title: Influence of vocal tract geometry simplifications on the numerical simulation of vowel sounds.
abstract: For many years, the vocal tract shape has been approximated by one-dimensional (1D) area functions to study the production of voice. More recently, 3D approaches allow one to deal with the complex 3D vocal tract, although area-based 3D geometries of circular cross-section are still in use. However, little is known about the influence of performing such a simplification, and some alternatives may exist between these two extreme options. To this aim, several vocal tract geometry simplifications for vowels [ɑ], [i], and [u] are investigated in this work. Six cases are considered, consisting of realistic, elliptical, and circular cross-sections interpolated through a bent or straight midline. For frequencies below 4-5 kHz, the influence of bending and cross-sectional shape has been found weak, while above these values simplified bent vocal tracts with realistic cross-sections are necessary to correctly emulate higher-order mode propagation. To perform this study, the finite element method (FEM) has been used. FEM results have also been compared to a 3D multimodal method and to a classical 1D frequency domain model.
authors.affiliation: GTM-Grup de recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia, La Salle, Universitat Ramon Llull, C/Quatre Camins 30, Barcelona, E-08022, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arnela
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, School of Computer Science & Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Saeed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dabbaghchian
authors.affiliation: GIPSA-lab, Unité Mixte de Recherche au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 5216, Grenoble Campus, St. Martin d'Heres, F-38402, France.
authors.forename: Rémi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Blandin
authors.affiliation: GTM-Grup de recerca en Tecnologies Mèdia, La Salle, Universitat Ramon Llull, C/Quatre Camins 30, Barcelona, E-08022, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Oriol
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Guasch
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, School of Computer Science & Communication, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Olov
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Engwall
authors.affiliation: GIPSA-lab, Unité Mixte de Recherche au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 5216, Grenoble Campus, St. Martin d'Heres, F-38402, France.
authors.forename: Annemie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van Hirtum
authors.affiliation: GIPSA-lab, Unité Mixte de Recherche au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 5216, Grenoble Campus, St. Martin d'Heres, F-38402, France.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Pelorson
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D014827:Vocal Cords; D014831:Voice