Measurement of the Cross-Sectional Areas of Vocal Tracts
Ronald W. Wendahl · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1958
This work was done as part of a Ph.D. dissertation. Techniques (including lateral and laminagraphic x-ray photography, dental casts, palatograms and still photographs) were developed for estimating the cross-sectional areas of the vocal tracts of 6 subjects, 3 male and 3 female, who had been preselected to present wide variations in vocal cavity dimensions. The data for cross-sectional measures taken from the glottis to the lips of each of the subjects phonating each of five vowels were sent to the Acoustics Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where appropriate adjustments were made on the vocal tract analog to approximate electrically the measured areas. Comparisons were made between the vowel formant frequency regions produced by the subjects and the formant frequency regions produced by the V.T.A. when adjusted to approximate subjects vowels. These comparisons provided indirect empirical validation of the measuring techniques.