Speech inversion: Benefits of tract variables over pellet trajectories

Speech inversion is a way of estimating articulatory trajectories or vocal tract configurations from the acoustic speech signal. Traditionally, articulator flesh-point or pellet trajectories have been used in speech-inversion research; however such information introduces additional variability into the inverse problem given they are head-centered, task-neutral measures. This paper proposes the use of vocal tract constriction variables (TVs) that are less variable for speech-inversion since they are constriction-based, task-specific measures. TVs considered in this study consist of five constriction degree variables, lip aperture (LA), tongue body constriction degree (TBCD), tongue tip constriction degree (TTCD), velum (VEL), and glottis (GLO); and three constriction location variables, lip protrusion (LP), tongue tip constriction location (TTCL) and tongue body constriction location (TBCL). Six different flesh-point trajectories were considered that were measured with transducers plac...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: ICASSP
• Authors: Vikramjit Mitra, Hosung Nam, Carol Y. Espy-Wilson, Elliot Saltzman, Louis Goldstein
• Keywords: Constriction, ICASSP 2011, Pellet Trajectories, Signal Processing, Tongue Tip Constriction