Giving Voice
When speech becomes impaired people may come to rely on “Augmentative and Alternative Communication” (AAC) to get their message across. AAC can range from using simple strategies such as gestures, through to voice output communication aids (VOCA) that generate synthetic speech from text or symbols inputted on a keyboard or via an eye-tracking system.
However, many people complain that the synthetic voices pre-installed in these devices can’t reflect their identity. People often have to choose from a limited selection of voices, of which only a couple might be from the same country as them, let alone representative of their own regional accent.
It may have never previously occurred to you, but our voices are as unique as our walk, our eyes and even our fingerprints. A person’s voice is an essential component of his or her identity.
Voicebanking
The ultimate ambition of this research project is for people to be able to use communication aids that speak for them in their own voice. This multidisciplinary project is a team effort, with clinical researchers from the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research working with speech scientists at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Speech Technology Research.