title: Myo-electric signals to augment speech recognition.
abstract: It is proposed that myo-electric signals can be used to augment conventional speech-recognition systems to improve their performance under acoustically noisy conditions (e.g. in an aircraft cockpit). A preliminary study is performed to ascertain the presence of speech information within myo-electric signals from facial muscles. Five surface myo-electric signals are recorded during speech, using Ag-AgCl button electrodes embedded in a pilot oxygen mask. An acoustic channel is also recorded to enable segmentation of the recorded myo-electric signal. These segments are processed off-line, using a wavelet transform feature set, and classified with linear discriminant analysis. Two experiments are performed, using a ten-word vocabulary consisting of the numbers 'zero' to 'nine'. Five subjects are tested in the first experiment, where the vocabulary is not randomised. Subjects repeat each word continuously for 1 min; classification errors range from 0.0% to 6.1%. Two of the subjects perform the second experiment, saying words from the vocabulary randomly; classification errors are 2.7% and 10.4%. The results demonstrate that there is excellent potential for using surface myo-electric signals to enhance the performance of a conventional speech-recognition system.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada. biomed@unb.ca
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Englehart
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hudgins
authors.forename: D F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Lovely
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004576:Electromyography; D005152:Facial Muscles / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013065:Speech Intelligibility; D014584:User-Computer Interface