6,061 research outputs found
Privacy-Protecting Techniques for Behavioral Data: A Survey
Our behavior (the way we talk, walk, or think) is unique and can be used as a biometric trait. It also correlates with sensitive attributes like emotions. Hence, techniques to protect individuals privacy against unwanted inferences are required. To consolidate knowledge in this area, we systematically reviewed applicable anonymization techniques. We taxonomize and compare existing solutions regarding privacy goals, conceptual operation, advantages, and limitations. Our analysis shows that some behavioral traits (e.g., voice) have received much attention, while others (e.g., eye-gaze, brainwaves) are mostly neglected. We also find that the evaluation methodology of behavioral anonymization techniques can be further improved
Sub-Sync: automatic synchronization of subtitles in the broadcasting of true live programs in spanish
Individuals With Sensory Impairment (Hearing Or Visual) Encounter Serious Communication Barriers Within Society And The World Around Them. These Barriers Hinder The Communication Process And Make Access To Information An Obstacle They Must Overcome On A Daily Basis. In This Context, One Of The Most Common Complaints Made By The Television (Tv) Users With Sensory Impairment Is The Lack Of Synchronism Between Audio And Subtitles In Some Types Of Programs. In Addition, Synchronization Remains One Of The Most Significant Factors In Audience Perception Of Quality In Live-Originated Tv Subtitles For The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing. This Paper Introduces The Sub-Sync Framework Intended For Use In Automatic Synchronization Of Audio-Visual Contents And Subtitles, Taking Advantage Of Current Well-Known Techniques Used In Symbol Sequences Alignment. In This Particular Case, These Symbol Sequences Are The Subtitles Produced By The Broadcaster Subtitling System And The Word Flow Generated By An Automatic Speech Recognizing The Procedure. The Goal Of Sub-Sync Is To Address The Lack Of Synchronism That Occurs In The Subtitles When Produced During The Broadcast Of Live Tv Programs Or Other Programs That Have Some Improvised Parts. Furthermore, It Also Aims To Resolve The Problematic Interphase Of Synchronized And Unsynchronized Parts Of Mixed Type Programs. In Addition, The Framework Is Able To Synchronize The Subtitles Even When They Do Not Correspond Literally To The Original Audio And/Or The Audio Cannot Be Completely Transcribed By An Automatic Process. Sub-Sync Has Been Successfully Tested In Different Live Broadcasts, Including Mixed Programs, In Which The Synchronized Parts (Recorded, Scripted) Are Interspersed With Desynchronized (Improvised) Ones
Quantifying mutual-understanding in dialogue
PhDThere are two components of communication that provide a natural index of mutual-understanding in dialogue. The first is Repair; the ways in which people detect and deal with problems with understanding. The second is Ellipsis/Anaphora; the use of expressions that depend directly on the accessibility of the local context for their interpretation. This thesis explores the use of these two phenomena in systematic comparative analyses of human-human dialogue under different task and media conditions. In order to do this it is necessary to a) develop reliable, valid protocols for coding the different Repair and Ellipsis/Anaphora phenomena b) establish their baseline patterns of distribution in conversation and c) model their basic statistical inter-relationships and their predictive value. Two new protocols for coding Repair and Ellipsis/Anaphora phenomena are presented and applied to two dialogue corpora, one of ordinary 'everyday' conversations and one of task-oriented dialogues. These data illustrate that there are significant differences in how understanding is created and negotiated across conditions. Repair is shown to be a ubiquitous feature in all dialogue. The goals of the speaker directly affect the type of Repair used. Giving instructions leads to a higher rate of self-editing; following instructions increases corrections and requests for clarification. Medium and familiarity also influence Repair; when eye contact is not possible there are a greater number of repeats and clarifications. Anaphora are used less frequently in task-oriented dialogue whereas types of Ellipsis increase. The use of Elliptical phrases that check, confirm or acknowledge is higher when there is no eye contact. Familiar pairs use more elliptical expressions, especially endophora and elliptical questions. Following instructions leads to greater use of elliptical (non-sentential) phrases. Medium, task and social norms all have a measureable effect on the components of dialogue that underpin mutual-understanding
Attention To People Like You: A Proposal Regarding Neuroendocrine Effects on Linguistic Variation
Although the literature on language change has often replicated and discussed a pattern in which female speakers lead in changes that occur below the level of awareness, there is no consensus on why this pattern should arise. Interestingly, recent findings in endocrinology show that differences in prenatal testosterone exposure can impact learning patterns. In the light of these findings, we first present preliminary results consistent with the hypothesis that a biological factor, prenatal exposure to androgens, can have a small, continuous biasing effect on linguistic variation, namely the variable duration of pre-aspiration conditioned by voiceless obstruents in Tyneside English. Second, we propose an explanatory model in which the biological factor—prenatal testosterone exposure—creates subtle bias in how speakers learn linguistic variants and suggest that some reported sex effects are derivative. This model is compatible with the high tendency for females to lead in language change from below (Labov 1990: 206)
From dysfunctional to extraordinary verbal repetition abilities: clinical implications and neural features
Three cases are presented to index the hypothesis that mitigated echolalia emerges from overreliance on the dorsal language stream, through the arcuate fasciculus, when the ventral stream is damaged; whereas conduite d’approche ensues when the ventral stream attempts to compensate a dorsal damage.
The role of the right hemisphere and other alternative pathways in both cerebral hemispheres in the successful compensation of brain injury is also discussed. Further, Study 2 reconceptualizes different types of echolalia within a continuous of severity and communication capacity. To accomplish this new instantiation, it is proposed that different types of echolalia may be associated to failure in distinctive linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive functions. Recommendations for its evaluation and treatment are provided, suggesting that echolalia interfering with functional communication should be treated. Further, complementing the previous one, Study 3 reports a comprehensive single case study exploring response to treatment, and behavioral and neuroimaging features of a person with mitigated echolalia associated to a chronic fluent aphasia. Findings from such case include a reduction of mitigated echolalia after two weeks of intensive aphasia therapy as well as the maintenance of these gains with memantine alone for at least 6 months. Importantly, reduction of mitigated echolalia instances in response to treatment speeded up the time needed to complete comprehension tasks. Neuroimaging results, although indirectly, suggested that mitigated echolalia may be supported by the activity of the remaining components of the left dorsal stream and compensatory right hemisphere recruitment.
Additionally, to further explore the neural and cognitive mechanisms involved in verbal repetition in a model of language expertise, Study 4 tackles cognitive features and neural correlates of verbal expertise in two healthy adult subjects displaying an extraordinary ability to orally reverse language, a condition referred to as backward speech. Results suggest that phonological expertise, as shown in backward speech, involves reshaping (or pre-existent differences) of cortical areas and tracts relevant for auditory-motor integration and semantic processing. Greater functional coupling between critical language areas and domain-general and high-order visual areas may further support reversing processes. Lastly, Study 5 presents a systematic review of the literature aimed to examine sex differences in the prevalence of repetition deficits in persons with post-stroke aphasia. Results show that the proportion of females in the group of aphasia characterized by repetition deficits (i.e., conduction aphasia) is lower than the expected by the prevalence of stroke among them. It is suggested that sex-related differences in the volume of areas of the right hemisphere homologues to the ones subserving repetition in the left hemisphere may be at the base of this difference. This finding poses sex as a relevant variable to account for variance in repetition abilities, and as a relevant factor to consider in future studies of language acquisition, maturation, and relearning promoted by aphasia therapy. Fecha de lectura de Tesis Doctoral: 16 de diciembre 2019Verbal repetition and audio-visual imitation stand as crucial functions for the acquisition and maturation of language in childhood, language learning in adulthood, and a major resource for language recovery after brain damage. Although modern neuroimaging techniques have allowed the identification of the brain areas involved in repetition tasks in healthy subjects, many clinical and neural aspects of this linguistic function are still overlooked in persons with aphasia and in emerging models of language expertise. Therefore, the present dissertation aims to explore cognitive correlates and neural features of verbal repetition from different perspectives including models of dysfunctional repetition (i.e., people with aphasia) and language expertise (i.e., healthy backward speakers). Generally, this thesis explores the potential of the dorsal and ventral components of the neural network supporting verbal repetition to assume, under certain circumstances (e.g., brain damage or extraordinary abilities), non-canonical functions. Further, this dissertation addresses clinical issues of some aphasic symptoms characterized by uncontrolled repetition (i.e., echolalia), as well as reviews sex as a source of variability in verbal repetition outcomes after brain damage.
This dissertation includes five studies that are part of this dissertation. First, it reviews the mechanisms involved in dysfunctional repetition, especially in two repetitive verbal behaviors named conduite d’approche and mitigated echolalia (Study 1) and addresses clinical issues of the last one (Study 2 and 3). In this regard, Study 1 proposes that in the context of aphasia these symptoms (i.e., conduite d’approche and mitigated echolalia) may represent active attempts of verbal communication, rather than inconsequential repetitive verbal behaviors resulting from maladaptive neural changes
Topic Break Detection in Interview Dialogues Using Sentence Embedding of Utterance and Speech Intention Based on Multitask Neural Networks
Currently, task-oriented dialogue systems that perform specific tasks based on dialogue are widely used. Moreover, research and development of non-task-oriented dialogue systems are also actively conducted. One of the problems with these systems is that it is difficult to switch topics naturally. In this study, we focus on interview dialogue systems. In an interview dialogue, the dialogue system can take the initiative as an interviewer. The main task of an interview dialogue system is to obtain information about the interviewee via dialogue and to assist this individual in understanding his or her personality and strengths. In order to accomplish this task, the system needs to be flexible and appropriate for detecting topic switching and topic breaks. Given that topic switching tends to be more ambiguous in interview dialogues than in task-oriented dialogues, existing topic modeling methods that determine topic breaks based only on relationships and similarities between words are likely to fail. In this study, we propose a method for detecting topic breaks in dialogue to achieve flexible topic switching in interview dialogue systems. The proposed method is based on multi-task learning neural network that uses embedded representations of sentences to understand the context of the text and utilizes the intention of an utterance as a feature. In multi-task learning, not only topic breaks but also the intention associated with the utterance and the speaker are targets of prediction. The results of our evaluation experiments show that using utterance intentions as features improves the accuracy of topic separation estimation compared to the baseline model
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACOUSTIC FEATURES OF SECOND LANGUAGE SPEECH AND LISTENER EVALUATION OF SPEECH QUALITY
Second language (L2) speech is typically less fluent than native speech, and differs from it phonetically. While the speech of some L2 English speakers seems to be easily understood by native listeners despite the presence of a foreign accent, other L2 speech seems to be more demanding, such that listeners must expend considerable effort in order to understand it. One reason for this increased difficulty may simply be the speaker’s pronunciation accuracy or phonetic intelligibility. If a L2 speaker’s pronunciations of English sounds differ sufficiently from the sounds that native listeners expect, these differences may force native listeners to work much harder to understand the divergent speech patterns. However, L2 speakers also tend to differ from native ones in terms of fluency – the degree to which a speaker is able to produce appropriately structured phrases without unnecessary pauses, self-corrections or restarts. Previous studies have shown that measures of fluency are strongly predictive of listeners’ subjective ratings of the acceptability of L2 speech: Less fluent speech is consistently considered less acceptable (Ginther, Dimova, & Yang, 2010). However, since less fluent speakers tend also to have less accurate pronunciations, it is unclear whether or how these factors might interact to influence the amount of effort listeners exert to understand L2 speech, nor is it clear how listening effort might relate to perceived quality or acceptability of speech. In this dissertation, two experiments were designed to investigate these questions
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