Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 03/05/2011 18:27:52

Title: How can we give a voice to "silent speakers"?
Post by: thedoc on 03/05/2011 18:27:52

By using electrodes to detect facial muscle movements when mouthing words silently, Michael Wand and colleagues have devised a system for silent speech recognition. The device could offer hope to patients who can move their mouths but not make sounds with their voices.
Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1673/)

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Title: How can we give a voice to \
Post by: Airthumbs on 04/05/2011 16:31:57

After listening to the Podcast I have an idea to take this one step further..........  In the same Podcast was an American Soldier who lost part of his arm during military operations.  This Soldier was testing out a new kind of prosthetic limb that uses thoughts to control at least four functions of the artificial limb.  Is there any reason that these four processes could instead of being converted to movement in the prosthetic limb be converted to language?  This would then begin to help people who are unable to move their facial muscles to mimic speech.

On top of that there could be a translator built into the system allowing the user to speak in any language. 

I am pretty sure that someone like Stephen Hawkins would benefit enormously from such a system even if it only allowed him say upto ten responses.  Yes, No, Black hole, etc...........