Native and Non-Native Speaker Judgements on the Quality of Synthesized Speech

The difference between native speakers' and non-native speak- ers' naturalness judgements of synthetic speech is investigated. Similar/difference judgements are analysed via a multidimen- sional scaling analysis and compared to Mean opinion scores. It is shown that although the two groups generally behave in a similar manner the variance of non-native speaker judgements is generally higher. While both groups of subject can clearly distinguish natural speech from the best synthetic examples, the groups' responses to different artefacts present in the synthetic speech can vary

Further Investigation of MDS as a Tool for Evaluation of Speech Quality of Synthesized Speech

The dissertation investigates MDS as a tool for the evaluation of the quality of synthesized speech. More specifically, it investigates the relations between Weighted Euclidean Distance Scaling and Simple Euclidean Distance Scaling, and how aggregating data affects the MDS configuration. It is investigated to what extent a subset of experimental participants and/or experimental stimuli are representative of a larger test set. For that purpose an experiment was conducted on the basis of a subset of stimuli used in the Blizzard Challenge 2008. Issues in the evaluation of Speech Synthesis are discussed and an overview of the basics of multi-dimensional scaling is given to an extent that allows comprehension of methods used in the application of Multi-dimensional scaling to speech synthesis evaluation. Based on the experimental findings, further experiments are suggested with the goal in mind that testing procedures can be optimized to such an extent that the number of experimental participants can be drastically reduced

Further exploration of the possibilities and pitfalls of multidimensional scaling as a tool for the evaluation of the quality of synthesized speech

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) has been suggested as a useful tool for the evaluation of the quality of synthesized speech. However, it has not yet been extensively tested for its applica- tion in this specific area of evaluation. In a series of experiments based on data from the Blizzard Challenge 2008 the relations between Weighted Euclidean Distance Scaling and Simple Euclidean Distance Scaling is investigated to understand how aggregating data affects the MDS configuration. These results are compared to those collected as mean opinion scores (MOS). The ranks correspond, and MOS can be predicted from an object's space in the MDS generated stimulus space. The big advantage of MDS over MOS is its diagnostic value; dimensions along which stimuli vary are not correlated, as is the case in modular evaluation using MOS. Finally, it will be attempted to generalize from the MDS representations of the thoroughly tested subset to the aggregated data of the larger-scale Blizzard Challenge

Asymmetries in the perception of synthesized speech

It was previously observed [1] that the order of presentation of paired stimuli influenced the number of different responses in same-different tasks in speech synthesis evaluation. This paper investigates this phenomenon within the context of cognitive psychology and demonstrates that, as the cognitive psychology literature suggests, there is an effect relating to the prototypicality of the stimulus. Index Terms: speech synthesis, evaluation, perception, Blizzard Challeng

Analysis of Outcomes in Ischemic vs Nonischemic Cardiomyopathy in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation A Report From the GARFIELD-AF Registry

IMPORTANCE Congestive heart failure (CHF) is commonly associated with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (AF), and their combination may affect treatment strategies and outcomes