Abstract:
In recent years, various techniques have been developed for monitoring the dynamics of articulatory and phonatory systems. For the articulatory system, x-ray, ultrasound, magnetic field, etc., have been utilized. Among them, MRI is most preferable because of high spatial resolution and safety, though it has to be supplemented by other techniques due to its limited temporal resolution. Recent results on tagged MRI of the tongue will be discussed. For the phonatory system, high-speed monitoring of vocal fold vibration is quite important in the study of voice production in normal as well as in pathological cases. A high-speed imaging technique up to 9000 frames per second has been developed, and is being used in this laboratory for recording fiberscopic images of the vocal fold vibration during running speech, singing, and other vocal activities. Aerodynamic measurement is also important for studying various modes of phonation. The difficulty of measuring the transglottal pressure is being overcome by the use of a miniaturized pressure transducer which can be inserted into the subglottic space. These new techniques provide a lot of new data as well as allow new interpretation of already existing data.