Enhancing Speech Articulation Analysis using a Geometric Transformation of the X-ray Microbeam Dataset
This work addresses speech analysis for researchers and clinicians by providing more accurate articulation measurements, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing methods for a specific dataset.
The paper tackled the problem of accurately analyzing speech articulation by addressing the variability in X-ray Microbeam Dataset measurements due to speaker anatomy and pellet placement, proposing a geometric transformation that maps coordinates to relative measures and extending the palate trace to improve tongue body constriction measurements.
Accurate analysis of speech articulation is crucial for speech analysis. However, X-Y coordinates of articulators strongly depend on the anatomy of the speakers and the variability of pellet placements, and existing methods for mapping anatomical landmarks in the X-ray Microbeam Dataset (XRMB) fail to capture the entire anatomy of the vocal tract. In this paper, we propose a new geometric transformation that improves the accuracy of these measurements. Our transformation maps anatomical landmarks' X-Y coordinates along the midsagittal plane onto six relative measures: Lip Aperture (LA), Lip Protusion (LP), Tongue Body Constriction Location (TTCL), Degree (TBCD), Tongue Tip Constriction Location (TTCL) and Degree (TTCD). Our novel contribution is the extension of the palate trace towards the inferred anterior pharyngeal line, which improves measurements of tongue body constriction.