Perceptual Evaluation and Acoustic Analysis of Pneumatic Artificial Larynx

Xu, Jie; Chen, Xi; Lü, Mei; Qiao, Ming Zhe

doi:10.1016/j.otohns.2009.09.008

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…A Gaussian Mixture Model is trained to describe the joint probability distribution of these trajectories. Next, the joint probability density of the source and target feature vectors 6 is described by a GMM as:…”

Section: A Vc Framework To Convert Respiration To Pal Source Excitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among available solutions to generate voice after the laryngectomy, the medical gold standard of Tracheoesophageal (TE) voice prosthesis [1] and the Pneumatic Artificial Larynx (PAL) devices [2] continue to generate a superior voice quality and outperform other electronic voice prostheses including the Electrolarynx [3] and silent speech interfaces [4] both in terms of intelligibility and naturalness [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The gold standard of TE voice prosthesis is a plastic valve placed surgically inside the throat which subjects the patient to infection bio-hazards [1].…”

Section: ! Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The gold standard of TE voice prosthesis is a plastic valve placed surgically inside the throat which subjects the patient to infection bio-hazards [1]. The PAL is specifically of interest as a non-invasive respiratory driven, mechanical voice source with an exceptionally high voice quality [2,[5][6][7][8]. When a laryngectomy patient loses their larynx, an opening in the neck (stoma) is generated for them to breathe.…”

Section: ! Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Designing a Pneumatic Bionic Voice Prosthesis - A Statistical Approach for Source Excitation Generation

Ahmadi

Toda

2018

Interspeech 2018

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This study follows up on our pioneering work in designing a Pneumatic Bionic Voice (PBV) prosthesis for larynx amputees. PBV prostheses are electronic adaptations of the traditional Pneumatic Artificial Larynx (PAL) device. The PAL is a non-invasive mechanical voice source, driven exclusively by respiration and with an exceptionally high voice quality. Following the PAL design closely, the PBV prosthesis is anticipated to substitute the medical gold standard of voice prostheses by generating a similar voice quality while remaining non-invasive and non-surgical. This paper describes a statistical approach to estimate the excitation waveform of the PBV source using the PAL as a reference. A Gaussian mixture model of the joint probability density of respiration and PAL voice features is implemented to estimate the excitation waveform of the PBV. The evaluation on a database of more than two hours of continuous speech shows a close match between ! " pattern and mel-cepstra of the estimated PBV source and the PAL. When used to re-synthesize the original speech, the intelligibility of the PBV speech remains high and is scored 7.1±0.4 compared to 7.9±0.15 of the original PAL source.

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Section: A Vc Framework To Convert Respiration To Pal Source Excitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ! Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ! Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Designing a Pneumatic Bionic Voice Prosthesis - A Statistical Approach for Source Excitation Generation

Ahmadi

Toda

2018

Interspeech 2018

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“…A significant observation possibly overlooked in designing electronic voice prostheses is that after the loss of larynx, the respiratory system can play a dominant role in controlling voice generation [ 21 , 22 ]. This is specifically observed in the PAL device, a mechanical voice source, exclusively driven by variations in pressure above and below the missing larynx [ 21 , 22 ] with a voice quality, superior to the Electrolarynx and comparable to the gold standard of (TE) voice prosthesis [ 8 , 13 , 21 – 23 ]. Despite its limited prevalence due to its cumbersome design [ 9 ] and the unhygienic coupling of the stoma to the mouth [ 24 ], the PAL voice has been described as clearer with higher levels of intelligibility, less noise, and greater short-term pitch variations (micro-prosody, at syllable level) when compared to TE speech in multiple trials [ 6 – 13 , 21 , 22 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A pneumatic Bionic Voice prosthesis—Pre-clinical trials of controlling the voice onset and offset

Ahmadi¹,

Noorian²,

Novakovic³

et al. 2018

PLoS ONE

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Despite emergent progress in many fields of bionics, a functional Bionic Voice prosthesis for laryngectomy patients (larynx amputees) has not yet been achieved, leading to a lifetime of vocal disability for these patients. This study introduces a novel framework of Pneumatic Bionic Voice Prostheses as an electronic adaptation of the Pneumatic Artificial Larynx (PAL) device. The PAL is a non-invasive mechanical voice source, driven exclusively by respiration with an exceptionally high voice quality, comparable to the existing gold standard of Tracheoesophageal (TE) voice prosthesis. Following PAL design closely as the reference, Pneumatic Bionic Voice Prostheses seem to have a strong potential to substitute the existing gold standard by generating a similar voice quality while remaining non-invasive and non-surgical. This paper designs the first Pneumatic Bionic Voice prosthesis and evaluates its onset and offset control against the PAL device through pre-clinical trials on one laryngectomy patient. The evaluation on a database of more than five hours of continuous/isolated speech recordings shows a close match between the onset/offset control of the Pneumatic Bionic Voice and the PAL with an accuracy of 98.45 ±0.54%. When implemented in real-time, the Pneumatic Bionic Voice prosthesis controller has an average onset/offset delay of 10 milliseconds compared to the PAL. Hence it addresses a major disadvantage of previous electronic voice prostheses, including myoelectric Bionic Voice, in meeting the short time-frames of controlling the onset/offset of the voice in continuous speech.

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“…Because of the sound source, the means of vibrating the air, and the size and configuration of the vocal tract, the voice quality of alaryngeal speakers is different from that of laryngeal speakers (LA; Most, Tobin, & Mimran, 2000;Ng, Gilbert, & Lerman, 2001;Ng, Lerman, & Gilbert, 1998;Robbins, 1984;Xu, Chen, Lu, & Qiao, 2009). Acoustical and perceptual analysis of speech sounds are the methods for evaluating the voice quality of typical and atypical speakers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Acoustic Study of Vowels Produced by Alaryngeal Speakers in Taiwan

Liao

2016

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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In accordance with previous studies, alaryngeal speakers have higher formant frequency values than LA because they have a shortened vocal tract as a result of their total laryngectomy. Furthermore, the resonance frequencies are inversely related to the length of the vocal tract (on the basis of the assumption of the source filter theory). PA and ES have a smaller VSA and shorter distances between corner vowels compared with LA, which may be related to speech intelligibility. This hypothesis needs further support from future study.

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Perceptual Evaluation and Acoustic Analysis of Pneumatic Artificial Larynx

Abstract: The PAL has the advantage of a high percentage of successful vocal rehabilitation. PAL speech is fluent and intelligible. The acoustic characteristics of the PAL are similar to those of a normal voice.

Cited by 13 publications

References 21 publications

Designing a Pneumatic Bionic Voice Prosthesis - A Statistical Approach for Source Excitation Generation

Designing a Pneumatic Bionic Voice Prosthesis - A Statistical Approach for Source Excitation Generation

A pneumatic Bionic Voice prosthesis—Pre-clinical trials of controlling the voice onset and offset

An Acoustic Study of Vowels Produced by Alaryngeal Speakers in Taiwan

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