Representation of Speech Signals in Terms of Articulatory Positions
Κ. Ν. Stevens · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1953
An electrical analog of the vocal tract has been used to determine empirically some quantitative relationships between the acoustic characteristics of the speech signal and the vocal tract positions during the production of the speech. Relationships between the spectrum of the acoustic signal and the positions of lips, teeth, and tongue are presented in graphical form. It is shown that relatively few variables are required to describe the quasi-periodic variations of the articulatory dimensions from syllable to syllable as continuous speech is produced. The experimental results support the suggestion that it is possible to construct a narrow-band speech transmission system in which voltages proportional to vocal tract dimensions are used as the transmission signals. The channel capacity required for the transmission of these signals would approach the lower limit predicted by information theory.