The focus of this thesis is the relationship between the articulation of speech and the acoustics of produced speech. There are several problems that are encountered in understanding this relationship, given the non-linearity, variance and non-uniqueness in the mapping, as well as the differences that exist in the size and shape of the articulators, and consequently the acoustics, for different...

1. Introduction Human speech production requires a complex coordination of motor control for respiration, vocalization, and articulation. The neural mechanisms for speaking have been studied since the 17th century, yet many questions remain in determining the brain regions involved in speech production. In evidence of this, recent functional brain imaging studies examining normal subjects' arti...

The relationship between diadochokinetic rates and the degree of articulation impairment, measured as number of articulation errors on a test, was investigated. Sixand eight-year old children with articulation impairment demonstrated reduced diadochokinetic rates which appeared to improve with age. The larger the number of articulation errors, the slower the rates on both verbal and non-verbal ...

We present a statistical technique for identifying critical, dependent and redundant roles played by the articulators during production of English phonemes using articulatory (EMA) data. It identifies a list of critical articulators for each phone based on changes in the distribution of articulator positions. The effect of critical articulation on dependent articulators is derived from inter-ar...

This study was designed to examine the relationship between articulation disorders, soft neurological signs, and motor abilities. Fifteen children with articulation problems, as measured by the Templin-Darley Articulation Screening Test and a connected speech sample, were compared with a normal control group (matched for sex and age) on the Quick Neurological Screening Test, the Imitation of Po...

Immediately following the Second World War, between 1947 and 1955, several classic papers quantified the fundamentals of human speech information processing and recognition. In 1947 French and Steinberg published their classic study on the articulation index. In 1948 Claude Shannon published his famous work on the theory of information. In 1950 Fletcher and Galt published their theory of the ar...

Purpose. To investigate changes in vowel articulation with the electrical deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in dysarthric speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods. Eight Quebec-French speakers diagnosed with idiopathic PD who had undergone STN DBS were evaluated ON-stimulation and OFF-stimulation (1 hour after DBS was turned off). Vowel articulation was compar...

The higher failure rate of total hip arthroplasty (THA) in young, active patients remains a challenge for surgeons. Recently, larger-diameter femoral heads combined with an alumina matrix composite ceramic (BIOLOX Delta; CeramTec AG, Plochingen, Germany) articulation was developed to improve implant longevity and meet patients' activity demands while reducing the risk of component-related compl...

In this paper, computer modeling auralizations are validated by using articulation indexes. As it is well known, one of the main challenges in validating an auralization is how to find an objective metrics to evaluate its quality. The generation of acoustical virtual reality is done by the proprietary computer code RAIOS (Room Acoustics Integrated and Optimized Software), which includes sets of...