# Articulatory strategy in vowel production as a basis for speaker discrimination

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.20995 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20995/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 May 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Markerless tracking of user-defined features with deep learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03142/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [AURORA Model of Formant-to-Tongue Inversion for Didactic and Clinical Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17543/) (2026)
- [Articulatory strategy as a source of variation in acoustic vowel dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23416/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The way speakers articulate is well known to be variable across individuals while at the same time subject to anatomical and biomechanical constraints. In this study, we ask whether articulatory strategy in vowel production can be sufficiently speaker-specific to form the basis for speaker discrimination. We conducted Generalised Procrustes Analyses of tongue shape data from 40 English speakers from the North West of England, and assessed the speaker-discriminatory potential of orthogonal tongue shape features within the framework of likelihood ratios. Tongue size emerged as the individual dimension with the strongest discriminatory power, while tongue shape variation in the more anterior part of the tongue generally outperformed tongue shape variation in the posterior part. When considered in combination, shape-only information may offer comparable levels of speaker specificity to size-and-shape information, but only when features do not exhibit speaker-level co-variation.