Abstract

It was recently shown that vocal tract postures assumed during pauses in read speech are significantly different from those assumed at absolute rest. This paper examines whether the former category of “articulatory settings” are more mechanically advantageous than absolute rest postures with respect to speech articulation. Appropriate task and articulator variables are extracted from real-time Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rtMRI) data of five speakers reading aloud. Locally-weighted regression is then used to calculate Jacobian matrices representing the transformation between articulatory task velocities and postural velocities. A measure of mechanical advantage is proposed based on the obtained Jacobian. Speech-ready postures and postures during inter-speech pauses are observed to be significantly more mechanically advantageous as compared to rest postures. Furthermore, other postures, such as those …

Date

2013

Authors

Vikram Ramanarayanan, Adam C Lammert, Louis Goldstein, Shrikanth S Narayanan

Conference

INTERSPEECH

Pages

2010-2013