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International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies

BIOSTEC 2014: Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies pp 246–260Cite as

Velar Movement Assessment for Speech Interfaces: An Exploratory Study Using Surface Electromyography

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 511))

Abstract

In the literature several silent speech interfaces based on Surface Electromyography (EMG) can be found. However, it is yet unclear if we are able to sense muscles activity related to nasal port opening/closing. Detecting the nasality phenomena, would increase the performance of languages with strong nasal characteristics such as European Portuguese. In this paper we explore the use of surface EMG electrodes, a non-invasive method, positioned in the face and neck regions to explore the existence of useful information about the velum movement. For an accurate interpretation and validation of the proposed method, we use velum movement information extracted from Real-Time Magnetic Resonance Imaging (RT-MRI) data. Overall, results of this study show that differences can be found in the EMG signals for the case of nasal vowels, by sensors positioned below the ear between the mastoid process and the mandible in the upper neck region.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by Marie Curie IAPP Golem (ref.251415, FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IAPP), Marie Curie IAPP IRIS (ref. 610986, FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IAPP) and by FEDER through the Operational Program Competitiveness factors - COMPETE under the scope of QREN 5329 FalaGlobal, by National Funds through FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) in the context of the Project HERON II (PTDC/EEA-PLP/098298/2008) and by project Cloud Thinking (funded by the QREN Mais Centro program: CENTRO-07-ST24-FEDER-002031).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Microsoft Language Development Center, Lisbon, Portugal

    João Freitas & Miguel Sales Dias

  2. Department Electronics Telecommunications and Informatics/IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    João Freitas, António Teixeira & Samuel Silva

  3. Health School/IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Catarina Oliveira

  4. ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal

    Miguel Sales Dias

Authors
  1. João Freitas
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  2. António Teixeira
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  3. Samuel Silva
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  4. Catarina Oliveira
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  5. Miguel Sales Dias
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to João Freitas .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ESEO, ANGERS CEDEX 02, France

    Guy Plantier

  2. Cognitive Systems Lab., Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Tanja Schultz

  3. Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Fred

  4. New University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal

    Hugo Gamboa

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Freitas, J., Teixeira, A., Silva, S., Oliveira, C., Dias, M.S. (2015). Velar Movement Assessment for Speech Interfaces: An Exploratory Study Using Surface Electromyography. In: Plantier, G., Schultz, T., Fred, A., Gamboa, H. (eds) Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies. BIOSTEC 2014. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 511. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26129-4_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26129-4_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26128-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26129-4

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