Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 62 (2000) 99 – 107 Objective auscultation for traditional Chinese medical diagnosis using novel acoustic parameters Chuang-Chien Chiu a, *, Hen-Hong Chang b , Chung-Hsien Yang c a Institute of Automatic Control Engineering, Feng Chia Uniersity, Taiwan, ROC b Taipei City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC c China Medical College Hospital, Taiwan, ROC Received 10 March 1999; received in revised form 12 November 1999; accepted 15 December 1999 Abstract The goal of this work is to propose novel acoustic parameters of voice for the purpose of providing a quantitative analysis of auscultation in traditional Chinese medical diagnosis. There is rare amount of available literature related to this topic. Four novel acoustic parameters, the average number of zero-crossings, the variations in local peaks and valleys, the variations in first and second formant frequencies, and the spectral energy ratio, are presented to analyze and identify the characteristics among non-vacuity, qi-vacuity, and yin-vacuity subjects. Among these acoustic parameters, two temporal parameters, the average number of zero-crossings and the variations in local peaks and valleys, outperformed other parameters in classifying both non-vacuity and deficient subjects. The spectral energy ratio was adequate for the classification between qi-vacuity and yin-vacuity patients. This research is a first step in an ongoing effort to modernize the auscultation in traditional Chinese medical diagnosis. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Voice; Traditional Chinese medical diagnosis; Auscultation www.elsevier.com/locate/cmpb 1. Introduction Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a unique medical system in that its clinical examina- tions are based on four diagnostic processes, in- spection, auscultation and smelling, inquiry, and palpation. Through these diagnostic processes the states of qi, yin, yang and blood of the patient are identified [1]. The inspection process involves ex- amining the patient by observing his or her shape, expression, tongue, etc. The auscultation and smelling processes involve collecting information for diagnosis by listening to the voice and smelling the odor of the patient. The inquiry process involves diagnosis through asking the sub- jective symptoms of the patients. The palpation process is proceeded by recording the radial pulses at the patient’s wrist. After completing these diagnostic processes, the states of patients are summarized, possible causes of illness can be diagnosed, and the treatments are then imple- * Corresponding author. Fax.: +886-4-4519951. E-mail address: chiuc@auto.fcu.edu.tw (C.-C. Chiu) 0169-2607/00/$ - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 9 - 2 6 0 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 5 5 - 9