Semiautomatic measures of velar stop closure location using the EdgeTrak software.

Abstract

Previous work has found a strong correlation between the frontness of closure location for velar stops (measured manually from ultrasound images) and the frontness of the following vowel (measured by F2). In this study, semi automatic measures of tongue frontness during a velar closure were made. Tongue edge traces were made using the EDGETRAK software (Li et al., 2005, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 545–554). Frontness was then quantified from these traces using three different measures: Bressman’s anteriority index (Bressman et al., 2005, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 573–588), a modified version of the anteriority index created for this study, and a measure of the center of mass of the tongue created for this study. When compared to the original manual measures, the modified anteriority index correlated most highly with both the manual measurement of the consonant closure location and also with F2 of the following vowel. The modified anteriority index uses an angle based weight in the anteriority calculation (as opposed to the arbitrary weights of Bressman’s anteriority index). The center of mass was the worst performing measure, and it appeared to be overly sensitive to the extreme anterior and posterior portions of the tongue edge trace.

A study of laryngeal gestures in Mandarin citation tones using simultaneous laryngoscopy and laryngeal ultrasound (SLLUS)

“…EdgeTrak: Li, Kambhamettu & Stone 2005), these often require manual monitoring to be fully successful (e.g. McCormick, Frisch & Wodzinski 2008), which makes them only semi-automated. There are three primary advantages to conducting an automated analysis of ultrasound video data: (i) it is less time consuming than manual analysis, (ii) it eliminates human error from analysis, and (iii) it is an impartial way to conduct an analysis, avoiding results being skewed by an investigator's personal bias.…”

Tongue contour tracking in dynamic ultrasound via higher-order MRFs and efficient fusion moves

“…Due to its public availability and ease of use, EdgeTrak has become a de facto software for tongue tracking in US sequences, as reflected in many publications, e.g. (Aron et al, 2008;Roussos et al, 2009;McCormick et al, 2008;Qin et al, 2008;Aubin et al, 2006;Frisch, 2010). EdgeTrak operates by minimizing an energy function that examines edge gradients, region-based intensities, and contour orientation.…”