TADA: An enhanced, portable Task Dynamics model in MATLAB

A portable computational system called TADA was developed for the Task Dynamic model of speech motor control [Saltzman and Munhall, Ecol. Psychol. 1, 333–382 (1989)]. The model maps from a set of linguistic gestures, specified as activation functions with corresponding constriction goal parameters, to time functions for a set of model articulators. The original Task Dynamic code was ported to the (relatively) platform‐independent MATLAB environment and includes a MATLAB version of the Haskins articulatory synthesizer, so that articulator motions computed by the Task Dynamic model can be used to generate sound. Gestural scores can now be edited graphically and the effects of gestural score changes on the models output evaluated. Other new features of the system include: (1) A graphical user interface that displays the input gestural scores, output time functions of constriction goal variables and articulators, and an animation of the resulting vocal‐tract motion; (2) Integration of the Task Dynamic model w...