Speaker Identification for Swiss German with Spectral and Rhythm Features

We present results of speech rhythm analysis for automatic speaker identification. We expand previous experiments using similar methods for language identification. Features describing the rhythmic properties of salient changes in signal components are extracted and used in an speaker identification task to determine to which extent they are descriptive of speaker variability. We also test the performance of state-of-the-art but simple-to-extract frame-based features. The paper focus is the evaluation on one corpus (swiss german, TEVOID) using support vector machines. Results suggest that the general spectral features can provide very good performance on this dataset, whereas the rhythm features are not as successful in the task, indicating either the lack of suitability for this task or the dataset specificity

Speakers are more cooperative and less individual when interacting in larger group sizes

Introduction: Cooperation, acoustically signaled through vocal convergence, is facilitated when group members are more similar. Excessive vocal convergence may, however, weaken individual recognizability. This study aimed to explore whether constraints to convergence can arise in circumstances where interlocutors need to enhance their vocal individuality. Therefore, we tested the effects of group size (3 and 5 interactants) on vocal convergence and individualization in a social communication scenario in which individual recognition by voice is at stake. Methods: In an interactive game, players had to recognize each other through their voices while solving a cooperative task online. The vocal similarity was quantified through similarities in speaker i-vectors obtained through probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA). Speaker recognition performance was measured through the system Equal Error Rate (EER). Results: Vocal similarity between-speakers increased with a larger group size which indicates a higher cooperative vocal behavior. At the same time, there wasan increase in EER for the same speakers between the smaller and the largergroup size, meaning a decrease in overall recognition performance. Discussion: The decrease in vocal individualization in the larger group size suggests thatingroup cooperation and social cohesion conveyed through acoustic convergence have priority over individualization in larger groups of unacquainted speakers

Reorganization of the auditory-perceptual space across the human vocal range

We analyzed the auditory-perceptual space across a substantial portion of the human vocal range (220-1046 Hz) using multidimensional scaling analysis of cochlea-scaled spectra from 250-ms vowel segments, initially studied in Friedrichs et al. (2017) J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 142 1025-1033. The dataset comprised the vowels /i y e {\o} {\epsilon} a o u/ (N=240) produced by three native German female speakers, encompassing a broad range of their respective voice frequency ranges. The initial study demonstrated that, during a closed-set identification task involving 21 listeners, the point vowels /i a u/ were significantly recognized at fundamental frequencies (fo) nearing 1 kHz, whereas the recognition of other vowels decreased at higher pitches. Building on these findings, our study revealed systematic spectral shifts associated with vowel height and frontness as fo increased, with a notable clustering around /i a u/ above 523 Hz. These observations underscore the pivotal role of spectral shape in vowel perception, illustrating the reliance on acoustic anchors at higher pitches. Furthermore, this study sheds light on the quantal nature of these vowels and their potential impact on language evolution, offering a plausible explanation for their widespread presence in the world's languages

Relationships between rhythm and speech rate

Dellwo V, Wagner P. Relationships between rhythm and speech rate. Presented at the 15th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona.The interaction between speech rate and rhythm is a topic that has hardly been studied in respective models of language rhythm though its potential significance has recently been addressed: since both of these prosodic parameters are to a great extent dependent on speech timing they are suspected to interact to a great degree. The present research studies the influence of speech rate on the vocalic and intervocalic measures %V and ..