Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 26, 2025
10:13
Hemi-laryngeal Setup for Studying Vocal Fold Vibration in Three Dimensions
Published on: November 25, 2017
11.3K
The interrelationship between the face and vocal tract configuration during audiovisual speech
Chris Scholes1, Jeremy I Skipper2, Alan Johnston3
1Visual Neuroscience Group, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD Nottingham, United Kingdom; chris.scholes@nottingham.ac.uk.
Summary
Seeing a speaker
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Speech Perception
- Auditory-Visual Integration
Background:
- Speech perception improves with visual cues, especially in noise.
- Brain mechanisms for auditory-visual speech integration are not fully understood.
- The vocal tract is a potential common generator for visual and auditory speech cues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the link between facial movements and vocal tract shape during speech production.
- To determine if facial cues can predict vocal tract dynamics.
Main Methods:
- Comparing facial videos with fast magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the vocal tract.
- Utilizing principal components analysis (PCA) to extract joint variations.
- Employing a "Bubbles" technique for identifying crucial facial and vocal tract regions.
Main Results:
- High-fidelity reconstruction of MR vocal tract images from facial video using PCA.
- Reconstruction accuracy increased with temporal correspondence between facial and vocal tract data.
- Identified specific facial areas crucial for predicting vocal tract shape.
Conclusions:
- Facial movements contain sufficient information to reconstruct vocal tract shape during speech.
- The facial and vocal tract regions critical for reconstruction are involved in acoustic speech generation.
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