The overall objective of this project is the development of an advanced national facility for speech physiology research, providing technological capabilities that currently are not available to scientists in this country. The scientific rationale underlying this development is that the multiple processes of speech production require the capability for multi-variable observation and analysis of large quantities of physiological data. We intend to accomplish our objective through the local re-design and construction of the Japanese-developed X-ray microbeam system which will allow for simultaneous observation of lip, tongue, jaw and soft palate movements without the dangers of radiation exposure usually associated with such observations. The proposed facility will also have the capability for simultaneous sampling wide-band speech acoustics, EMG from multiple speech muscles and associated aerodynamic events and state-of-the-art computer processing, display and modeling algorithms with which to optimize the meaningful interpretation of these data.
