One-click vocal tract mapping interface for vowels and its usefulness as a signal converter

This paper describes an effective application of a vocal tract mapping interface to signal conversion. The vocal tract mapping interface is a kind of vocal tract shape generator that provides users with easy and effective setting of the vocal tract shape with a simple mouse click on its interface window. Utilizing a one-click operation to generate the vocal tract shape, an incoming signal can be easily converted into vowel sounds through the vocal tract shape. In this paper, signals obtained from finger motions during a finger-nose test were converted into vowel sounds as an application of the vocal tract mapping interface. Paired comparison experiments showed that vowel sounds generated from the finger motions are useful to judge the severity of movement disorders of patients.