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Development and evaluation of wheel-controlled pitch-adjustable electrolarynx
Li Wang1, Yijun Feng1, Ze Yang1
1School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, No. 37, XueYuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China.
Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing
|December 26, 2016
Summary
A new electrolarynx (EL) prototype, Wheel-EL, effectively produces Mandarin tones, significantly improving speech perception accuracy for laryngectomized speakers. While it excels in some tones, further refinement is needed for others.
Area of Science:
- Speech-language pathology
- Biomedical engineering
- Acoustic phonetics
Background:
- Tonal languages like Mandarin rely heavily on pitch contours for meaning.
- Laryngectomized individuals often struggle with speech production, particularly in tonal languages.
- Existing electrolarynx (EL) devices lack the capability to accurately produce Mandarin tones.
Observation:
- A novel wheel-controlled, pitch-adjustable electrolarynx (Wheel-EL) was designed and prototyped.
- Speech performance was evaluated using monosyllables, disyllabic segments, and common phrases.
- Comparisons were made against monotone and variable-frequency modes of a commercial EL (TruTone).
Findings:
- Wheel-EL demonstrated pitch contours closely matching native Mandarin speech for high-level (HL), middle-rising (MR), and falling-rising (FR) tones.
- Redundant sounds were observed during the production of the high-falling (HF) tone.
- Statistical accuracy in tone and word perception was significantly higher with Wheel-EL compared to other tested ELs.
- No significant differences in user acceptability were found among the tested EL speech types.
Implications:
- Wheel-EL offers improved Mandarin tone production for HL, MR, and FR tones, enhancing intelligibility for laryngectomized Mandarin speakers.
- Addressing redundant sounds in HF tone production is crucial for further development.
- Accurate tone reproduction in EL speech can significantly boost intelligibility, though it may not directly impact user acceptability.
