Manual of Clinical Phonetics

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has enabled examination of shaping along the entirety of the vocal tract during speech production, providing a means for observing and quantifying the “choreography” of the articulators, in space and time (in the case of real-time MRI), including structural/morphological characteristics of speakers in conjunction with their articulation dynamics and acoustics (Narayanan, Nayak, Lee, Sethy, & Byrd, 2004). Importantly, MRI offers a clear advantage over other instrumentation methods with respect to patient safety, relative non-invasiveness of imaging and the ability to image in 3D or simultaneously in multiple arbitrary 2D planes. On the other hand, MRI is typically more expensive and less accessible—with particular consequences for field studies—as compared to other sensing modalities.