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Voice ‘donors’ from Perth and Kinross needed to create speech data bank

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A research project is seeking the dulcet tones of Perth and Kinross residents to help give a voice to those with speech problems.

The Voicebank Research Project aims to build personalised synthetic voices for people to use in communication aids when speech becomes difficult.

Many people lose their own voice through injury or neurodegenerative conditions and have to rely on technology.

Using recordings of an individual’s voice and of accent-matched “donors”, specialised software can automatically build a personalised synthetic voice.

The project is seeking donor accents from all across Scotland to help build up a voice data bank.

Around 80-95% of people with motor neurone disease will experience communication problems.

Gemma Bradley, of Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Scotland, who has volunteered her voice, said: “I felt in some small way that I had helped with MND research and will hopefully help someone living with MND.”

Recordings take place at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, next to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and take an hour.

Donors must be over 16, native English speakers and have no speech or reading difficulties.

For more information about the project email info@smart-mnd.org or visit www.smart-mnd.org/voicebank.