Nasal vowel study: Formant structure, perceptual evaluation, and neural representation in a model of the peripheral auditory system
Yan Cheng, Bernard Guérin · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1987
In this study, the focus is on the search for a model that is articulatorily possible and perceptually plausible. A high-quality nasal sound synthesis structure in the acoustic domain, with a parallel formant synthesizer, that includes nasal articulation effects and defines independent acoustic parameters which are the basis of perceptual studies, has been obtained. A pole-zero-pole structure combined with a bank of formants is proposed as a high-quality nasal vowel synthesizer. A set of perceptual tests is conducted to test nasality variation with nasal synthesis eigenparameters. The results of tests are used to establish a new model describing [+ nasal]. Based on this model, the nature of the French nasal vowel and its distributional properties are discussed. Finally, nasality variation is tested at the auditory-nerve level with the help of a model of the peripheral auditory system. The neural firing pattern and the synchronization index pattern are discussed in terms of the nasality model established.