The perception of English-accented polish – a pilot study

•Does familiarity with a specific foreign language facilitate the recognition and identification of that accent in foreign-accented Polish

Acoustic Approaches to Gender and Accent Identification

There has been considerable research on the problems of speaker and language recognition from samples of speech. A less researched problem is that of accent recognition. Although this is a similar problem to language identification, di�erent accents of a language exhibit more fine-grained di�erences between classes than languages. This presents a tougher problem for traditional classification techniques. In this thesis, we propose and evaluate a number of techniques for gender and accent classification. These techniques are novel modifications and extensions to state of the art algorithms, and they result in enhanced performance on gender and accent recognition. The first part of the thesis focuses on the problem of gender identification, and presents a technique that gives improved performance in situations where training and test conditions are mismatched. The bulk of this thesis is concerned with the application of the i-Vector technique to accent identification, which is the most successful approach to acoustic classification to have emerged in recent years. We show that it is possible to achieve high accuracy accent identification without reliance on transcriptions and without utilising phoneme recognition algorithms. The thesis describes various stages in the development of i-Vector based accent classification that improve the standard approaches usually applied for speaker or language identification, which are insu�cient. We demonstrate that very good accent identification performance is possible with acoustic methods by considering di�erent i-Vector projections, frontend parameters, i-Vector configuration parameters, and an optimised fusion of the resulting i-Vector classifiers we can obtain from the same data. We claim to have achieved the best accent identification performance on the test corpus for acoustic methods, with up to 90% identification rate. This performance is even better than previously reported acoustic-phonotactic based systems on the same corpus, and is very close to performance obtained via transcription based accent identification. Finally, we demonstrate that the utilization of our techniques for speech recognition purposes leads to considerably lower word error rates. Keywords: Accent Identification, Gender Identification, Speaker Identification, Gaussian Mixture Model, Support Vector Machine, i-Vector, Factor Analysis, Feature Extraction, British English, Prosody, Speech Recognition

Effect of temporal parameters on the perception of foreign accent in synthesized speech

Previous research investigating the parameters that affect accent have concentrated mainly on talker characteristics (e.g Flege, 1988). Those studies that do attempt to investigate acoustic parameters rely on post-hoc analysis of signals already judged to be accented. Any acoustic differences between these signals are said to be the basis of accent judgments. The current investigation attempts to rectify this methodological flaw by manipulating acoustic parameter previously implicated in perceived foreign accent within synthesized speech. In a two experiment study we investigate the effect of consonant duration and consonant initial frequency (Experiment 1) along with voice onset time, vowel duration and stop closure duration (Experiment 2). All stimuli were presented to participants over headphones using E-prime 2.0 experimental software. Participants were asked to perform two tasks: an initial phoneme identification task and an accent rating task. Identification accuracy was not expected to change based on our manipulation. Accent ratings were expected to increase as parameters approached non-native values. Consonant duration and initial frequency failed to have any effect on accent due to flaws in our synthesis. This could be a by-product of synthesis issues apparent by unexpected detrimental effects of our manipulation on identification accuracy. VOT and vowel duration significantly impacted accent ratings while stop closure duration did not. These finding suggest that listeners do rely on temporal parameters of speech in their judgment of accent. Suggestions for methodological standards are given

Agnosia for accents in primary progressive aphasia.

As an example of complex auditory signal processing, the analysis of accented speech is potentially vulnerable in the progressive aphasias. However, the brain basis of accent processing and the effects of neurodegenerative disease on this processing are not well understood. Here we undertook a detailed neuropsychological study of a patient, AA with progressive nonfluent aphasia, in whom agnosia for accents was a prominent clinical feature. We designed a battery to assess AA's ability to process accents in relation to other complex auditory signals. AA's performance was compared with a cohort of 12 healthy age and gender matched control participants and with a second patient, PA, who had semantic dementia with phonagnosia and prosopagnosia but no reported difficulties with accent processing. Relative to healthy controls, the patients showed distinct profiles of accent agnosia. AA showed markedly impaired ability to distinguish change in an individual's accent despite being able to discriminate phonemes and voices (apperceptive accent agnosia); and in addition, a severe deficit of accent identification. In contrast, PA was able to perceive changes in accents, phonemes and voices normally, but showed a relatively mild deficit of accent identification (associative accent agnosia). Both patients showed deficits of voice and environmental sound identification, however PA showed an additional deficit of face identification whereas AA was able to identify (though not name) faces normally. These profiles suggest that AA has conjoint (or interacting) deficits involving both apperceptive and semantic processing of accents, while PA has a primary semantic (associative) deficit affecting accents along with other kinds of auditory objects and extending beyond the auditory modality. Brain MRI revealed left peri-Sylvian atrophy in case AA and relatively focal asymmetric (predominantly right sided) temporal lobe atrophy in case PA. These cases provide further evidence for the fractionation of brain mechanisms for complex sound analysis, and for the stratification of progressive aphasia syndromes according to the signature of nonverbal auditory deficits they produce

Regional and foreign accent processing in English: can listeners adapt?

Recent data suggest that the first presentation of a foreign accent triggers a delay in word identification, followed by a subsequent adaptation. This study examines under what conditions the delay resumes to baseline level. The delay will be experimentally induced by the presentation of sentences spoken to listeners in a foreign or a regional accent as part of a lexical decision task for words placed at the end of sentences. Using a blocked design of accents presentation, Experiment 1 shows that accent changes cause a temporary perturbation in reaction times, followed by a smaller but long-lasting delay. Experiment 2 shows that the initial perturbation is dependent on participants' expectations about the task. Experiment 3 confirms that the subsequent long-lasting delay in word identification does not habituate after repeated exposure to the same accent. Results suggest that comprehensibility of accented speech, as measured by reaction times, does not benefit from accent exposure, contrary to intelligibility

Accent identification by adults with aphasia

The UK is a diverse society where individuals regularly interact with speakers with different accents. Whilst there is a growing body of research on the impact of speaker accent on comprehension in people with aphasia, there is none which explores their ability to identify accents. This study investigated the ability of this group to identify the geographical origins of a speaker. Age-matched participants with and without aphasia listened to 120 audio recordings of five speakers each of six accents, reading aloud four sentences each. Listeners were asked to make a forced-choice decision about the geographical origin of the speaker. Adults with aphasia were significantly less accurate than control participants at identifying accents but both groups made the same pattern of errors. Adults with aphasia who are able to identify a new speaker as being from a particular place may draw on this information to help them “tune in” to the accent

High peaks versus high plateaux in the identification of two pitch accents in Pisa Italian

International audienceThe role of pitch pattern shape and perceptual target location is investigated here by means of an identification test involving two pitch accent categories in Pisa Italian. The perception test concerned the pitch accents used in contrastive and utterance-initial broad focus and was performed by asking subjects to identify two continua composed of peak and plateau stimuli whose alignment and scaling characteristics were manipulated. In line with previous findings, results show that alignment and scaling both play a role in accent identification and that pitch shape affects subject perception. In particular, plateau stimuli are perceived as late peak stimuli having the same fundamental frequency height or else they are perceived as early peak stimuli realized at a higher frequency

Acoustic and perceptual evidence of complete neutralization of word-final tonal specification in Japanese

M.A. University of Kansas, Linguistics 2002This study investigates the extent to which Japanese lexical pitch-accent distinction is neutralized in word-final position. Native speakers of Tokyo Japanese produced minimal word pairs differing in final accent status. Words were produced both in isolation and in a sentential context, where neutralization would not be expected due to following tonal specification. Examination of pitch patterns on relevant moras revealed a clear distinction between accent-opposed pairs produced in context but no such difference between items produced in isolation. Both the words produced in isolation and the words excised from sentential contexts were then presented to Japanese listeners in a lexical identification task. Participants could clearly distinguish items extracted from sentences but identified words uttered in isolation at chance level. These results suggest that phonological neutralization of final pitch accent is complete, showing no effects of underlying specification in either production or perception