This project aims to compare the speech production of patients with Parkinson’s disease in different conditions: i) before the implantation of a deep brain stimulation to investigate the influence of levodopa on speech; ii) after the implantation of a deep brain stimulation to determine the influence of stimulating the nucleus subthalamicus. For capturing treatment-based speech changes not only acoustic speech data but also underlying articulatory speech movements of the lips and the tongue are analysed (electromagnetic articulography).
Acoustic analysis focuses on hypokinetic speech parameters such as pitch and loudness modulation as well as vowel articulation. The analysis of speech movements focuses on the duration, amplitude and maximal velocities of speech movements.
