RI Core: Medium: Structured variability in vocal tract articulation dynamics in speech

人类产生并使用言语以多种方式相互交流和互动，传达他们的想法并表达他们的情感。一个人发出丰富的语音涉及发声器官（例如舌头和下巴）的复杂运动和协调，以灵活且适应交互环境的方式。然而，如何实现这种灵活性的细节尚不完全清楚。言语的产生也会受到各种个人情况的影响，包括疾病和紊乱。该项目将通过直接观察语音过程中的发音并对其进行建模，为理解人类语音在人际互动内部和人际互动之间（在数小时、数天、数周、数月和数年内）如何随时间变化奠定科学基础。这些知识对于推进语音科学和设计强大的交互式语音技术至关重要。言语研究的一个长期目标是理解和解决其产生的丰富而普遍的可变性，无论是在个体内部还是个体之间以及在不同的交互环境中。我们的研究调查了仅通过语音声学无法解决的问题。直接获取有关声道发音的动态信息，辅以技术和分析进步，使我们能够检查与语音产生变异性相关的复杂行为，即其随任务和时间变化的灵活性和稳定性。该项目将使用先进的实时磁共振成像（rtMRI）和语音生成过程中人类声道运动的计算模型，以了解跨时间尺度的口语交流的结构和控制，无论是在个人经验中还是在人际互动中，提供前所未有的机会来观察人类如何在前所未有的时空细节上相互协作计划和生成语音。该项目的创新包括在两个地点同时和同步地对谈话者的声道进行成像，以了解对话期间的语音产生行为，绘制单个人的语音产生如何自然变化以及通常在数小时、数天、数月和数年内的变化，以及语音灵活性的个体差异如何预测讲话者的稳定性。该研究项目通过利用丰富、定量和动态的发音 rtMRI 数据的实证工作将语音科学和工程结合起来，并将广泛共享独特的数据、工具和模型。该项目还具有超越语音技术的重要应用意义，因为规范发音及其变异性的知识可以帮助为从自闭症到痴呆症的整个生命周期中的各种临床状况获得强大的基于语音的生物标志物，从而影响言语障碍的评估和治疗。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Humans produce and use speech to communicate and interact with one another, to convey their thoughts and to their express emotions, in a vast variety of ways. The production of the rich sounds of speech by an individual involves intricate movement and coordination of the vocal organs, such as the tongue and jaw, in a manner that is flexible and adaptive to the context of the interaction. Yet, the details of how this flexibility is achieved are not known completely. Speech production can also be affected by a variety of personal circumstances including illness and disorder. The project will create a scientific foundation for understanding how human speech varies across time, both within and across interpersonal interactions––over hours, days, weeks, months and years––by directly observing and modeling articulation during speech. Such knowledge is fundamental to both advancing speech science and to the design of robust interactive speech technologies. A longstanding goal in speech research is to understand and address the rich and pervasive variability in its production, both within and across individuals and for varied interactional contexts. Our research investigates questions not approachable via speech acoustics alone. Direct access to dynamic information on vocal tract articulation, complemented by technology and analysis advances, allow us to examine complex behavior associated with speech production variability—namely, its flexibility and stability over task and over time. The project will use advanced real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) and computational modeling of the human vocal tract motion during speech production to understand the structure and control of spoken language communication across timescales, both within individual experience and across interpersonal interactions, offering an unprecedented opportunity to observe how humans plan and produce speech collaboratively with one another at a spatiotemporal detail not possible before. The project innovations include imaging the vocal tracts of conversing speakers simultaneously and synchronously at two sites to understand speech production behavior during a dialog, mapping how a single individual’s production speech production varies naturally and typically over hours, days, months and years, and how individual differences in speech flexibility are predictive of speaker stability. The research program integrates speech science and engineering through empirical work leveraging rich, quantitative, and dynamic articulatory rtMRI data, and will broadly share the unique data, tools and models. The project also has critical applied significance beyond speech technology, as knowledge of normative articulation and its variability can impact the assessment and remediation of speech disorders by helping derive robust speech-based biomarkers for a variety of clinical conditions across the life span from Autism to dementia.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.