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Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations

Broadband excitation introduced at the speaker’s lips and the evaluation of its corresponding relative acoustic impedance spectrum allow for fast, accurate and non-invasive estimations of vocal tract resonances during speech and singing. However, due to radiation impedance interactions at the lips a...

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Autores principales: Thilakan, Jithin, B.T., Balamurali, P.M., Sarun, Chen, Jer-Ming
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9862109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36679745
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23020939
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author Thilakan, Jithin
B.T., Balamurali
P.M., Sarun
Chen, Jer-Ming
author_facet Thilakan, Jithin
B.T., Balamurali
P.M., Sarun
Chen, Jer-Ming
author_sort Thilakan, Jithin
collection PubMed
description Broadband excitation introduced at the speaker’s lips and the evaluation of its corresponding relative acoustic impedance spectrum allow for fast, accurate and non-invasive estimations of vocal tract resonances during speech and singing. However, due to radiation impedance interactions at the lips at low frequencies, it is challenging to make reliable measurements of resonances lower than 500 Hz due to poor signal to noise ratios, limiting investigations of the first vocal tract resonance using such a method. In this paper, various physical configurations which may optimize the acoustic coupling between transducers and the vocal tract are investigated and the practical arrangement which yields the optimal vocal tract resonance detection sensitivity at low frequencies is identified. To support the investigation, two quantitative analysis methods are proposed to facilitate comparison of the sensitivity and quality of resonances identified. Accordingly, the optimal configuration identified has better acoustic coupling and low-frequency response compared with existing arrangements and is shown to reliably detect resonances down to 350 Hz (and possibly lower), thereby allowing the first resonance of a wide range of vowel articulations to be estimated with confidence.
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spelling pubmed-98621092023-01-22 Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations Thilakan, Jithin B.T., Balamurali P.M., Sarun Chen, Jer-Ming Sensors (Basel) Article Broadband excitation introduced at the speaker’s lips and the evaluation of its corresponding relative acoustic impedance spectrum allow for fast, accurate and non-invasive estimations of vocal tract resonances during speech and singing. However, due to radiation impedance interactions at the lips at low frequencies, it is challenging to make reliable measurements of resonances lower than 500 Hz due to poor signal to noise ratios, limiting investigations of the first vocal tract resonance using such a method. In this paper, various physical configurations which may optimize the acoustic coupling between transducers and the vocal tract are investigated and the practical arrangement which yields the optimal vocal tract resonance detection sensitivity at low frequencies is identified. To support the investigation, two quantitative analysis methods are proposed to facilitate comparison of the sensitivity and quality of resonances identified. Accordingly, the optimal configuration identified has better acoustic coupling and low-frequency response compared with existing arrangements and is shown to reliably detect resonances down to 350 Hz (and possibly lower), thereby allowing the first resonance of a wide range of vowel articulations to be estimated with confidence. MDPI 2023-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9862109/ /pubmed/36679745 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23020939 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Thilakan, Jithin
B.T., Balamurali
P.M., Sarun
Chen, Jer-Ming
Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations
title Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations
title_full Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations
title_fullStr Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations
title_full_unstemmed Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations
title_short Vocal Tract Resonance Detection at Low Frequencies: Improving Physical and Transducer Configurations
title_sort vocal tract resonance detection at low frequencies: improving physical and transducer configurations
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9862109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36679745
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23020939
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