French vowel vocal configurations obtained by acoustical measurements
J.-P. Lefèvre, Michel Lecours, B. Tousignant · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1981
A method has been developed for the determination of the vocal tract area function from acoustical measurements. This approach is based on measurement at the lips of the response to an impulsive acoustic pressure wave, which is introduced at the lips [M. M. Sondhi and B. Gopinath, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 49, 1867–1873 (1971)]. Such a technique presents many advantages, however, a number of precautions must be taken in data processing so as to take into account the specific requirements for such measurements. The vocal tract area function is modeled with reflection coefficients, these coefficients being directly identified from the knowledge of the incident and reflected waves measured at the lips. Numerous measurements with test cavities, then with human subjects have led to analyze and to refine the performance of this method, as well as its reliability. A systematic study of French vowel vocal configurations has been undertaken. For the first time, specific area functions related to a given subject are obtained. These measured configurations can be compared with the normalized results that have been reported in the literature.