Using the Wekinator software tool for real-time, interactive machine learning [3] and the K-Bow commercial sensor bow [5], we have constructed a realtime cello bow articulation classification system. This system is capable of outputting articulation labels (e.g., “legato,” “marcato,” “spiccato”) in real-time as a cellist performs. These labels, which are output via Open Sound Control [9], may b...

This thesis investigates how KoShik, otherwise known as the talking elephant, can have a human-like voice articulation. The mechanism of articulating a human sound by an elephant can be described as a unique excitation process in which the elephant first places its nose in its mouth, blows air into the mouth, produces the basic frequency by pressing the nose with its mouth and teeth, and then a...

An indirect model is presented, capable of estimating formant trajectories from text only (Text-to-Formants, TTF). The result is a phonetically correct formant trajectory flow of any virtual speech signal, i.e. one that has never been uttered. The focus is on the pattern forms inside the given sound, taking into account the sound environment (up to quinphone), and not on individual formant valu...

The cross-linguistic under-representation of adjacent consonants sharing a place articulation within uninflected lexical items is well documented. At the same time, little known regarding specific diachronic mechanisms involved in emergence and maintenance this pattern. Phylogenetic analyses provide some support for idea that identical words arise infrequently, but stronger containing such patt...

Initial Consonant Mutation in Scottish Gaelic is considered to be morphological, somewhat idiosyncratic, and neutralizing, that is merging either the mutated sound and some underlying sound or merging two mutated sounds. This study explores articulation in one class of mutation, called Lenition (also Aspiration), asking the question of whether these sounds are articulated in the same fashion or...

ABSRACT: Phoneme inventories of the world’s languages as depicted by the UPSID database (Maddieson and Precoda 1990) are analyzed using multivariate statistical techniques of principal components analysis and k-means and hierarchical clustering. The first two meaningful principal components, representing dimensions that account for the most variance in sound systems but are not caused by differ...

To date, there has been little evidence available on how musicians perceive diffuse reflections in the early sound field in comparison to specular reflections. Two series of subjective tests were conducted among musicians, one in a small room and one in an auditorium, to investigate how diffuse reflections affect the playing of musicians. Subjects were asked to play the same tune in several roo...

The restriction of articulation used by ventriloquists or caused by speech disorders can be compensated using substitute sounds. For a better understanding of these sounds, in this contribution the results of investigations of the substitute sounds by analysis and synthesis are presented. For that purpose the substitute sounds and their natural counterparts uttered by a ventriloquist are analyz...

Growing evidence suggests that speech intervention using visual biofeedback may benefit people for whom visual skills are stronger than auditory skills (for example, the hearing-impaired population), especially when the target articulation is hard to describe or see. Diagnostic ultrasound can be used to image the tongue and has recently become more compact and affordable leading to renewed inte...

A portable sound processor has been developed at the University of Melbourne for use with the 22-electrode cochlear implant manufactured by Cochlear Pty Limited. In this report, the performance of the Spectral Maxima Sound Processor (SMSP) is compared with the Mini Speech Processor (MSP) presently used clinically with this implant. Results of tests with 5 subjects demonstrate that the performan...