VTAR is a Matlab-based computer program for vocal tract acoustic response calculation. Based on a frequency-domain vocal tract model [Zhang and Espy-Wilson, 2004, J. Acoust.Soc. Am., 115(3), 1274], VTAR is able to model various complex sounds such as nasals, rhotics and liquids. With input in the form of vocal tract cross-sectional area functions, VTAR calculates the vocal tract acoustic response function and the formant frequencies and bandwidths. The user-friendly interface allows directed data input for defined categories: vowels, nasals, nasalized sounds, consonant, laterals, and rhotics. The program also provides an interface for input and modification of arbitrary vocal tract geometry configurations, which is ideal for research applications.We acknowledge the inspiration provided by Michel T.T. Jackson, Maeda (1981) and a previous partial MATLAB version provided to us by R. Scaife.
This work was supported by NIH Grant 1 R01 DC05250-01 awarded to Suzanne Boyce (University of Cincinnati), Carol Espy-Wilson (University of Maryland), and Mark Tiede (Haskins Lab and MIT Research Lab of Electronics)