scholarly journals Real-Time Vocal Tract Modelling

2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
A. Benkrid ◽  
A. Benallal ◽  
K. Benkrid

To date, most speech synthesis techniques have relied upon the representation of the vocal tract by some form of filter, a typical example being linear predictive coding (LPC). This paper describes the development of a physiologically realistic model of the vocal tract using the well-established technique of transmission line modelling (TLM). This technique is based on the principle of wave scattering at transmission line segment boundaries and may be used in one, two, or three dimensions. This work uses this technique to model the vocal tract using a one-dimensional transmission line. A six-port scattering node is applied in the region separating the pharyngeal, oral, and the nasal parts of the vocal tract.

Author(s):  
S.K. Adhikari

The regions of speech spectrum in which the frequency corresponds to relatively large amplitude are known as formants. For any vocalic sounds, number of formants may occur in the frequency range 0 to 4000 Hz. The formant frequencies of speech sounds are directly depending up on the shape and size of vocal tract. The aim of study was to study the variation of formant frequency with Nepalese vowels. Ten Nepalese vowels word in initial position /VC/ as spoken three times by 10 male and 10 female Nepali speakers were recorded in system in the free field of partially acoustically treated room. PRRAT software is used to digitize and analyze the data. Linear predictive coding (LPC) spectra were obtained for each of vowels and formant frequencies were measured. By plotting curve between formant frequencies and vowels, explain their variation.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 1339-1346
Author(s):  
Christina Akbari ◽  
Katsura Aoyama

Purpose This study was designed to further investigate epenthetic vowels produced by Persian second language speakers of English. Specifically, the purpose was to compare epenthetic and phonemic vowels to determine if acoustic differences existed or if the epenthetic vowels were quantitative “copies” of their phonemic counterparts. Method Twenty Persian speakers each produced 120 target words. The target words were composed of two different double cluster compositions (obstruent + glide and obstruent + liquid) as well as obstruent + liquid triple clusters and obstruent + glide triple cluster combinations. The target words occurred in a phonetic environment that was either preceded by a consonant /t/ or occurred in isolation. This resulted in 2400 tokens. The tokens underwent Linear Predictive Coding to determine the F1 and F2 formant measurements as well as the durations of the epenthetic and phonemic vowels. Formants are the resonance of the vocal tract. F1 is the lowest-frequency formant while F2 is the next highest ( Kent & Read, 2002 ). Linear Predictive Coding allows for the acoustic signal to be represented spectrally for analysis. Results A total of 236 epenthetic voamp'wels and their phonemic counterparts were acoustically analyzed. The phonemic vowels were found to be significantly longer than the epenthetic vowels. The epenthetic vowels were also found to have significantly lower F1 values. As a group, the mean F2 values were not significantly different from the F2 values of the phonemic vowels. However, significant differences in F2 values were found when specific vowel comparisons were made. Conclusions The data indicate that prothetic epenthetic vowels are not copies of the phonemic vowels that they precede. They differ quantitatively in terms of durations, F1, and F2 values. The findings of this study coincide with the findings of other researchers concerning the acoustic characteristics of anaptyctic epenthetic vowels. These results indicate similarities between prothetic and anaptyctic epenthetic vowels.


1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce R. Gerratt

Involuntary movement of the articulatory structures can interfere with the accurate placement of the articulators during consonant production and may also result in distortion of vowel quality. An acoustic method was used to assess motor steadiness in the vocal tract musculature superior to the glottis during vowel production by five subjects with abnormal involuntary orofacial movements associated with tardive dyskinesia and 10 normal subjects. A linear predictive coding technique of spectral analysis yielded formant frequencies from the sustained productions of//. Based on the premise that changes in vocal tract configuration can be measured as changes in formant frequency, the sequential segment-to-segment fluctuations of the second formant frequency of these vowel samples were computed and used as an index of motor steadiness. Results showed that formant frequency fluctuation measures for four of the five tardive dyskinetic patients were substantially larger than those of the normal subjects, indicating a reduction of motor steadiness in these four subjects. Factors influencing the validity of this procedure and implications for its use are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (23) ◽  
pp. 5926-5931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hwan-Ching Tai ◽  
Yen-Ping Shen ◽  
Jer-Horng Lin ◽  
Dai-Ting Chung

The shape and design of the modern violin are largely influenced by two makers from Cremona, Italy: The instrument was invented by Andrea Amati and then improved by Antonio Stradivari. Although the construction methods of Amati and Stradivari have been carefully examined, the underlying acoustic qualities which contribute to their popularity are little understood. According to Geminiani, a Baroque violinist, the ideal violin tone should “rival the most perfect human voice.” To investigate whether Amati and Stradivari violins produce voice-like features, we recorded the scales of 15 antique Italian violins as well as male and female singers. The frequency response curves are similar between the Andrea Amati violin and human singers, up to ∼4.2 kHz. By linear predictive coding analyses, the first two formants of the Amati exhibit vowel-like qualities (F1/F2 = 503/1,583 Hz), mapping to the central region on the vowel diagram. Its third and fourth formants (F3/F4 = 2,602/3,731 Hz) resemble those produced by male singers. Using F1 to F4 values to estimate the corresponding vocal tract length, we observed that antique Italian violins generally resemble basses/baritones, but Stradivari violins are closer to tenors/altos. Furthermore, the vowel qualities of Stradivari violins show reduced backness and height. The unique formant properties displayed by Stradivari violins may represent the acoustic correlate of their distinctive brilliance perceived by musicians. Our data demonstrate that the pioneering designs of Cremonese violins exhibit voice-like qualities in their acoustic output.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2431-2435

ASR is the use of system software and hardware based techniques to identify and process human voice. In this research, Tamil words are analyzed, segmented as syllables, followed by feature extraction and recognition. Syllables are segmented using short term energy and segmentation is done in order to minimize the corpus size. The algorithm for syllable segmentation works by performing the STE function of the continuous speech signal. The proposed approach for speech recognition uses the combination of Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Linear Predictive Coding (LPC). MFCC features are used to extract a feature vector containing all information about the linguistic message. The LPC affords a robust, dependable and correct technique for estimating the parameters that signify the vocal tract system.LPC features can reduce the bit rate of speech (i.e reducing the measurement of transmitting signal).The combined feature extraction technique will minimize the size of transmitting signal. Then the proposed FE algorithm is evaluated on the speech corpus using the Random forest approach. Random forest is an effective algorithm which can build a reliable training model as its training time is less because the classifier works on the subset of features alone.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Panerai ◽  
Antonio Pittelli ◽  
Konstantina Polydorou

Abstract We find a one-dimensional protected subsector of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 matter theories on a general class of three-dimensional manifolds. By means of equivariant localization we identify a dual quantum mechanics computing BPS correlators of the original model in three dimensions. Specifically, applying the Atiyah-Bott-Berline-Vergne formula to the original action demonstrates that this localizes on a one-dimensional action with support on the fixed-point submanifold of suitable isometries. We first show that our approach reproduces previous results obtained on S3. Then, we apply it to the novel case of S2× S1 and show that the theory localizes on two noninteracting quantum mechanics with disjoint support. We prove that the BPS operators of such models are naturally associated with a noncom- mutative star product, while their correlation functions are essentially topological. Finally, we couple the three-dimensional theory to general $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = (2, 2) surface defects and extend the localization computation to capture the full partition function and BPS correlators of the mixed-dimensional system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Kendall ◽  
Charlotte Vaughn

AbstractThis paper contributes insight into the sources of variability in vowel formant estimation, a major analytic activity in sociophonetics, by reviewing the outcomes of two simulations that manipulated the settings used for linear predictive coding (LPC)-based vowel formant estimation. Simulation 1 explores the range of frequency differences obtained when minor adjustments are made to LPC settings, and measurement timepoints around the settings used by trained analysts, in order to determine the range of variability that should be expected in sociophonetic vowel studies. Simulation 2 examines the variability that emerges when LPC settings are varied combinatorially around constant default settings, rather than settings set by trained analysts. The impacts of different LPC settings are discussed as a way of demonstrating the inherent properties of LPC-based formant estimation. This work suggests that differences more fine-grained than about 10 Hz in F1 and 15–20 Hz in F2 are within the range of LPC-based formant estimation variability.


1971 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Allnatt

AbstractA kinetic equation is derived for the singlet distribution function for a heavy impurity in a lattice of lighter atoms in a temperature gradient. In the one dimensional case the equation can be solved to find formal expressions for the jump probability and hence the heat of transport, q*. for a single vacancy jump of the impurity, q* is the sum of the enthalpy of activation, a term involving only averaging in an equilibrium ensemble, and two non-equilibrium terms in­volving time correlation functions. The most important non-equilibrium term concerns the cor­relation between the force on the impurity and a microscopic heat flux. A plausible extension to three dimensions is suggested and the relation to earlier isothermal and non-isothermal theories is indicated


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