TubeTalker: An airway modulation model of human sound production

Artificial talkers and speech synthesis systems have long been used as a means of understanding both speech pro-duction and speech perception. This article begins with an overview and history of artificial speech systems which in-cludes mechanical models, electronic devices, and computation-based simulations. The development of an airway modula-tion model is then described that simulates the time-varying changes of the glottis and vocal tract, as well as acoustic wave propagation, during speech production. The result is a type of artificial talker that can be used to study various aspects of how sound is generated by humans and how that sound is perceived by a listener. The primary components of the model are introduced and simulation of two phrases are demonstrated