A Vocal Tract Segmentation and Analysis over a European Portuguese MRI Database

Knowledge of the speech production mechanism is essential for the development of speech production models and theories. Magnetic Resonance Imaging delivers high quality imaging of soft tissue. To our knowledge, there are no complete systematic Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies of European Portuguese production. With this work, we intend to create a database of Magnetic Resonance Imaging images of European Portuguese and to implement segmentation techniques well known on the image processing field, but rarely used on the context of vocal tract segmentation. We present 2D vocal tract contours as well as their evaluation using a similarity metric, the Pratt Index. This metric allows not only to validate the segmentation technique, but also to infer on the differences among the sounds in study.