Date Prepared: 26 June
2003
Name: Harold
Arthur Cheyne II
Office Address: Voice and
Speech Lab,
E-Mail: Harold_Cheyne@meei.harvard.edu FAX: 617-573-4060
Place of Birth:
Education:
2002 Ph.D. Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (
Speech and Hearing Biosciences
and Technology
1993 B.S.
Academic Appointments:
2002 Lecturer MGH
Institute of Health Professions
Major Committee
Assignments:
1996-1998
Speech and
Hearing Science Curriculum Committee
Student
Member, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Awards and Honors:
January 1993 Recommended for Fulbright Scholarship
May 1993 Prize Scholarship of the
Tufts Class of 1882 for Intellectual
Leadership and Creativity
1993-present Eta Kappa
Nu
1993-present Tau Beta
Pi
Part II: Research, Teaching,
and Clinical Contributions
The focus of my current research is two-fold: the
development of an ambulatory monitoring and biofeedback device for the
evaluation and treatment of voice disorders (called the Portable Vocal
Accumulator or PVA), and the development of a one-hand controlled speech
synthesizer. Goals for the PVA are 1) to reliably, unobtrusively, and
continuously track vocal function parameters over a 12-hour period, and 2) to
provide biofeedback to the wearer of the PVA when vocal function parameters
exceed “safe” limits. The PVA has the potential to provide clinicians with
currently unavailable or unreliable information on a patient’s voice use, such
as phonatory parameters that reflect the likelihood
of trauma, and the duration and intensity of the patient’s voice use, for which
clinicians must now rely on patient self-report. Presently my role involves
evaluating the PVA prototype’s electronics in collaboration with outside consultants,
and preparing to recruit subjects from the typical patient population to be
fitted with the PVA for voice use monitoring. The subject trials will allow us
to develop and refine a calibration procedure for the PVA to ensure accurate
parameter tracking; to compare the distribution of voice use parameters between
subjects whose occupations likely increase their risk of vocal fold trauma
(e.g., professional singers, teachers) and subjects with other occupations; to
compare the distribution of voice use parameters for patients with voice
pathology thought to be a result of voice abuse or misuse to those of subjects
with normal voices; to test the use of biofeedback with patients who are
undergoing speech therapy for its efficacy in improving compliance; and to
propose “safe limits” of voice use in at-risk populations from the distribution
of voice use parameters across occupation and voice pathology, and then provide
biofeedback based on those limits to those patients at risk.
The goal of the Phase I research to develop a one-hand
controlled speech synthesizer is to demonstrate the feasibility of both
constructing such a device and using it to produce natural speech in real time
using only a subset of the phonemes in North American English. The device
construction involves working with consultants to integrate
commercially-available hardware and software with custom software. Evaluating
the device requires two steps: first training subjects to produce speech with
the device over a two-month period, and then conducting listening tests with
other subjects to judge the speed, naturalness, and accuracy of such speech
when compared to a typical text-to-speech system.
My
research has been a topic in the class “Physiology, Acoustics and Perception of
Speech” I am currently teaching at the MGH Institute of Health Professions. As
lecturer, I have combined the traditional material necessary for the students’
foundation in the subject with discussions of current research methods and
student presentations of seminal papers.
|
Years |
Funding Source |
Status |
Grant title |
|
1993-1998 |
NIH |
Doctoral Trainee |
Speech and Hearing
Sciences Program |
|
1999-2001 |
NIH/SBIR Phase II |
Research Assisant |
Portable Vocal Accumulator |
|
2001-2004 |
NIH/NIDCD |
Co-Investigator |
Development of a Portable
Vocal Accumulator with Biofeedback |
|
2003 |
NIH/SBIR Phase I |
Principal Investigator |
One-Hand Control of a
Speech Synthesizer |
Project: One-Hand Control of a Speech
Synthesizer
Role: 1) Coordinate hardware integration with custom
software design.
2) Design and implement training protocol for
subjects to learn to
use the speech synthesizer.
3) Design and implement listening task to
evaluate the speech
produced by the system.
Project: Development of a Portable Vocal
Accumulator with Biofeedback
Role: 1) Circuit design and device prototyping.
2) Collection of voice use data for 12 hours
over consecutive days
in patients with mild, moderate, and severe dysphonia.
1. Local Contributions
1995 HST716J Signal Processing by the Auditory System:
Perception
6.182 Psychoacoustics Project Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
I served as the Graduate Teaching Assistant
for one semester in
each of these
courses for graduate (HST716J) and undergraduate
(6.182) students. Enrollment
was approximately 10 students and
20 students for HST716J and 6.182 respectively. Both courses
included
a laboratory component for 3 hours per week in addition
to
class time of 3 1-hour sessions per week.
Total preparation and
contact
time for each class was approximately 135 hours.
1996 HST720 Physiology of the Ear
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
I served as the Graduate Teaching Assistant
for one semester in
this required
graduate-level course for Speech and Hearing
Biosciences and Technology
students. About 10 students were
enrolled in the
class, and the total preparation and contact time was
approximately 120
hours.
1996 6.312 Acoustics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
I served as one of three Graduate Teaching
Assistants for one
semester in this
senior/graduate level course. Enrollment
was
approximately 120
students, and total preparation and contact
time was 300 hours.
1999 HST710J Speech Communication
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
I served as the Graduate Teaching Assistant
for one semester in
this required
graduate-level course for Speech and Hearing
Biosciences and Technology
students. Approximately 30
students
were enrolled in the
class, and total contact and preparation time
was 150 hours.
2002-2003 CD-721 Physiology, Acoustics and Perception
of Speech
MGH Institute of Health Professions
This is
a required master’s-level course for the MGH Speech
Language Pathology Graduate Program in the Department
of
Communication Sciences and Disorders. There are
approximately
50 students per term, and
the course meets once a week for 3
hours. Preparation and contact time total about 165
hours per
term.
Part III: Bibliography
1. Cheyne,
H.A., Nuss, R.C., Hillman, R.E. Electroglottography in the Pediatric Population. Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck
Surgery 1999; 125(10):1105-1108.
2. Hess, M., Schade, G., Kobler, J., Hillman,
R., Cheyne, H., Verdolini,
K., Ludwigs, M.
Doppelbelichtungsstroboskopie (Double-exposure
stroboscopy).
In: Gross M and Kruse E (eds.). Aktuelle phoniatrisch-pädaudiologische Aspekte 2000/2001 (Current aspects of phoniatrics
and audiology 2000/2001). 2001; 8:47-49.
3. Hillman R, Cheyne H.
Development of a Portable Voice Monitor With
Biofeedback Capability. Perspectives on
Voice and Voice Disorders 2003; 13(1): 23-25.
Cheyne, H.A. Estimating glottal voicing source characteristics by measuring and
modeling the acceleration of the skin on the neck [Dissertation]. Cambridge, MA,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. 201 pp.
Presentations
1. Nuss
R, Cheyne HA, Hillman RE. Electroglottography in the pediatric population. Presented at the American
Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology meeting,
2. Cheyne
HA. Measuring and modeling vocal
function with a miniature accelerometer.
Presented at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health
Sciences and Technology Forum,
3. Cheyne
HA, Hillman RE, Hanson HM, Stevens KN. Development and Testing of a New Portable Vocal Accumulator. Presented at The Voice Foundation’s 29th
Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice,
4. Cheyne
HA. Estimating glottal
voicing source characteristics by measuring and modeling the acceleration of
the skin on the neck. Presented at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and
Technology Forum,
5. Cheyne
HA. Estimating glottal
voicing source characteristics by measuring and modeling the acceleration of
the skin on the neck. Presented
at the First Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics (144th
Meeting of the Acoustical Society of