Answer to Question #289800 in Electrical Engineering for Avi

Question

Consider the variability of the vowel characteristics among speakers. If humans can create a phoneme from similar vocal tract shapes, but with different speaker identifiability, then the source and prosody must play a large role in speaker characteristics, as well as the vocal tract. A ventriloquist, for example, can keep his/her vocal tract in roughly the same shape (i.e. for a particular phoneme), yet mimic different voices. Offer an explanation in terms of source and prosodic characteristics. 

Answer 1

Human speech organs are a complex system. The prosodic characteristics of human speech include the pitch of our voice, length of sounds, loudness, and voice quality. When these fur work altogether, combined with our brain's ability to recall and imitate (thank to mirror neurons), we can imitate someone else's voice.