Intra- and Inter-database Study for Arabic, English, and German Databases:Do Conventional Speech Features Detect Voice Pathology?

A large population around the world has voice complications. Various approaches for subjective and objective evaluations have been suggested in the literature. The subjective approach strongly depends on the experience and area of expertise of a clinician, and human error cannot be neglected. On the other hand, the objective or automatic approach is noninvasive. Automatic developed systems can provide complementary information that may be helpful for a clinician in the early screening of a voice disorder. At the same time, automatic systems can be deployed in remote areas where a general practitioner can use them and may refer the patient to a specialist to avoid complications that may be life threatening. Many automatic systems for disorder detection have been developed by applying different types of conventional speech features such as the linear prediction coefficients, linear prediction cepstral coefficients, and Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs). This study aims to ascertain whether conventional speech features detect voice pathology reliably, and whether they can be correlated with voice quality. To investigate this, an automatic detection system based on MFCC was developed, and three different voice disorder databases were used in this study. The experimental results suggest that the accuracy of the MFCC-based system varies from database to database. The detection rate for the intra-database ranges from 72% to 95%, and that for the inter-database is from 47% to 82%. The results conclude that conventional speech features are not correlated with voice, and hence are not reliable in pathology detection

Concepts, Introspection, and Phenomenal Consciousness: An Information-Theoretical Approach

This essay is a sustained information-theoretic attempt to bring new light on some of the perennial problems in the philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection. Following Dretske (1981), we present and develop an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call <em>sensory concepts</em>, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call <em>phenomenal concepts</em>: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, like RED. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them

Beyond Face and Voice: A Review of Alexithymia and Emotion Perception in Music, Odor, Taste, and Touch

Alexithymia is a clinically relevant personality trait characterized by deficits in recognizing and verbalizing one’s emotions. It has been shown that alexithymia is related to an impaired perception of external emotional stimuli, but previous research focused on emotion perception from faces and voices. Since sensory modalities represent rather distinct input channels it is important to know whether alexithymia also affects emotion perception in other modalities and expressive domains. The objective of our review was to summarize and systematically assess the literature on the impact of alexithymia on the perception of emotional (or hedonic) stimuli in music, odor, taste, and touch. Eleven relevant studies were identified. On the basis of the reviewed research, it can be preliminary concluded that alexithymia might be associated with deficits in the perception of primarily negative but also positive emotions in music and a reduced perception of aversive taste. The data available on olfaction and touch are inconsistent or ambiguous and do not allow to draw conclusions. Future investigations would benefit from a multimethod assessment of alexithymia and control of negative affect. Multimodal research seems necessary to advance our understanding of emotion perception deficits in alexithymia and clarify the contribution of modality-specific and supramodal processing impairments

Models and analysis of vocal emissions for biomedical applications: 5th International Workshop: December 13-15, 2007, Firenze, Italy

The MAVEBA Workshop proceedings, held on a biannual basis, collect the scientific papers presented both as oral and poster contributions, during the conference. The main subjects are: development of theoretical and mechanical models as an aid to the study of main phonatory dysfunctions, as well as the biomedical engineering methods for the analysis of voice signals and images, as a support to clinical diagnosis and classification of vocal pathologies. The Workshop has the sponsorship of: Ente Cassa Risparmio di Firenze, COST Action 2103, Biomedical Signal Processing and Control Journal (Elsevier Eds.), IEEE Biomedical Engineering Soc. Special Issues of International Journals have been, and will be, published, collecting selected papers from the conference

SPECTRAL/CEPSTRAL ANALYSIS OF VOICE QUALITY IN PATIENTS WITH PARKINSONS DISEASE

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine whether Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) affects cepstral/spectral measures of voice quality in speakers with idiopathic Parkinsons Disease (PD). The first study investigated the effect of LSVT on cepstral/spectral measures of sustained // vowels to determine whether voice quality improves. Few studies have investigated the effects of LSVT on voice quality using acoustic measures, and none have used cepstral measures. The first study investigated the effect of LSVT on cepstral/spectral analyses of sustained // vowels produced by speakers. Sustained vowels were analyzed for cepstral peak prominence (CPP), CPP Standard Deviation (CPP-SD), Low/High Spectral Ratio (L/H SR), and Cepstral/Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID) using the Analysis of Dysphonia in Speech and Voice (ADSV) program. The study found both improved harmonic structure and voice quality as reflected in cepstral/spectral measures. Voice quality in connected speech is important because it is representative of how a typical individual communicates. Thus, the second studys goals were: First, to investigate the effect of LSVT on cepstral/spectral analysis of connected speech; and second, to compare cepstral/spectral analyses findings in connected speech with findings observed in sustained phonation. Another goal was to examine individual differences in response to treatment and compare them to individual changes observed in sustained phonation. The results demonstrated that CPP increased significantly following LSVT, indicating improved harmonic dominance as a result of treatment, and CSID decreased following LSVT, indicating a reduction of the overall severity in connected speech at the group level. Analysis of individual differences demonstrated that only four participants improved by at least one half Standard Deviation (SD) following treatment in CPP, CPP-SD, and CSID in both sustained phonation and connected speech tasks. Three showed a reduction in L/H SR in sustained phonation and only one showed an increase in L/H SR in connected speech. The other participants improvement varied, but the majority demonstrated voice quality improvement in sustained phonation. The overall results indicated that CPP and CSID were strong acoustic measures for demonstrating voice quality improvement following treatment in both tasks connected speech and sustained phonation

Cognitive Architecture, Concepts, and Introspection: An Information-Theoretic Solution to the Problem of Phenomenal Consciousness

This essay is a sustained attempt to bring new light to some of the perennial problems in philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection through developing an account of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Building on the information-theoretic framework of Dretske (1981), we present an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call sensory concepts, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call phenomenal concepts: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, such as the concept of red. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them

Review of Research on Speech Technology: Main Contributions From Spanish Research Groups

In the last two decades, there has been an important increase in research on speech technology in Spain, mainly due to a higher level of funding from European, Spanish and local institutions and also due to a growing interest in these technologies for developing new services and applications. This paper provides a review of the main areas of speech technology addressed by research groups in Spain, their main contributions in the recent years and the main focus of interest these days. This description is classified in five main areas: audio processing including speech, speaker characterization, speech and language processing, text to speech conversion and spoken language applications. This paper also introduces the Spanish Network of Speech Technologies (RTTH. Red Temática en Tecnologías del Habla) as the research network that includes almost all the researchers working in this area, presenting some figures, its objectives and its main activities developed in the last years

Auditory and speech processing in specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia

This thesis investigates auditory and speech processing in Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and dyslexia. One influential theory of SLI and dyslexia postulates that both SLI and dyslexia stem from similar underlying sensory deficit that impacts speech perception and phonological development leading to oral language and literacy deficits. Previous studies, however, have shown that these underlying sensory deficits exist in only a subgroup of language impaired individuals, and the exact nature of these deficits is still largely unknown. The present thesis investigates three aspects of auditory-phonetic interface: 1) The weighting of acoustic cues to phonetic voicing contrast 2) the preattentive and attentive discrimination of speech and non-linguistic stimuli and 3) the formation of auditory memory traces for speech and non-linguistic stimuli in young adults with SLI and dyslexia. This thesis focuses on looking at both individial and group-level data of auditory and speech processing and their relationship with higher-level language measures. The groups of people with SLI and dyslexia who participated were aged between 14 and 25 and their performance was compared to a group of controls matched on chronological age, IQ, gender and handedness. Investigations revealed a complex pattern of behaviour. The results showed that individuals with SLI or dyslexia are not poor at discriminating sounds (whether speech or non-speech). However, in all experiments, there was more variation and more outliers in the SLI group indicating that auditory deficits may occur in a small subgroup of the SLI population. Moreover, investigations of the exact nature of the input-processing deficit revealed that some individuals with SLI have less categorical representations for speech sounds and that they weight the acoustic cues to phonemic identity differently from controls and dyslexics