Pause Characteristics

Fundamental frequency is usually zero when there is no voice detected. Using this understanding, frames where voice is or is not present can be determined and used to characterize pauses during speech and silence during the audio file. These metrics are quantified here.

Raw Variables

Variable	Description
aco_pausetime	Pause time. Length of time with no speech detected.
aco_totaltime	Video length. The length of the video.
aco_speakingtime	Time spoken. The total length of time with speech detected.
aco_numpauses	Number of pauses. Number of instances with no speech.
aco_pausefrac	Pause time. aco_pausetime divided by aco_totaltime.

Derived Variables

Variable	Description
aco_pausetime_mean	Pause time. Length of time with no speech detected.
aco_totaltime_mean	Video length. The length of the video.
aco_numpauses_mean	Number of pauses. Number of instances with no speech.
aco_pausefrac_mean	Fraction of video with pauses. aco_pausetime_mean divided by aco_totaltime_mean.

Note: The overlap between raw and derived variables for this section may be confusing; it’s a leftover effect of how our code is organized in the AiCure product, where several videos from the same individual at the same time point are averaged. For your purposes, simply rely on the derived variables here.