Consonant Visualizer System

The Consonant Visualizer System COV-1 measures and displays oral airflow and voicing audio during consonants.  Except for the class of consonants termed sonorants (such as /l/ or /r/ and /w/ in English), consonants are produced with some combination of one or more constrictions in the vocal tract, adduction or abduction of the vocal folds from the adjustment for normal voicing, redirection of the breath stream into the nasal passageway, and, in some languages, expansion or compression of a vocal tract chamber, as in clicks, implosives and ejectives.   Most of these features of consonant production can be visualized from a display of the oral or nasal airflow and simultaneous audio.  The Consonant Visualizer System, has been designed to make clear the relationships between the airflow and audio and the articulatory mechanism being used.

The Consonant Visualizer System uses the two screens pictured below: a Practice screen providing a real-time display for speech training applications, and a Compare-to-Model screen that allows the user to record speech sounds or phrases, play them back to hear them, graphically represent them and, with both sight and sound, compare them to model productions or previous student efforts.

Voicing is in green, with dark green, indicating a stop closure. Aspirated and unaspirated unvoiced stops and voiced stops are all readily differentiable. Improper pronunciations can be readily differentiated.

Practice screen shown

Compare to Model screen shown