Analysing the Performance of Automatic Speech Recognition for Ageing Voice: Does it Correlate with Dependency Level?

International audienceAmbient Assisted Living aims at providing assistance by allowing people with special needs to perform tasks which they have increasing difficulty with and to provide reassurance through surveillance in order to detect distress and accidental falls. Aged people are among the ones who might benefit from advances in ICT to live as long as possible in their own home. Voice-base smart home is a promising way to provide AAL, but even mature technologies must be evaluated from the perspec- tive of its potential beneficiaries. In this paper, we investigate which characteristics of the ageing voice that challenge a state of the art ASR system. Though in the literature, chronological age is retain as the sole factor predicting decrease in performance, we show that degree of loss of autonomy is even more correlated to ASR performance

Development of Automatic Speech Recognition Techniques for Elderly Home Support: Applications and Challenges

International audienceVocal command may have considerable advantages in terms of usability in the AAL domain. However, efficient audio analysis in smart home environment is a challenging task in large part because of bad speech recognition results in the case of elderly people. Dedicated speech corpora were recorded and employed to adapted generic speech recog-nizers to this type of population. Evaluation results of a first experiment allowed to draw conclusions about the distress call detection. A second experiments involved participants who played fall scenarios in a realistic smart home, 67% of the distress calls were detected online. These results show the difficulty of the task and serve as basis to discuss the stakes and the challenges of this promising technology for AAL

Speech Recognition of Aged Voices in the AAL Context: Detection of Distress Sentences

International audienceBy 2050, about a third of the French population will be over 65. In the context of technologies development aiming at helping aged people to live independently at home, the CIRDO project aims at implementing an ASR system into a social inclusion product designed for elderly people in order to detect distress situations. Speech recognition systems present higher word error rate when speech is uttered by elderly speakers compared to when non-aged voice is considered. Two specialized corpora in French, AD80 and ERES38, were recorded in this framework by aged people, they were used first to study the possibility of adaptation of standard ASR to aged voice. Then we looked at whether the variability of the WER between speakers could be correlated with the level of dependence. Then, we assessed the performance of distress sentence detection by a filter and we demonstrated a significant drop in performance for those with the lowest degree of autonomy

In-home detection of distress calls: the case of aged users

International audienceIn the context of technologies development aiming at helping aged people to live independently at home, the CIRDO1 project aims at implementing an ASR system into a social inclusion product designed for elderly people in order to detect distress situations and provide capability to call for help. In this context we present a system able to detect distress and call for help sentences on line

Contribution à l'étude de la variabilité de la voix des personnes âgées en reconnaissance automatique de la parole (Contribution to the study of elderly people's voice variability in automatic speech recognition) [in French]

National audienceL'utilisation de la reconnaissance vocale pour l'assistance à la vie autonome se heurte à la difficulté d'utilisation des systèmes de RAP qui ne sont pas prévus à la base pour la voix âgée. Pour caractériser les différences de comportement d'un système de reconnaissance entre les personnes âgées et non-âgées, nous avons étudié quels sont les phonèmes les moins bien reconnus en nous basant sur le corpus AD80 que nous avons enregistré. Les résultats montrent que certains phonèmes tels que les plosives sont plus spécifiquement affectés par l'âge. De plus nous avons recueilli le corpus spécifique ERES38 afin d'adapter les modèles acoustiques, avec pour résultat une diminution du taux d'erreur de mot de 15%. Malgré la grande variabilité des performances, nous avons caractérisé comment la baisse des performances du système de reconnaissance automatique de la parole peut être corrélée avec la baisse d'autonomie des personnes âgées

Continuous Contaminated site Monitoring (CCSM), Integrated remote real-time supervision for old coking-plant site

http://www.iemss.org/iemss2002/proceedings/pdf/volume%20uno/347_portet.pdfInternational audienceThe purpose of the Continuous Contaminated Site Monitoring (CCSM) is to develop a real time management methodology for PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) contaminated aquifer resulting from coal activity. For full-scale experimentation, since June 2000 an old coking plant site has been instrumented (sensors, analysers, datalogger, programmable logic controller, etc....). Its follow-up currently continues with remote supervision, via telecom connection. The Contaminated Sites Monitoring is a necessity to control the evolution of pollution and therefore the risk to human health or environment. With aromatic hydrocarbons contamination, one is generally satisfied with selective investigation, in fact incomplete and non-representative of the reality. Rarely a real time supervision of the natural evolution of PAHs pollution in the groundwater or in the ground combined with surrounding parameters (weather, rains,etc...) is carried out. This experimental CCSM is able to highlight some correlation between pollution evolution and weather conditions. For the natural attenuation activity deduced from measurements of biogaz in unsaturated area, a strong activity has been observed in hot temperatures (consumption of oxygen and emission of carbon dioxide) and a low one in cold periods. For the daily rate PAH analysis of aquifer water, a field UVfluorometer is used. Calibrated with naphthalene (the most soluble PAH), the water fluorescence is equivalent to a concentration of naphthalene but a post-treatment of data is necessary in order to correct the drift of the analyser between calibrations. Subsequently the measured & treated data are restituted/exploited using an integrated tool consisting of a GIS (Geographic Information System), interconnected to a Database and a mass transport model. The whole results are presented with a convivial and ergonomic integrated tool adapted for decision making support. The polluted site managers can thus visualise any aspect of the pollution and identify the relevant indicators, which can then be compared with other parameters or transport simulations

Recognition of Distress Calls in Distant Speech Setting: a Preliminary Experiment in a Smart Home

International audienceThis paper presents a system to recognize distress speech in the home of seniors to provide reassurance and assistance. The system is aiming at being integrated into a larger system for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) using only one microphone with a fix position in a non-intimate room. The paper presents the details of the automatic speech recognition system which must work under distant speech condition and with expressive speech. Moreover, privacy is ensured by running the decoding on-site and not on a remote server. Furthermore the system was biased to recognize only set of sentences defined after a user study. The system has been evaluated in a smart space reproducing a typical living room where 17 participants played scenarios including falls during which they uttered distress calls. The results showed a promising error rate of 29% while emphasizing the challenges of the task

Acquisition et reconnaissance automatique d'expressions et d'appels vocaux dans un habitat

International audienceThis paper presents a system to recognize calls for help in the home of seniors to provide reassurance and assistance. The system is using an ASR which must operate with distant and expressive speech. Moreover, privacy is ensured by running the decoding on-site and not on a remote server. Furthermore the system was biased to recognize only set of sentences. The system has been evaluated in a smart space reproducing a typical living room where 17 participants played scenarios including falls. The results showed a promising error rate, 29%, while emphasizing the challenges of the task.Cet article présente un système capable de reconnaître les appels à l'aide de personnes âgées vivant à domicile afin de leur fournir une assistance. Le système utilise une technologie de Reconnaissance Automatique de la Parole (RAP) qui doit fonctionner en conditions de parole distante et avec de la parole expressive. Pour garantir l'intimité, le système s'exécute localement et ne reconnaît que des phrases prédéfinies. Le système a été évalué par 17 participants jouant des scénarios incluant des chutes dans un Living lab reproduisant un salon. Le taux d'erreur de détection obtenu, 29%, est encourageant et souligne les défis à surmonter pour cette tâche

Recognition of Distress Calls in Distant Speech Setting: a Preliminary Experiment in a Smart Home

International audienc

Reconnaissance automatique de la parole dans les habitats intelligents : application à l'assistance à domicile

National audienceRésumé—Pour relever le défi du maintie a domicile de la population vieillissante, l'enjeu est d'améliorer la vie quotidienne des personne agées afin qu'elles soient toujours maitresses de leurs choix et qu'elles utilisent la technologie pour continue a vivre demanì ere autonome a apprendre e a s'investir dans la vie sociale. Les technologies du traitement de la parole peuvent apporter une contribution importante. Dans cet article, nous dressons un tour d'horizon des verrous e ecueils technique a résoudre pour les rendre pleinement opérationnelles avant de décrire les travaux que nous avons accomplis et qui ont permis d'appliquer ces technique a la commande vocale dans un appartement intelligen equipé de matériel domotique et de le evaluer avec des utilisateur agés ou malvoyants