Gonzalez, J.A., Cheah, L.A., Gilbert, J.M. et al. (4 more authors) (2016) A silent speech system based on permanent magnet articulography and direct synthesis. Computer Speech & Language, 39. C. pp. 67-87. ISSN 0885-2308
Abstract
In this paper we present a silent speech interface (SSI) system aimed at restoring speech communication for individuals who have lost their voice due to laryngectomy or diseases affecting the vocal folds. In the proposed system, articulatory data captured from the lips and tongue using permanent magnet articulography (PMA) are converted into audible speech using a speaker-dependent transformation learned from simultaneous recordings of PMA and audio signals acquired before laryngectomy. The transformation is represented using a mixture of factor analysers, which is a generative model that allows us to efficiently model non-linear behaviour and perform dimensionality reduction at the same time. The learned transformation is then deployed during normal usage of the SSI to restore the acoustic speech signal associated with the captured PMA data. The proposed system is evaluated using objective quality measures and listening tests on two databases containing PMA and audio recordings for normal speakers. Results show that it is possible to reconstruct speech from articulator movements captured by an unobtrusive technique without an intermediate recognition step. The SSI is capable of producing speech of sufficient intelligibility and naturalness that the speaker is clearly identifiable, but problems remain in scaling up the process to function consistently for phonetically rich vocabularies.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 Elsevier. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Computer Speech and Language . Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Silent speech interfaces; Speech rehabilitation; Speech synthesis; Permanent magnet articulography; Augmentative and alternative communication |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Computer Science (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH RESEARCH II-AR-0410-12027 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 15 Feb 2017 14:50 |
Last Modified: | 01 Apr 2018 00:38 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csl.2016.02.002 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.csl.2016.02.002 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:112036 |