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Nosey: Open-source hardware for acoustic nasalance

Maya Dewhurst, Jack Collins, Justin J. H. Lo, Roy Alderton, Sam Kirkham

TL;DR

This work introduces Nosey, an open-source, 3D-printed nasalance measurement system designed as a low-cost, customizable alternative to commercial nasometers. Through a direct comparison with the icSpeech Nasality Microphone, Nosey demonstrated higher raw nasalance but similar contrasts across phonological environments, indicating its viability for capturing vowel nasalance patterns while enabling hardware experimentation. The study emphasizes Nosey’s modularity, enabling adjustments in microphone type, placement, and processing, and outlines practical considerations for calibration and future development to extend its utility in phonetics and clinical contexts. Overall, Nosey provides a flexible platform that lowers cost barriers and supports methodological testing in nasalance research, with potential impact on large-scale data collection and adaptive experimental designs.

Abstract

We introduce Nosey (Nasalance Open Source Estimation sYstem), a low-cost, customizable, 3D-printed system for recording acoustic nasalance data that we have made available as open-source hardware (http://github.com/phoneticslab/nosey). We first outline the motivations and design principles behind our hardware nasalance system, and then present a comparison between Nosey and a commercial nasalance device. Nosey shows consistently higher nasalance scores than the commercial device, but the magnitude of contrast between phonological environments is comparable between systems. We also review ways of customizing the hardware to facilitate testing, such as comparison of microphones and different construction materials. We conclude that Nosey is a flexible and cost-effective alternative to commercial nasometry devices and propose some methodological considerations for its use in data collection.

Nosey: Open-source hardware for acoustic nasalance

TL;DR

This work introduces Nosey, an open-source, 3D-printed nasalance measurement system designed as a low-cost, customizable alternative to commercial nasometers. Through a direct comparison with the icSpeech Nasality Microphone, Nosey demonstrated higher raw nasalance but similar contrasts across phonological environments, indicating its viability for capturing vowel nasalance patterns while enabling hardware experimentation. The study emphasizes Nosey’s modularity, enabling adjustments in microphone type, placement, and processing, and outlines practical considerations for calibration and future development to extend its utility in phonetics and clinical contexts. Overall, Nosey provides a flexible platform that lowers cost barriers and supports methodological testing in nasalance research, with potential impact on large-scale data collection and adaptive experimental designs.

Abstract

We introduce Nosey (Nasalance Open Source Estimation sYstem), a low-cost, customizable, 3D-printed system for recording acoustic nasalance data that we have made available as open-source hardware (http://github.com/phoneticslab/nosey). We first outline the motivations and design principles behind our hardware nasalance system, and then present a comparison between Nosey and a commercial nasalance device. Nosey shows consistently higher nasalance scores than the commercial device, but the magnitude of contrast between phonological environments is comparable between systems. We also review ways of customizing the hardware to facilitate testing, such as comparison of microphones and different construction materials. We conclude that Nosey is a flexible and cost-effective alternative to commercial nasometry devices and propose some methodological considerations for its use in data collection.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 17 sections, 1 equation, 6 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Recording nasalance data
  3. Open-source nasalance hardware
  4. Motivations
  5. 3D-printed hardware
  6. Microphones and clips
  7. Printing and other components
  8. Customization
  9. Comparison with commercial system
  10. Overview
  11. Data collection
  12. Data processing and analysis
  13. Results
  14. Discussion
  15. Summary and limitations
  16. ...and 2 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Exploded view of 3D model for the nasalance system.
  • Figure 2: Assembled view of 3D model for the nasalance system.
  • Figure 3: 3D model of the removable, articulated, dual microphone holder.
  • Figure 4: Baffle sketch with four highlighted measurements responsible for changing the shape of the front of the baffle.
  • Figure 5: Baffle sketch with highlighted measurement controlling the distance of the cutout to the front of the baffle.
  • ...and 1 more figures