Electromagnetic articulography (EMA) for real-time feedback application: computational techniques

Abstract

The application of state-of-the-art signal processing often differs between offline and online real-time application domains. Offline processing techniques may be used to accurately reduce signal noise and spot errors before analysis. However, without the global signal information available to offline processes, such techniques can be difficult to reproduce in online real-time applications. This paper presented methods that were developed to support a state-of-the-art computer-based speech therapy system. These methods included online head correction and low-pass filtering and aimed to reproduce offline processing data quality when using a real-time clinical feedback application. The adequacy of these methods was evaluated relative to the offline processing ‘gold’ standard and in a context of computing a specific kinematic parameter (i.e. articulatory working space). The results showed that the online real-time output values were highly correlated with the offline manually-processed values.

Keywords:

• Electromagnetic articulography (EMA)
• wave speech research system
• speech kinematics
• computer-based speech therapy

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported from multiple sources: the NSERC Discovery Grant Program, the ASHA Foundation (New Investigator Award), the University Health Network – Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, the Parkinson Society of Canada Pilot Project Grant Program, and the Centre for Innovation in Information Visualization and Data-Driven Design (CIV-DDD). CIV-DDD was a research hub created out of Funding from the Government of Ontario via the Ontario Research Fund: Research Excellence. Information can be found here: https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-research-fund-research-excellence. Information for this research hub and its funding can be found here: http://www.civ-ddd.ca/page.php?title=about