An articulation model for audiovisual speech synthesis—Determination, adjustment, evaluation

Abstract

The authors present a visual articulation model for speech synthesis and a method to obtain it from measured data. This visual articulation model is integrated into MASSY, the Modular Audiovisual Speech SYnthesizer, and used to control visible articulator movements described by six motion parameters: one for the up-down movement of the lower jaw, three for the lips and two for the tongue. The visual articulation model implements the dominance principle as suggested by Löfqvist [Löfqvist, A., 1990. Speech as audible gestures. In: Hardcastle, W.J., Marchal, A. (Eds.), Speech Production and Speech Modeling. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dodrecht, pp. 289–322]. The parameter values for the model derive from measured articulator positions. To obtain these data, the articulation movements of a female speaker were measured with the 2D-articulograph AG100 and simultaneously filmed. The visual articulation model is adjusted and evaluated by testing word recognition in noise.