Vocal Textures:

Speech science is the interdisciplinary study of how spoken language is produced, transmitted, and perceived. It bridges the gap between biological mechanics, physical acoustics, and cognitive neuroscience to understand how humans communicate.

The field is generally broken down into three major pillars, historically categorized under the umbrella of phonetics:

┌─────────────────────────┐ │ SPEECH PRODUCTION │ │ (Articulatory Phonetics)│ └────────────┬────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ SPEECH TRANSMISSION │ │ (Acoustic Phonetics) │ └────────────┬────────────┘ │ ▼ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ SPEECH PERCEPTION │ │ (Perceptual Phonetics) │ └─────────────────────────┘ 1. Speech Production (Articulatory Phonetics)

Speech production requires the coordinated control of roughly 100 different muscles. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) splits this physical mechanism into four distinct phases: How Speech is More Than The Words We Speak