School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2010 Oct;57(10):2448-58. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2010.2053369. Epub 2010 Jun 21.
Whispered speech can be useful for quiet and private communication, and is the primary means of unaided spoken communication for many people experiencing voice-box deficiencies. Patients who have undergone partial or full laryngectomy are typically unable to speak anything more than hoarse whispers, without the aid of prostheses or specialized speaking techniques. Each of the current prostheses and rehabilitative methods for post-laryngectomized patients (primarily oesophageal speech, tracheo-esophageal puncture, and electrolarynx) have particular disadvantages, prompting new work on nonsurgical, noninvasive alternative solutions. One such solution, described in this paper, combines whisper signal analysis with direct formant insertion and speech modification located outside the vocal tract. This approach allows laryngectomy patients to regain their ability to speak with a more natural voice than alternative methods, by whispering into an external prosthesis, which then, recreates and outputs natural-sounding speech. It relies on the observation that while the pitch-generation mechanism of laryngectomy patients is damaged or unusable, the remaining components of the speech production apparatus may be largely unaffected. This paper presents analysis and reconstruction methods designed for the prosthesis, and demonstrates their ability to obtain natural-sounding speech from the whisper-speech signal using an external analysis-by-synthesis processing framework.
低语言语对于安静和私密的交流很有用，并且是许多患有声带缺陷的人进行无辅助口语交流的主要方式。接受部分或全部喉切除术的患者通常只能发出嘶哑的低语，而没有假体或专门的说话技术的帮助。目前用于喉切除术后患者的假体和康复方法（主要是食管言语、气管食管穿刺和电子喉）都有特定的缺点，这促使人们开展新的非手术、非侵入性替代解决方案的研究。本文中描述的一种解决方案将低语信号分析与位于声道外部的直接共振峰插入和语音修改相结合。这种方法允许喉切除患者通过向外部假体轻声说话来恢复说话能力，并且声音比替代方法更自然，然后假体再现并输出自然 sounding 的语音。它依赖于这样一种观察，即尽管喉切除术患者的音高产生机制受损或无法使用，但言语产生装置的其余部分可能基本不受影响。本文提出了为假体设计的分析和重建方法，并通过外部分析-综合处理框架展示了它们从低语语音信号中获得自然 sounding 语音的能力。
