Biomedical subjects

Hironori Takemoto

Publications and source records attributed to Hironori Takemoto.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Measurement of temporal changes in vocal tract area function from 3D cine-MRI data.

A 3D cine-MRI technique was developed based on a synchronized sampling method [Masaki et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Jpn. E 20, 375-379 (1999)] to measure the temporal changes in the vocal tract area function during a short utterance /aiueo/ in Japanese. A time series of head-neck volumes was obtained after 640 repetitions of the utterance produced by a male speaker, from which area functions were extracted frame-by-frame. A region-based analysis showed that the volumes of the front and back cavities tend to change reciprocally and that the areas near the larynx and posterior edge of the hard palate were almost constant throughout the utterance. The lower four formants were calculated from all the area functions and compared with those of natural speech sounds. The mean absolute percent error between calculated and measured formants among all the frames was 4.5%. The comparison of vocal tract shapes for the five vowels with those from the static MRI method suggested a problem of MRI observation of the vocal tract: data from static MRI tend to result in a deviation from natural vocal tract geometry because of the gravity effect.

Humans↗

PubMed2006

Acoustic roles of the laryngeal cavity in vocal tract resonance.

The acoustic effects of the laryngeal cavity on the vocal tract resonance were investigated by using vocal tract area functions for the five Japanese vowels obtained from an adult male speaker. Transfer functions were examined with the laryngeal cavity eliminated from the whole vocal tract, volume velocity distribution patterns were calculated, and susceptance matching analysis was performed between the laryngeal cavity and the vocal tract excluding the laryngeal cavity (vocal tract proper). It was revealed that the laryngeal cavity generates one of the formants of the vocal tract, which is the fourth in the present study. At this formant, the resonance of the laryngeal cavity (the 1/4 wavelength resonance) induces the open-tube resonance of the vocal tract proper (the 3/2 wavelength resonance). At the other formants, on the other hand, the vocal tract proper acts as a closed tube, because the laryngeal cavity has only a small contribution to generating these formants and the effective closed end of the whole vocal tract is the junction between the laryngeal cavity and the vocal tract proper.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Cyclicity of laryngeal cavity resonance due to vocal fold vibration.

Acoustic effects of the time-varying glottal area due to vocal fold vibration on the laryngeal cavity resonance were investigated based on vocal tract area functions and acoustic analysis. The laryngeal cavity consists of the vestibular and ventricular parts of the larynx, and gives rise to a regional acoustic resonance within the vocal tract, with this resonance imparting an extra formant to the vocal tract resonance pattern. Vocal tract transfer functions of the five Japanese vowels uttered by three male subjects were calculated under open- and closed-glottis conditions. The results revealed that the resonance appears at the frequency region from 3.0 to 3.7 kHz when the glottis is closed and disappears when it is open. Real spectra estimated from open- and closed-glottis periods of vowel sounds also showed the on-off pattern of the resonance within a pitch period. Furthermore, a time-domain acoustic analysis of vowels indicated that the resonance component could be observed as a pitch-synchronized rise-and-fall pattern of the bandpass amplitude. The cyclic nature of the resonance can be explained as the laryngeal cavity acting as a closed tube that generates the resonance during a closed-glottis period, but damps the resonance off during an open-glottis period.

Acoustics↗

PubMed2002

[4D-MRI using the synchronized sampling method (SSM)].

A synchronized sampling method (SSM) was developed for the study of voluntary movements by combining the electrocardiographic (ECG) gating method with an external triggering device, and four-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (4D-MRI) at a rate of 30 frames per second was accomplished by volumetric imaging with the SSM. This method was first applied to the motion imaging of articulatory organs during repetitions of a Japanese five-vowel sequence, and the dynamic change in vocal tract area function was demonstrated with sufficient temporal resolution. This paper describes the methodology, applicability, and limitations of 4D-MRI with the SSM.

Electrocardiography↗