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Investigating phoneme-dependencies of spherical voice directivity patterns
Christoph Pörschmann1, Johannes M Arend1
1Institute of Communications Engineering, TH Köln-University of Applied Sciences, Betzdorfer Str. 2, 50679 Cologne, Germany.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|July 9, 2021
Summary
Human voice directivity varies dynamically with speech articulation. This study measured full-spherical voice directivity for different phonemes, revealing significant, articulation-dependent variations crucial for virtual acoustics.
Area of Science:
- Acoustics
- Speech Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- The human voice exhibits dynamic directivity, changing over time during speech and singing.
- Understanding voice articulation dependencies is key for realistic virtual acoustic environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To measure and model full-spherical voice directivity for various phonemes.
- To analyze phoneme-dependent variations in voice directivity.
- To provide datasets for virtual acoustic applications.
Main Methods:
- Conducted full-spherical voice directivity measurements on 13 individuals articulating eight phonemes.
- Utilized a 32-microphone spherical array to capture sound radiation simultaneously.
- Employed spatial upsampling to create dense directivity patterns for analysis.
Main Results:
- Analyzed phoneme-dependent variations in spherical voice directivity.
- Found that differences in directivity can be partly explained by articulation properties like mouth opening.
- Observed a maximum 3 dB variation in the averaged directivity index between phonemes, with statistically significant differences.
Conclusions:
- Phoneme articulation significantly influences human voice directivity patterns.
- The findings provide valuable data for improving speech modeling in virtual environments.
- Dynamic voice directivity is a critical factor for realistic acoustic simulations.
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