Abstract

Purpose
Adult human vocal tracts display considerable morphological variation across individuals, but the nature and extent of this variation has not been extensively studied for many vocal tract structures. There exists a need to analyze morphological variation and, even more basically, to develop a methodology for morphological analysis of the vocal tract. Such analysis will facilitate fundamental characterization of the speech production system, with broad implications from modeling to explaining interspeaker variability.
Method
A data-driven methodology to automatically analyze the extent and variety of morphological variation is proposed and applied to a diverse subject pool of 36 adults. Analysis is focused on two key aspects of vocal tract structure: the midsagittal shape of the hard palate and the posterior pharyngeal wall.

Date

2013

Authors

Adam Lammert, Michael Proctor, Shrikanth Narayanan

Journal

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Volume

56

Issue

2

Pages

521-530