ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

Home → Science

Electrodes and AI bring ‘silent speech’ one step closer to reality

It's remarkably accurate.

Mihai AndreibyMihai Andrei
December 2, 2020
in Science
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Every time you speak, your neck and facial muscles move in a specific way. Many people with speech impediments are still able to move their muscles, despite not being able to talk smoothly. Now, researchers are looking at a new way to use technology to reverse engineer these muscle movements and translate them into a synthetic audible voice.

Electromyography (EMG) electrodes placed on the face can detect muscle movements from speech articulators.Image credits: Gaddy & Klein (2020).

The approach developed by UC Berkeley researchers uses electrodes placed on the face and throat. Broadly speaking, the method is called electromyography (or EMG) — where electrode sensors collect information about muscle activity. An algorithm then builds a model of the muscle data and generates synthetic speech. It’s a sort of electronic lip reading, except than it doesn’t use the actual lip movements for tracking facial movements.

“Digitally voicing silent speech has a wide array of potential applications,” the team’s paper reads. “For example, it could be used to create a device analogous to a Bluetooth headset that allows people to carry on phone conversations without disrupting those around them. Such a device could also be useful in settings where the environment is too loud to capture audible speech or where maintaining silence is important.”

It’s not the first time something like this has been developed. Silent speech interfaces have been around for a few years, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the performance of these devices. This is where the new approach comes in with an innovation: the AI algorithm transfers audio outputs “from vocalized recordings to silent recordings of the same utterances.” In other words, this is the first model that trains the algorithm with EMG data collected during silent speech, not ‘real’ speech. This approach offers better performance, the researchers note in the study.

“Our method greatly improves intelligibility of audio generated from silent EMG compared to a baseline that only trains with vocalized data,” the researchers add.

According to the measured data, the word interpretations produced this way were more accurate than existing technology. In one experiment, transcription word error dropped from 64% to 4%, while in another experiment (which used a different vocabulary), it dropped from 88% to 68%.

The paper has been published in the journal arXiv and has not yet been peer reviewed at the time of this writing. However, the paper has received an award at the Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) event held online last week, in recognition of its results.

RelatedPosts

Trump is ordering a sweeping censorship of science, starting with climate and health
A significant rice in productivity: China’s output of GMO “seawater rice” doubled over the last 2 years
Eight Seconds Is All You Get. Why Attention Spans Are Shrinking and What To Do About It
Giant 500 km wide ocean whirlpools affect climate

To support more research in this field, researchers have open-sourced a dataset of nearly 20 hours of facial EMG data.

ShareTweetShare
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Dr. Andrei Mihai is a geophysicist and founder of ZME Science. He has a Ph.D. in geophysics and archaeology and has completed courses from prestigious universities (with programs ranging from climate and astronomy to chemistry and geology). He is passionate about making research more accessible to everyone and communicating news and features to a broad audience.

Related Posts

Archaeology

Forget the wild-haired savages. Here’s what Vikings really looked like

byMihai Andrei
7 hours ago
Animals

Is a Plant-Based Diet Really Healthy for Your Dog? This Study Has Surprising Findings

byMihai Andrei
7 hours ago
Mind & Brain

A Single LSD Treatment Could Keep Anxiety At Bay for Months

byMihai Andrei
7 hours ago
Culture & Society

Who Invented Russian Roulette? How a 1937 Short Story Sparked the Deadliest “Game” in Pop Culture

byTibi Puiu
7 hours ago

Recent news

Forget the wild-haired savages. Here’s what Vikings really looked like

September 11, 2025

Is a Plant-Based Diet Really Healthy for Your Dog? This Study Has Surprising Findings

September 11, 2025

A Single LSD Treatment Could Keep Anxiety At Bay for Months

September 10, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Editorial Policy
  • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
  • How we review products
  • Contact

© 2007-2025 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Science News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Space
  • Future
  • Features
    • Natural Sciences
    • Physics
      • Matter and Energy
      • Quantum Mechanics
      • Thermodynamics
    • Chemistry
      • Periodic Table
      • Applied Chemistry
      • Materials
      • Physical Chemistry
    • Biology
      • Anatomy
      • Biochemistry
      • Ecology
      • Genetics
      • Microbiology
      • Plants and Fungi
    • Geology and Paleontology
      • Planet Earth
      • Earth Dynamics
      • Rocks and Minerals
      • Volcanoes
      • Dinosaurs
      • Fossils
    • Animals
      • Mammals
      • Birds
      • Fish
      • Amphibians
      • Reptiles
      • Invertebrates
      • Pets
      • Conservation
      • Animal facts
    • Climate and Weather
      • Climate change
      • Weather and atmosphere
    • Health
      • Drugs
      • Diseases and Conditions
      • Human Body
      • Mind and Brain
      • Food and Nutrition
      • Wellness
    • History and Humanities
      • Anthropology
      • Archaeology
      • History
      • Economics
      • People
      • Sociology
    • Space & Astronomy
      • The Solar System
      • Sun
      • The Moon
      • Planets
      • Asteroids, meteors & comets
      • Astronomy
      • Astrophysics
      • Cosmology
      • Exoplanets & Alien Life
      • Spaceflight and Exploration
    • Technology
      • Computer Science & IT
      • Engineering
      • Inventions
      • Sustainability
      • Renewable Energy
      • Green Living
    • Culture
    • Resources
  • Videos
  • Reviews
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Editorial policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2025 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.