MARCS Research Seminar

Dr Proctor will be presenting "Investigating speech production using real-time MRI".

Abstract: Traditional methods of investigating speech production have been limited by their invasiveness, the inability to view the entire vocal tract, and their focus on static configurations of the speech organs. Recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging, allowing for rapid acquisition of information from the entire vocal tract, are revolutionizing the study of speech production.

In this talk, I will present data acquired using the real-time MRI (rtMRI) methodology developed at the University of Southern California, which provides high resolution video of vocal tract motion at 40 frames/sec. The data is shedding new light on a range of phonological behaviours in English, Mandarin, Arabic, French, Tamil and other languages. rtMRI is also being used to examine goals of production in vocal performance by sopranos and human beatboxers. The case will be made that more detailed phonetic knowledge, and new phonological frameworks capable of modelling speech as a dynamic system, are critical to the proper understanding of many linguistic and paralinguistic phenomena.