6. X-ray cineradiography
A major obstacle in studying speech movements is the difficulty of seeing and determining internal movements of the vocal organs. Using the sense of touch inside the mouth and intuition are not always accurate. In the past, x-ray cineradiography was used to film and study the vocal tract during speech. Here is a QuickTime video of a short English sentence:
http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/~jcoleman/try_not.mov
Some things to watch for: when and where the tip of the tongue touches the palate, the forward and backward movement of the tongue, the raising and lowering of the velum, and the lowering and raising of the jaw, or mandible.
X-ray
cineradiography is no longer done with normal subjects
because of the danger of radiation exposure; various other
methods are used now ¡V you've already encountered fMRI.
However, a lot of the old x-ray films have been preserved.
Kevin Munhall of Queen's University in Canada and his
colleagues in Japan have collected and reformatted many of
these films and made them available over YouTube:
Kevin Munhall Xray Database 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3aWyZhvACs
Kevin
Munhall Xray Database 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzaIBmXuyro
Kevin
Munhall Xray Database 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_u9Qi4FZw
Kevin
Munhall Xray Database 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ELOx8EU9Cs
Detailed views of the tongue and
vocal tract during speech are now possible without the danger
of radiation exposure ¡V through Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI). Here is an article about an amazing new technology that
enables researchers to synthesize still MRI photos
into videos of people speaking, as well as view other internal
body processes:
UK Daily Mail Online: MRI scan shows what
happens to body when people talk and sing
An incredible glimpse inside the body: MRI scans reveal a
beating heart and what happens inside the mouth when we talk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5666657/MRI-scans-reveal-beating-heart-happens-inside-mouth-talk-sing.html
Next:
Vocal folds and voicing
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