Abstract
Silent speech interfaces (SSIs) are devices that enable speech communication when audible speech is unavailable. Articulation-to-speech (ATS) synthesis is a software design in SSI that directly converts articulatory movement information into audible speech signals. Permanent magnetic articulograph (PMA) is a wireless articulator motion tracking technology that is similar to commercial, wired Electromagnetic Articulograph (EMA). PMA has shown great potential for practical SSI applications, because it is wireless. The ATS performance of PMA, however, is unknown when compared with current EMA. In this study, we compared the performance of ATS using a PMA we recently developed and a commercially available EMA (NDI Wave system). Datasets with same stimuli and size that were collected from tongue tip were used in the comparison. The experimental results indicated the performance of PMA was close to, although not as equally good as that of EMA. Furthermore, in PMA, converting the raw magnetic signals to positional signals did not significantly affect the performance of ATS, which support the future direction in PMA-based ATS can be focused on the use of positional signals to maximize the benefit of spatial analysis.
Highlights
People who had a laryngectomy have their larynx surgically removed in the treatment of a condition such as laryngeal cancer (Bailey et al, 2006)
There was no significance between the ATS performance using positional data only and that using combined raw magnetic field signals and positional data (p < 0.60). These findings suggest, for Permanent magnetic articulograph (PMA), we could use either raw magnetic field signals or converted positional data for a similar level of performance
Combining these two signals together may not improve the performance. This finding is inconsistent with our prior study in silent speech recognition (SSR) using PMA data, where using magnetic signals outperformed than that using converted positional data (Kim et al, 2018)
Summary
People who had a laryngectomy have their larynx surgically removed in the treatment of a condition such as laryngeal cancer (Bailey et al, 2006). Current approaches for improving their ability to communicate include (intraor extra-oral) artificial larynx (Baraff, 1994), tracheoesophageal puncture (TEP) (Robbins et al, 1984), and esophageal speech (Hyman, 1955). All of these approaches generate abnormal speech like hoarse voicing by tracheoesophageal speech or robotic voicing by artificial larynx (Mau, 2010; Mau et al, 2012). These patients may feel depressed because of their health status and anxiety during social interactions, as they think that other people perceive them as abnormal, or they directly experience symbolic violence (Mertl et al, 2018). The development of communication aids that can produce normal-sounding speech is essential to improving the quality of life for patients in this population
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
