295 research outputs found
Computer Games for Motor Speech Rehabilitation
This research investigates the problem of creating a system for interactive digital visual feedback of articulator kinematics measures for speech rehabilitation. Recent technology provides precise non-line-of-sight positional tracking of small sensors which affords exploration into the motion of articulators such as the tongue. By utilizing recent game development technology, articulation kinematics can be visualized in realtime. Using these technologies the basis for an interactive rehabilitation system is formed. The system is posed as both a research apparatus and a potential clinical rehabilitation delivery system. As such, this system provides an extensible software and design architecture for the creation of interactive feedback visualizations and kinematic speech metrics as well as a clinical research front end for the creation and delivery of speech motor rehabilitation protocols
Can you "read tongue movements"?
International audienceLip reading relies on visible articulators to ease audiovisual speech understanding. However, lips and face alone provide very incomplete phonetic information: the tongue, that is generally not entirely seen, carries an important part of the articulatory information not accessible through lip reading. The question was thus whether the direct and full vision of the tongue allows tongue reading. We have therefore generated a set of audiovisual VCV stimuli by controlling an audiovisual talking head that can display all speech articulators, including tongue, in an augmented speech mode, from articulators movements tracked on a speaker. These stimuli have been played to subjects in a series of audiovisual perception tests in various presentation conditions (audio signal alone, audiovisual signal with profile cutaway display with or without tongue, complete face), at various Signal-to-Noise Ratios. The results show a given implicit effect of tongue reading learning, a preference for the more ecological rendering of the complete face in comparison with the cutaway presentation, a predominance of lip reading over tongue reading, but the capability of tongue reading to take over when the audio signal is strongly degraded or absent. We conclude that these tongue reading capabilities could be used for applications in the domain of speech therapy for speech retarded children, perception and production rehabilitation of hearing impaired children, and pronunciation training for second language learner
The Development Of Glide Deletion In Seoul Korean: A Corpus And Articulatory Study
This dissertation investigates the pathways and causes of the development of glide
deletion in Seoul Korean. Seoul provides fertile ground for studies of linguistic
innovation in an urban setting since it has seen rapid historical, social and demographic
changes in the twentieth century. The phenomenon under investigation is the variable
deletion of the labiovelar glide /w/ found to be on the rise in Seoul Korean (Silva, 1991;
Kang, 1997). I present two studies addressing variation and change at two different
levels: a corpus study tracking the development of /w/-deletion at the phonological
level and an articulatory study examining the phonetic aspect of this change. The corpus
data are drawn from the sociolinguistic interviews with 48 native Seoul Koreans
between 2015 and 2017. A trend comparison with the data from an earlier study of /w/-
deletion (Kang, 1997) reveals that /w/-deletion in postconsonantal position has begun
to retreat, while non-postconsonantal /w/-deletion has been rising vigorously. More
importantly, the effect of preceding segment that used to be the strongest constraint on
/w/-deletion has weakened over time. I conclude that /w/-deletion in Seoul Korean is
being reanalyzed with the structural details being diluted over time. I analyze this
weakening of the original pattern as the result of linguistic diffusion induced by a great
influx of migrants into Seoul after the Korean War (1950-1953). In an articulatory study,
ultrasound data of tongue movements and video data of lip rounding for the production
of /w/ for three native Seoul Koreans in their 20s, 30s and 50s were analyzed using
Optical Flow Analysis. I find that /w/ in Seoul Korean is subject to both gradient
reduction and categorical deletion and that younger speakers exhibit a significantly
larger articulatory gestures for /w/ after a bilabial than older generation, which is
consistent with the pattern of phonological change found in the corpus study. This
dissertation demonstrates the importance of using both corpus and articulatory data in
the investigation of a change, finding the coexistence of gradient and categorical effects
in segmental deletion processes. Finally, it advances our understanding of the outcome
of migration-induced dialect contact in contemporary urban settings
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