
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.09702
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author Matton, Katie
Balaji, Purvaja
Ghasemzadeh, Hamzeh
Cooper, Jameson C.
Mehta, Daryush D.
Van Stan, Jarrad H.
Hillman, Robert E.
Picard, Rosalind
Guttag, John
Abulnaga, S. Mazdak
author_facet Matton, Katie
Balaji, Purvaja
Ghasemzadeh, Hamzeh
Cooper, Jameson C.
Mehta, Daryush D.
Van Stan, Jarrad H.
Hillman, Robert E.
Picard, Rosalind
Guttag, John
Abulnaga, S. Mazdak
contents Phonotrauma refers to vocal fold tissue damage resulting from exposure to forces during voicing. It occurs on a continuum from mild to severe, and treatment options can vary based on severity. Assessment of severity involves a clinician's expert judgment, which is costly and can vary widely in reliability. In this work, we present the first method for automatically classifying phonotrauma severity from vocal fold images. To account for the ordinal nature of the labels, we adopt a widely used ordinal regression framework. To account for label uncertainty, we propose a novel modification to ordinal regression loss functions that enables them to operate on soft labels reflecting annotator rating distributions. Our proposed soft ordinal regression method achieves predictive performance approaching that of clinical experts, while producing well-calibrated uncertainty estimates. By providing an automated tool for phonotrauma severity assessment, our work can enable large-scale studies of phonotrauma, ultimately leading to improved clinical understanding and patient care.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_09702
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Classifying Phonotrauma Severity from Vocal Fold Images with Soft Ordinal Regression
Matton, Katie
Balaji, Purvaja
Ghasemzadeh, Hamzeh
Cooper, Jameson C.
Mehta, Daryush D.
Van Stan, Jarrad H.
Hillman, Robert E.
Picard, Rosalind
Guttag, John
Abulnaga, S. Mazdak
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Phonotrauma refers to vocal fold tissue damage resulting from exposure to forces during voicing. It occurs on a continuum from mild to severe, and treatment options can vary based on severity. Assessment of severity involves a clinician's expert judgment, which is costly and can vary widely in reliability. In this work, we present the first method for automatically classifying phonotrauma severity from vocal fold images. To account for the ordinal nature of the labels, we adopt a widely used ordinal regression framework. To account for label uncertainty, we propose a novel modification to ordinal regression loss functions that enables them to operate on soft labels reflecting annotator rating distributions. Our proposed soft ordinal regression method achieves predictive performance approaching that of clinical experts, while producing well-calibrated uncertainty estimates. By providing an automated tool for phonotrauma severity assessment, our work can enable large-scale studies of phonotrauma, ultimately leading to improved clinical understanding and patient care.
title Classifying Phonotrauma Severity from Vocal Fold Images with Soft Ordinal Regression
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.09702