HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal My Folders Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kröger, B. J. Articles by Tiede, M. K. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Kröger, B. J. Articles by Tiede, M. K. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

An Evaluation of the Aurora System as a Flesh-Point Tracking Tool for Speech Production Research

Marianne Pouplier
Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany

Mark K. Tiede
Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

Contact author: Bernd J. Kröger, Department of Phoniatrics, Pedaudiology, and Communication Disorders, University Hospital Aachen and Aachen University, Pauwelsstraβe 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany. E-mail: bkroeger{at}ukaachen.de.

Purpose: Northern Digital Instruments (NDI; Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) manufactures a commercially available magnetometer device called Aurora that features real-time display of sensor position tracked in 3 dimensions. To test its potential for speech production research, data were collected to assess the measurement accuracy and reliability of the system.

Method: First, sensors affixed at a known distance on a rigid ruler were moved systematically through the measurement space. Second, sensors attached to the speech articulators of a human participant were tracked during various speech tasks.

Results: In the ruler task, results showed mean distance errors of less than 1 mm, with some sensitivity to location within the measurement field. In the speech tasks, Euclidean distance between jaw-mounted sensors showed comparable accuracy; however, a high incidence of missing samples was observed, positively correlated with sensor velocity.

Conclusions: The real-time positional feedback provided by the system makes it potentially useful in speech therapy applications. The overall missing data rate observed during speech tasks makes use of the system in its current form problematic for the quantitative measurement of speech articulator movements; however, NDI is actively working to improve the Aurora system for use in this context.

KEY WORDS: articulation, movement tracking device, speech production

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. A. Joglar, C. Nguyen, D. M. Garst, and W. F. Katz Safety of Electromagnetic Articulography in Patients With Pacemakers and Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators J Speech Lang Hear Res, August 1, 2009; 52(4): 1082 - 1087. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]