Articulatory Parameters Research Articles

Determining the articulatory parameters in the "Avantis 3D" software, taking into account the position of the individual hinge axis.

In modern dentistry, the tactics of treating patients with occlusion and TMJ pathology are based on complex diagnostics. The key factor for the planned treatment of a patient depends on the accuracy of recording the individual parameters of the movement of the lower jaw. One of the methods for diagnosing the work of the temporomandibular joint and obtaining individual parameters for setting up the articulator is axiography (condylography). With the introduction of digital technologies into the practice of a dentist, such as CBCT, intraoral scanning, and the necessary software for creating 3D projects, the well-known method of registering protrusion and laterotrusion for setting the angles of the sagittal articular path and the angles of the Bennett joint angles in the articulator, based on the Christensen phenomenon, has found a new application. The creation of a virtual twin of the patient, the determination of his individual articulatory parameters greatly simplifies the procedure and reduces the time of diagnosis for the subsequent full rehabilitation of a patient with TMJ dysfunction.

Decode, Move and Speak! Self-supervised Learning of Speech Units, Gestures, and Sound Relationships Using Vocal Imitation

Abstract Speech learning encompasses mastering a complex motor system to produce speech sounds from articulatory gestures while simultaneously uncovering discrete units that provide entry to the linguistic system. Remarkably, children acquire these associations between speech sounds, articulatory gestures, and linguistic units in a weakly supervised manner, without the need for explicit labeling of auditory inputs or access to target articulatory gestures. This study uses self-supervised deep learning to investigate the respective roles of sounds, gestures, and linguistic units in speech acquisition and control. In a first experiment, we analyzed the quantized representations learned by vector-quantized variational autoencoders (VQ-VAE) from ground truth acoustic and articulatory data using ABX tests. We show an interesting complementarity between acoustic and articulatory modalities that may help in the discovery of phonemes. In a second experiment, we introduce a computational agent that repeats auditory speech inputs by controlling a virtual vocal apparatus. This agent integrates an articulatory synthesizer capable of reproducing diverse speech stimuli from interpretable parameters, along with two internal models implementing the articulatory-to-acoustic (forward) and acoustic-to-articulatory (inverse) mapping, respectively. Additionally, two inductive biases are used to regularize the ill-posed acoustic-to-articulatory inverse mapping. In line with the first experiment, we explore the complementarity between the auditory input and the articulatory parameters inferred by the agent. We also evaluate the impact of discretizing auditory inputs using VQ-VAE. While the majority of the agent’s productions are intelligible (according to perceptual evaluations), our analysis highlights inconsistencies in the underlying articulatory trajectories. In particular, we show that the agent’s productions only partially reproduce the complementarity between the auditory and articulatory modalities observed in humans.

Phoneme sequence-to-speech conversion in dynamic phonological models: A survey

This survey is devoted to dynamic models that model how a discrete phoneme sequence becomes converted to the corresponding continuous flow of articulations. The key concepts of modern dynamic models are discussed: articulatory model, articulatory parameters, goals and gestures, pronunciation effort economy principle, etc. The results of research conducted by specialists from Haskins Laboratories (articulatory phonology, task dynamic model), as well as by Japanese scientists (mostly from Waseda University) are presented. The survey is illustrated by both model examples and real articulatory X-ray microbeam measurements.

Assessment of articulation parameters settings repeatability in Avantis 3D software

BACKGROUND: The three-dimensional (3D) space of a virtual articulator requires precise adjustment considering individual parameters for the precision work of orthopedic dentists, orthodontists, and dental technicians. A modern solution that includes a virtual articulator is the domestic Avantis 3D software, which simplifies and speeds up functional diagnostics by creating a 3D scene of the patient. AIM: To compare a repeatability of articulation parameters obtained when adjusting the domestic virtual articulator Avantis 3D using laboratory and intraoral scans of terminal positions of the lower jaw. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A group of 30 volunteers aged 18–35 years participated in this study. The group consisted of 18 women and 12 men. Each participant underwent a computed tomography of the maxillofacial region, including the temporomandibular joint region in a state of habitual occlusion; one-stage A-silicone impressions were obtained, plaster models were cast, and silicone bite registers of three terminal positions were made. An intraoral scan of the upper and lower jaws was performed, and optical bite scans were obtained in the position of maximum fissure-tubercle contact and in the terminal positions of the lower jaw, fixed by previously obtained silicone registers. The same protocol was conducted for plaster models of the patient’s dentition and silicone registers of terminal positions. Using intraoral scans, optical recorders of terminal positions and computer tomograms in the Avantis 3D program and 3D scenes were created, and a virtual articulator was configured. For each patient, the virtual articulator was adjusted in the Avantis 3D software, seven times using data from the intraoral scanner level and seven times from the laboratory level. The reproducibility of articulatory parameters was assessed for all types of scans obtained, examining the standard and individual intercondylar distances for each patient. RESULTS: The average values of the standard square deviation of articulatory parameters obtained when creating 3D scenes using laboratory scans at individual and standard intercondylar distances were higher than the similar values obtained using intraoral scans. CONCLUSION: The accuracy of creating a virtual copy of a patient can be influenced by several factors: the error in combining scans, repeated scanning, the error in combining scans and computer tomograms, the error in combining jaw and bite scans, and the presence of penetrating occlusal contacts between scans of the dentition.

Decoding kinematic information from beta-band motor rhythms of speech motor cortex: a methodological/analytic approach using concurrent speech movement tracking and magnetoencephalography.

Articulography and functional neuroimaging are two major tools for studying the neurobiology of speech production. Until now, however, it has generally not been feasible to use both in the same experimental setup because of technical incompatibilities between the two methodologies. Here we describe results from a novel articulography system dubbed Magneto-articulography for the Assessment of Speech Kinematics (MASK), which is technically compatible with magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain scanning systems. In the present paper we describe our methodological and analytic approach for extracting brain motor activities related to key kinematic and coordination event parameters derived from time-registered MASK tracking measurements. Data were collected from 10 healthy adults with tracking coils on the tongue, lips, and jaw. Analyses targeted the gestural landmarks of reiterated utterances/ipa/ and /api/, produced at normal and faster rates. The results show that (1) Speech sensorimotor cortex can be reliably located in peri-rolandic regions of the left hemisphere; (2) mu (8-12 Hz) and beta band (13-30 Hz) neuromotor oscillations are present in the speech signals and contain information structures that are independent of those present in higher-frequency bands; and (3) hypotheses concerning the information content of speech motor rhythms can be systematically evaluated with multivariate pattern analytic techniques. These results show that MASK provides the capability, for deriving subject-specific articulatory parameters, based on well-established and robust motor control parameters, in the same experimental setup as the MEG brain recordings and in temporal and spatial co-register with the brain data. The analytic approach described here provides new capabilities for testing hypotheses concerning the types of kinematic information that are encoded and processed within specific components of the speech neuromotor system.

Therapeutic Implications of Voiced Sounds in Children with Communication Needs

Children with hearing impairments, who do not receive auditory feedback eventually develop speech impairments. Children with hearing impairments lack the ability to talk even by having normal speech production mechanisms. The hearing-impaired child's articulation, accuracy, stress, and intonation patterns are all impacted even if he/she attempts to speak by visualizing lip movements because they are unable to distinguish vowels and consonants with tongue movement concealed in the mouth, nor they are able to understand variations in pitch or intensity of speech. Individuals with hearing impairments may receive auditory, tactile, or visual input, contingent on the degree of their disability. This research is dedicated for developing preliminary systems for teaching. These systems can be created using feedback of articulatory parameters or feedback of acoustic parameters, such as fundamental frequency, speech intensity, and spectral features. Data from speech language pathologists were collected from 20 children with and without speech impairments, aged 5 to 8 using picture naming tasks. The statistical analysis on voiced samples /pha/, /mha/, /tha/ relived the significant variation between children with and without hearing impairments.

Артикуляторные параметры палатальности и палатализации в монгольских языках

This study determines the articulatory parameters of palatality and palatalization in the northern Mongolian languages of Russia and Mongolia. The research is based on experimental phonetic data obtained through linguistic and instrumental somatic methods, including radiography, dentopalatography, and magnetic resonance imaging. The findings enable us to assert the presence of two approaches for incorporating the concept of softness into their consonant systems. In the Khori-Buryat and Khalkha-Mongolian languages, the dominant acoustic effect for conveying the softness of sound is palatalization. Conversely, in the Kalmyk language, this function is fulfilled by middle-lingual consonants. In Mongolian languages, palatalization is characterized by more than just the upward movement of the middle part of the tongue to the hard palate, as commonly presumed in general phonetics. Additionally, it entails the forward and upward movement of the entire compressed body of the tongue. The speech tract rearrangement produces a significant posterior pharyngeal area within the resonator cavity. This particular formation is responsible for amplifying highfrequency components in the audio signal spectrum, which are perceptually associated with the softness of sound. The differences in the linguistic status of palatality (softness) and palatalization (softening) in the languages under consideration are determined by the peculiarities of the structural and taxonomic organization of the phonico-phonological systems. Despite the genetic proximity of the Khori-Buryat, KhalkhaMongolian, and Kalmyk languages, each language employs distinct pronunciation strategies to create the auditory impression of softness. These tactics are influenced by the unique articulatory-acoustic characteristics developed within each ethnic group over centuries

An MRI-based articulatory analysis of the Kannada dental-retroflex contrast

AbstractThis paper investigates the production of dental and retroflex stops, fricatives, nasals, and laterals in the Dravidian language Kannada. This is done using articulatory contours extracted from an extensive midsagittal MRI corpus of two female Kannada speakers’ static vocal tract postures intended to capture key aspects of phonemic articulations. Articulatory modelling was used to determine a set of components responsible for the implementation of place and manner contrasts (/t̪ s̪ n̪ l̪/ vs. /ʈ ʂ ɳ ɭ/). These components included both lingual and non-lingual articulatory parameters. Constriction location and length were also determined based on articulatory contours. The results showed that the two speakers produced non-fricative retroflexes with a retracted tongue tip making a constriction behind the alveolar ridge and a characteristic convex tongue shape, yet without a retraction of the posterior portion of the tongue. Apart from the lingual parameters, place differences were also manifested by the vertical position of the larynx (lower for retroflexes). The realisation of the place contrast in sibilant fricatives was different, as /ʂ/ appeared to be produced by both speakers with a laminal alveolopalatal constriction. Manner differences were captured by various non-lingual parameters, yet being also manifested in constriction locations (more anterior for stops). These findings are discussed in the context of previous descriptive and articulatory accounts of dental-retroflex contrasts.

A neurophonetic approach to articulation planning: The case of apraxia of speech

This article addresses the question of whether data from neurological populations can inform basic phonetic research. An approach is reviewed in which speech error data from patients with articulation disorders after a stroke were used to model articulation planning processes.The first section addresses a controversy in cognitive neuroscience about the extent to which data from neurological patients can enrich research in cognitive science at all. It introduces post-stroke apraxia of speech (AOS) as a clinical model of a process termed speech motor planning, suggesting that speech data from patients with AOS can inform phonetic theories about articulatory control.The second section explains how speech error data from patients with AOS were used to develop a measure of articulatory ease that integrates facilitating and complicating factors across different phonological levels, from the articulatory gesture to the phonological word.Section 3 presents previously unpublished data to exemplify how this model can be applied to typical speech, e.g., in studies investigating interactions between lexical and articulatory parameters or in developmental studies of word learning. In a final section, the main line of reasoning is summarized and limitations of this work are discussed.

Silent Speech Interface: An Inversion Problem

When conventional acoustic-verbal communication is neither possible or desirable, silent speech interfaces (SSI) rely on biosignals, non-acoustic signals created by the human body during speech production, to facilitate communication. Despite considerable advances in sensing techniques that can be employed to capture these biosignals, majority of them are used under controlled scenarios in laboratories. One such example is Electromagnetic Articulograph (EMA), which monitors articulatory motion. It is expensive with inconvenient wiring and practically not portable in real world. Since articulator measurement is difficult, articulatory parameters may be estimated from acoustics through inversion. Acoustic-to-articulatory inversion (AAI) is a technique for determining articulatory parameters using acoustic input. Automatic voice recognition, text-to- speech synthesis, and speech accent conversion can all benefit from this. However, for speakers with no articulatory data, inversion is required in many practical applications. Articulatory reconstruction is more useful when the inversion is speaker independent. Initially, we analysed positional data to better understand the relationship between sensor data and uttered speech. Following the analysis, we built a speaker independent articulatory reconstruction system that uses a Bi- LSTM model. Additionally, we evaluated the trained model using standard evaluation measures.

Interaction between Phrasal Structure and Vowel Tenseness in German: An Acoustic and Articulatory Study.

Phrase-final lengthening affects the segments preceding a prosodic boundary. This prosodic variation is generally assumed to be independent of the phonemic identity. We refer to this as the 'uniform lengthening hypothesis' (ULH). However, in German, lax vowels do not undergo lengthening for word stress or shortening for increased speech rate, indicating that temporal properties might interact with phonemic identity. We test the ULH by comparing the effect of the boundary on acoustic and kinematic measures for tense and lax vowels and several coda consonants. We further examine if the boundary effect decreases with distance from the boundary. Ten native speakers of German were recorded by means of electromagnetic articulography (EMA) while reading sentences that contained six minimal pairs varying in vowel tenseness and boundary type. In line with the ULH, the results show that the acoustic durations of lax vowels are lengthened phrase-finally, similarly to tense vowels. We find that acoustic lengthening is stronger the closer the segments are to the boundary. Articulatory parameters of the closing movements toward the post-vocalic consonants are affected by both phrasal position and identity of the preceding vowel. The results are discussed with regard to the interaction between prosodic structure and vowel tenseness.

The Impact of Lexical and Articulatory Factors in the Automatic Selection of Test Materials for a Web-Based Assessment of Intelligibility in Dysarthria.

Purpose The clinical assessment of intelligibility must be based on a large repository and extensive variation of test materials, to render test stimuli unpredictable and thereby avoid expectancies and familiarity effects in the listeners. At the same time, it is essential that test materials are systematically controlled for factors influencing intelligibility. This study investigated the impact of lexical and articulatory characteristics of quasirandomly selected target words on intelligibility in a large sample of dysarthric speakers under clinical examination conditions. Method Using the clinical assessment tool KommPaS, a total of 2,700 sentence-embedded target words, quasirandomly drawn from a large corpus, were spoken by a group of 100 dysarthric patients and later transcribed by listeners recruited via online crowdsourcing. Transcription accuracy was analyzed for influences of lexical frequency, phonological neighborhood structure, articulatory complexity, lexical familiarity, word class, stimulus length, and embedding position. Classification and regression analyses were performed using random forests and generalized linear mixed models. Results Across all degrees of severity, target words with higher frequency, fewer and less frequent phonological neighbors, higher articulatory complexity, and higher lexical familiarity received significantly higher intelligibility scores. In addition, target words were more challenging sentence-initially than in medial or final position. Stimulus length had mixed effects; word length and word class had no effect. Conclusions In a large-scale clinical examination of intelligibility in speakers with dysarthria, several well-established influences of lexical and articulatory parameters could be replicated, and the roles of new factors were discussed. This study provides clues about how experimental rigor can be combined with clinical requirements in the diagnostics of communication impairment in patients with dysarthria.

Automatic Motion Tracking of Lips using Digital Video and OpenFace 2.0

Because the lips are external organs, they can be easily observed by means that are non-invasive, including simple video recording. The current paper introduces a free-of-charge, highly portable, automatic solution for extracting oral posture from digital video, based on an existing facetracking utility. We describe how this solution might benefit various lines of laboratory phonology research, including analysis of articulatory coordination and audiovisual speech, as well as phonetic fieldwork. We then provide a tutorial, framed as a simple experiment in metronomic speech. The tutorial describes how to configure the software to work with one’s digital camera of choice, how to extract relevant articulatory parameters from the face tracker, and how to approach statistical analysis. We have supplied pre-written Python scripts to aid the reader in following along with the experiment. The portability, ease, and affordability of the described solution have important implications for the accessibility of articulatory measurement, both in the lab and out in the field.

Description of Acoustic and Articulatory Parameters of Vowels in Mapudungun Speakers. Pilot Study

Description of Acoustic and Articulatory Parameters of Vowels in Mapudungun Speakers. Pilot Study

An Effective and Efficient Genetic-Fuzzy Algorithm for Supporting Advanced Human-Machine Interfaces in Big Data Settings

In this paper we describe a novel algorithm, inspired by the mirror neuron discovery, to support automatic learning oriented to advanced man-machine interfaces. The algorithm introduces several points of innovation, based on complex metrics of similarity that involve different characteristics of the entire learning process. In more detail, the proposed approach deals with an humanoid robot algorithm suited for automatic vocalization acquisition from a human tutor. The learned vocalization can be used to multi-modal reproduction of speech, as the articulatory and acoustic parameters that compose the vocalization database can be used to synthesize unrestricted speech utterances and reproduce the articulatory and facial movements of the humanoid talking face automatically synchronized. The algorithm uses fuzzy articulatory rules, which describe transitions between phonemes derived from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), to allow simpler adaptation to different languages, and genetic optimization of the membership degrees. Large experimental evaluation and analysis of the proposed algorithm on synthetic and real data sets confirms the benefits of our proposal. Indeed, experimental results show that the vocalization acquired respects the basic phonetic rules of Italian languages and that subjective results show the effectiveness of multi-modal speech production with automatic synchronization between facial movements and speech emissions. The algorithm has been applied to a virtual speaking face but it may also be used in mechanical vocalization systems as well.

Retroflexion in Nepali

Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal along with India and Bhutan, and some parts of Burma, possesses three coronal stops (2 plosives and 1 affricate). Retroflexion is traditionally considered as the distinctive feature between two different types of plosives. Though retroflexion in Nepali is considered- like in the case of other Indo-Aryan languages- a fundamental distinctive articulatory parameter (Bhat 1973, Ladefoged and Bhaskararao 1983, Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996), Pokharel (1989), however, claims that there is no retroflex category in Nepali, because the “so-called” (sic.) Nepali retroflex stops are not produced with the “tongue tip curling back” as it is described in the traditional grammar. In this work, I have tried to show that this claim is just one side of the story and that the “retroflex” as a phonetic and phonological category “does exist” in Nepali. Based on two different palatographic and linguographic studies (of 9 speakers – four females and five males- of Nepal) I have presented a different scenario than that of Pokharel, without completely denying his claim.

A comparison of acoustic and articulatory parameters for the GOOSE vowel across British Isles Englishes.

This study quantifies vocalic variation that cannot be measured from the acoustic signal alone and develops methods of standardisation and measurement of articulatory parameters for vowels. Articulatory-acoustic variation in the GOOSE vowel was measured across 3 regional accents of the British Isles using a total of 18 speakers from the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and England, recorded with synchronous ultrasound tongue imaging, lip camera, and audio. Single co-temporal measures were taken of tongue-body height and backness, lip protrusion, F1, and F2. After normalisation, mixed-effects modelling identified statistically significant variations per region; tongue-body position was significantly higher and fronter for Irish and English speakers. Region was also significant for lip-protrusion measures with Scottish speakers showing significantly smaller degrees of protrusion than English speakers. However, the region was only significant for acoustic height and not for frontness. Correlational analyses of all measures showed a significant positive correlation between tongue-body height and acoustic height, a negative correlation between lip-protrusion and acoustic frontness, but no correlation between tongue-body frontness and acoustic frontness. Effectively, two distinct regional production strategies were found to result in similar normalised acoustic frontness measures for GOOSE. Scottish tongue-body positions were backer and lips less protruded, while English and Irish speakers had fronter tongue-body positions, but more protruded lips.

ТЕЛЕУТСКИЙ КОНСОНАНТИЗМ: АРТИКУЛЯТОРНЫЕ ПАТТЕРНЫ ПО ДАННЫМ МРТ

The article deals with articulatory parameters of consonant settings in the language of Teleuts – one of the South Siberian Turkic ethnic groups. The study is based on instrumental data obtained by magnetic resonance imaging nowadays (MRI). The results are compared with experimental phonetic materials, collected in the 1970s and are described in the works of K. V. Merkurev, allowed to show the tendency and dynamics of a phonetic changes in the language of Teleuts. The revealed systemic modifications of the articulatory-acoustic base of the teleuts, and above all the increased tension of settings, allow us to find similarities with the Telengitian language, for which weak articulations are not characteristic. As in the telengit language, in the Teleut anterolinguistic consonants undergo total labilization.

Comparação entre três sistemas de notação da configuração de mão com base em dados da Libras

A configuração de mão é um dos parâmetros articulatórios com base no qual os sinais podem ser analisados. Ela se refere, especificamente, aos diferentes estados das juntas dos dedos, potencialmente distintivos, mas também sujeitos à grande variação intra e intersujeito. Neste trabalho, são comparados três sistemas de notação propostos para esse parâmetro, o de Stokoe, o de Liddell e Johnson e o de Johnson e Liddell, com vistas a demonstrar, com base em dados da libras, que o terceiro deles é mais apropriado para a análise fonética das línguas sinalizadas. Os dados analisados se referem a uma das três produções de 26 dos 60 sinais originalmente coletados por Xavier e Barbosa (2014) de 12 sujeitos surdos (seis homens e seis mulheres) da cidade de São Paulo. O critério de seleção desses sinais foi a presença da configuração de mão em B (dedos abertos e unidos pelas laterais) e da configuração de mão em 5 (dedos abertos e espalmados). Com isso, 185 produções foram selecionadas e analisadas. Os resultados indicam que o sistema de Stokoe tem caráter mais fonológico, o de Johnson e Liddell, um caráter mais fonético e o de Liddell e Johnson, um caráter intermediário entre os dois primeiros.

Precision of voicing perceptual identification is altered in association with voice-onset time production changes.

There is ample evidence that motor learning changes the function of perceptual systems. Previous studies examining the interactions between speech production and perception have shown that the discrimination of phonetic contrasts characterized by the difference in articulatory place features is altered following their production changes caused by the perturbation of auditory feedback. The present study focused on a voiced-voiceless contrast in stop consonants, which is characterized by a temporal articulatory parameter, voice-onset time (VOT). In the experiment, we manipulated the participants' motor functions concerning VOT using a cross-categorical auditory feedback (CAF) paradigm (Mitsuya et al. in J Acoust Soc Am 135:2986-2994, 2014), in which a pre-recorded syllable sound starting with a voiced stop consonant (/da/) was fed back simultaneously with the participant's utterance of a voiceless stop consonant (/ta/), and vice versa. The VOT difference between /da/ and /ta/ productions was increased by the CAF, which is consistent with the result of Mitsuya's study. In addition, we conducted perceptual identification tasks of /da/-/ta/ continuum stimuli varying in VOT before and after the CAF task, and found that the identification function became sharper after as compared to before the CAF task. A significant positive correlation between such production and perception changes was also found. On the basis of these results, we consider that the change in motor function concerning VOT affected voiced-voiceless perceptual processing. The present study is the first to show the involvement of the speech production system in the perception of phonetic contrasts characterized by articulatory temporal features.