The purpose of this study was to further develop a multi-tier model of the vocal tract area function in which the modulations of shape to produce speech are generated by the product of a vowel substrate and a consonant superposition function. The new approach consists of specifying input parameters for a target consonant as a set of directional changes in the resonance frequencies of the vowel substrate. Using calculations of acoustic sensitivity functions, these "resonance deflection patterns" are transformed into time-varying deformations of the vocal tract shape without any direct specification of location or extent of the consonant constriction along the vocal tract. The configuration of the constrictions and expansions that are generated by this process were shown to be physiologically-realistic and produce speech sounds that are easily identifiable as the target consonants. This model is a useful enhancement for area function-based synthesis and can serve as a tool for understanding how the vocal tract is shaped by a talker during speech production. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/623128 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | Story, Brad H., Bunton, Kate |
| Contributors | Univ Arizona, Speech Acoust Lab, Dept Speech Language & Hearing Sci |
| Publisher | ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Rights | © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
| Relation | http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0167639316301996 |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds