Repeatability of articulatory movements

Abstract

In this experiment, we studied the repeatability of articulatory movements using the computer controlled x‐ray microbeam system at the University of Tokyo. Small lead pellets were attached to the upper lip, lower lip, lower central incisor, tongue tip, tongue body, and a reference location on the upper central incisor of each of two adult male subjects, both native speakers of American English. Each speaker read a randomized list of six different nonsense syllables and two sentences containing the vowels, /i,a,u/ and the consonants, /p,t,k/ in various VCV combinations, 15 times at a controlled speaking rate. The movements of the pellets were tracked at a rate of 150 scans/sec and recorded in graphical form with the X and Y components plotted separately against time. Spectrograms were obtained from recordings of the corresponding acoustic signal. Both sets of data are used to explore the questions of articulatory and acoustic equivalence in speech production.