Intrinsic direction-dependent velocities of articulators

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Many studies indicate that the velocity of goal-directed movements of articulators depends on the direction of the movement, e.g., for the raising vs. lowering movement of the tongue dorsum or the protrusion vs. retraction of the lips. However, it is usually unclear whether the differences originate from motor control, aerodynamic factors, or the biomechanical properties and constraints of the vocal tract. The goal of this project is the systematic identification of direction-dependent differences of the velocities of articulators that originate from (intrinsic) biomechanical factors, and thereby provide a macroscopic speech-related characterization of the biomechanics of the articulators. Therefore, kinematic data of the lips, tongue, velum, larynx and vocal folds are obtained and analyzed. The experimental paradigms are especially tailored such that the intrinsic velocities become evident. Furthermore, specialized techniques for the measurement of velic movements and larynx height are developed. The effect of the intrinsic velocities on the naturalness of synthetic speech is analyzed in articulatory synthesis and perception experiments. The results of this project might contribute towards, e.g., separating biomechanical and actively controlled influences on kinematic speech data, improving the quality of articulatory speech synthesis, and better understanding problems like sound change and the intrinsic timing of speech movements.