Abstract:
It has recently become possible to measure the positions and motions of the human speech organs, as speech is being articulated, by using micropower radars in a noninvasive manner. Using these instruments the vocalized excitation function of human speech is measured and thereby the transfer function of each constant vocalized speech unit is obtained by deconvolving the output acoustic pressure from the input excitation function. In addition, the positions of the tongue, lips, jaw, velum, and glottal tissues are measured for each speech unit. Using these data, very descriptive feature vectors for each acoustic speech unit were able to be formed. It is believed that these new data, in conjunction with presently obtained acoustic data, will lead to more efficient speech coding, recognition, synthesis, telephony, and prosthesis.