Speech and Feeding Disorders Lab Tools for Researchers
SMASH: Speech Movement Analysis for Speech and Hearing Research
Advances in 3D motion capture technologies, including optical motion capture and electromagnetic articulography, have provided speech researchers with a wealth of new data on speech movements, but have presented unique challenges in data reduction.
To help overcome these challenges, we’ve developed SMASH – Speech Movement Analysis for Speech and Hearing Research – a Matlab-based software tool that can automate many data analysis tasks on speech movement data. The goal of SMASH is to advance research on speech production by improving the efficiency and reliability of speech movement analyses.
Green, J. R., Wang, J., & Wilson, D. L. (2013). SMASH: A tool for articulatory data processing and analysis, Interspeech 2013, 1331-1335.
SPA: Speech Pause Analysis
SPA – Speech Pause Analysis – is a Matlab-based software tool for automatically segmenting previously recorded acoustic files into “speech events” and “pause events” based on an analysis of the waveform’s amplitude.
The program automatically calculated statistics on the pausing patterns in a given speech audio file, and the pause threshold can be adjusted to detect paused between words in a phrase, or between phrases only.
Green, J.R., Beukelman, D.R., & Ball, L. J. (2004). Algorithmic estimation of pauses in extended speech samples of dysarthric and typical speech. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology, 12, 149-154. PMID: 20628555.
Bamboo Passage
The Bamboo Passage is a 60-word paragraph that was developed to improve the precision of automatic pause boundary detection (such as with SPA) during a read-speech task. Specifically, voiced consonants were strategically positioned at word and phrase boundaries to minimize the possibility of identifying voiceless consonants as part of pause events.
Green, J.R., Beukelman, D.R., & Ball, L. J. (2004). Algorithmic estimation of pauses in extended speech samples of dysarthric and typical speech. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology, 12, 149-154. PMID: 20628555.
Beets, Bats, and Boots
Beets, Bats, and Boots is a story and associated picture book designed for use in a story-retell task. It is designed to elicit four target words: beet, bat, boot and Bobby. These words were chosen because their medial vowels have well-defined acoustic and visual targets that circumscribe the boundaries of vowel space.
Green, J.R., Nip, I.S.B, Mefferd, A.S., Wilson, E.M., & Yunusova, Y. (2010). Lip movement exaggerations during infant-directed speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 1529-1542. PMID: 20699342. Read this article in PDF format.