Effect of the losses in the vocal tract on determination of the area function

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Gülmezoğlu, M. Bilginer | Barkana, Atalay

Affiliations: Osmangazi University, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department 26480 Batı‐Meşelik, Eskişehir, Turkey Tel.: (90) 222‐2392840/3261; Fax: (90) 222‐2393613; E‐mail: bgulmez@ogu.edu.tr

Abstract: In this work, the cross‐sectional areas of the vocal tract are determined for the lossy and lossless cases by using the pole‐zero models obtained from the electrical equivalent circuit model of the vocal tract and the system identification method. The cross‐sectional areas are used to compare the lossy and lossless cases. In the lossy case, the internal losses due to wall vibration, heat conduction, air friction and viscosity are considered, that is, the complex poles and zeros obtained from the models are used directly. Whereas, in the lossless case, only the imaginary parts of these poles and zeros are used. The vocal tract shapes obtained for the lossy case are close to the actual ones.

Keywords: Vocal tract losses, vocal tract area function, vocal tract shape

Journal: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 159-166, 2003