arai18@interspeech_2018@ISCA

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#1 Flexible Tongue Housed in a Static Model of the Vocal Tract With Jaws, Lips and Teeth [PDF] [Copy] [Kimi1]

Author: Takayuki Arai

Physical models of the human vocal tract with a moveable tongue have been reported in past literature. In this study, we developed a new model with a flexible tongue. As with previous models by the author, the flexible tongue is made of gel material. The shape of this model’s tongue is still an abstraction, although it is more realistic than previous models. Apart from the tongue, the model is static and solid; the gel tongue is the main part that can be manipulated. The static portion of the model is an extension of our recent static model with lips, teeth and tongue. The entire model looks like a sagittal splice taken from an artificial human head. Because the thin, acrylic plates on the outside are transparent, the interior of the oral and pharyngeal cavities are visible. When we feed a glottal sound through a hole in the laryngeal region on the bottom of the model, different vowels are produced, dependent upon the shape of the tongue. This model is the most useful and realistic looking of the models we’ve made for speech science education so far.