Surface electromyographic control of a novel phonemic interface for speech synthesis

Abstract

Many individuals with minimal movement capabilities use AAC to communicate. These individuals require both an interface with which to construct a message (e.g., a grid of letters) and an input modality with which to select targets. This study evaluated the interaction of two such systems: (a) an input modality using surface electromyography (sEMG) of spared facial musculature, and (b) an onscreen interface from which users select phonemic targets. These systems were evaluated in two experiments: (a) participants without motor impairments used the systems during a series of eight training sessions, and (b) one individual who uses AAC used the systems for two sessions. Both the phonemic interface and the electromyographic cursor show promise for future AAC applications.

Keywords:

• Surface electromyography
• phonemic interface
• training
• Guillain-Barré syndrome

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Carolyn Michener for her assistance with data collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Funding information

This research is supported by NSF grant 1452169 and NIH grants 5T90DA032484-04 and R01 DC002852.

Notes

1 DynaMyte is a product of Tobii DynaVox, Inc. of Danderyd, Sweden. http://www.tobiidynavox.com/

2 AccuPoint™ and AccuKeys™ are products of Invotek of Alma, AR. http://www.invotek.org/

3 Bagnoli™ 2-channel handheld EMG system is a product of Delsys, Inc. of Natick, MA. http://www.delsys.com/

4 MATLAB™ is a product of MathWorks, Inc. of Natick, MA. http://www.mathworks.com/

5 Minitab™ is a product of Minitab, Inc. of State College, PA. https://www.minitab.com/

6 It is important to note, however, that the participants were prompted with an aural phrase, rather than also being shown a specific sequence of phonemes as in the current studies. The additional mental processing time to translate an aural phrase to phonemes would likely result in lower ITRs.