Speech Recognition

Chapters in the first part of the book cover all the essential speech processing techniques for building robust, automatic speech recognition systems: the representation for speech signals and the methods for speech-features extraction, acoustic and language modeling, efficient algorithms for searching the hypothesis space, and multimodal approaches to speech recognition. The last part of the book is devoted to other speech processing applications that can use the information from automatic speech recognition for speaker identification and tracking, for prosody modeling in emotion-detection systems and in other speech processing applications that are able to operate in real-world environments, like mobile communication services and smart homes

Essential Speech and Language Technology for Dutch: Results by the STEVIN-programme

Computational Linguistics; Germanic Languages; Artificial Intelligence (incl. Robotics); Computing Methodologie

A study on reusing resources of speech synthesis for closely-related languages

This thesis describes research on building a text-to-speech (TTS) framework that can accommodate the lack of linguistic information of under-resource languages by using existing resources from another language. It describes the adaptation process required when such limited resource is used. The main natural languages involved in this research are Malay and Iban language. The thesis includes a study on grapheme to phoneme mapping and the substitution of phonemes. A set of substitution matrices is presented which show the phoneme confusion in term of perception among respondents. The experiments conducted study the intelligibility as well as perception based on context of utterances. The study on the phonetic prosody is then presented and compared to the Klatt duration model. This is to find the similarities of cross language duration model if one exists. Then a comparative study of Iban native speaker with an Iban polyglot TTS using Malay resources is presented. This is to confirm that the prosody of Malay can be used to generate Iban synthesised speech. The central hypothesis of this thesis is that by using a closely-related language resource, a natural sounding speech can be produced. The aim of this research was to show that by sticking to the indigenous language characteristics, it is possible to build a polyglot synthesised speech system even with insufficient speech resources

Proceedings of the 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the SMC2010 - 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference, July 21st - July 24th 2010

Proceedings: Voice Technology for Interactive Real-Time Command/Control Systems Application

Speech understanding among researchers and managers, current developments in voice technology, and an exchange of information concerning government voice technology efforts are discussed

Generating intelligent tutoring systems for teaching reading: combining phonological awareness and thematic approaches

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the use of computers with artificial intelligence methods for the teaching of basic literacy skills to be applied eventually to the teaching of illiterate adults in Brazil.In its development many issues related to adult education have been considered, and two very significant approaches to the teaching of reading were focused on in detail: Phonological Awareness (PA) and Generative Themes. After being excluded from literacy curricula for a long time during the ascendancy of the "Whole Word" approaches, activities for the development of phonological awareness are currently being accepted as fundamental for teaching reading, and are being incorporated in most English literacy programmes. Generative Themes, in turn, were first introduced in Brazil in a massive programme for teaching reading to adults, and have since then been used successfully in a number of developing countries for the same purpose. However, these two approaches are apparently conflicting in their principles and emphasis, for the first (PA) is generally centred on the technical aspects of phonology, based on well controlled experiments and research, whereas the second is socially inspired and focused mainly on meaning and social relationships.The main question addressed in this research, consequently, is whether these two apparently conflicting approaches could be combined to create a method that would be technically PA oriented but at the same time could concentrate on meaning by using thematic vocabularies as stimuli for teaching. Would it be possible to find words to illustrate all the phonological features with which a PA method deals using a thematic vocabulary?To answer this question diverse concepts, languages and tools have been developed as part of this research, in order to allow the selection of thematic vocabularies, the description of PA curricula, the distribution of thematic words across PA curricula, the description of teaching activities and the definition of the teaching strategy rules to orient the teaching sequence.The resultant vocabularies have been evaluated and the outcomes of the research have been assessed by literacy experts. A prototype system for delivering experimental teaching activities through the Internet has also been developed and demonstrated

Digital Sound Studies

The digital turn has created new opportunities for scholars across disciplines to use sound in their scholarship. This volume’s contributors provide a blueprint for making sound central to research, teaching, and dissemination. They show how digital sound studies has the potential to transform silent, text-centric cultures of communication in the humanities into rich, multisensory experiences that are more inclusive of diverse knowledges and abilities. Drawing on multiple disciplines—including rhetoric and composition, performance studies, anthropology, history, and information science—the contributors to Digital Sound Studies bring digital humanities and sound studies into productive conversation while probing the assumptions behind the use of digital tools and technologies in academic life. In so doing, they explore how sonic experience might transform our scholarly networks, writing processes, research methodologies, pedagogies, and knowledges of the archive