Manipulation of Consonants in Natural Speech

Li, Feipeng; Allen, Jont B.

doi:10.1109/tasl.2010.2050731

Cited by 35 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…In the given example, the minimum error occurs for a 7.0 [dB] shift. three very different measures (3DDS), as described in the references (Li and Allen, 2011;Li et al, 2010;Régnier and Allen, 2008). In this research we extend the findings of this research by increasing and decreasing, and then completely removing, the energy in the identified critical-feature regions (Table I).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

“…Since a modification to the burst level resulted in (on average) a proportional DSNR shift, it directly follows that the burst-to-vowel level is critical when discriminating a confusion group (Li and Allen, 2011). It would be difficult (i.e., impossible) to verify this hypothesis using synthetic speech, since controlling unknown features is impossible.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…for the recognition of the target consonant, but rather are features for a confusable consonant (Li and Allen, 2011). For example, along with the high frequency /ta/ burst, there frequently coexists a mid frequency /ka/ burst, which may cause confusions, once the /t/ burst becomes masked.…”

Section: A Effects Of Feature Removal and Conflicting Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conflicting features separate real and synthetic speech. This filtered burst is decoded by the auditory system as several independent cues (Li and Allen, 2011).…”

Section: A Effects Of Feature Removal and Conflicting Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar evidence for a transition component in natural speech is not observed. The studies of Allen and Li (2009);Li and Allen (2011);Li et al (2010); Régnier and Allen (2008) have demonstrated that masking the burst feature with noise abruptly reduces the intelligibility of speech sounds. In this study, we show that selective amplification and attenuation of these small but critical time-frequency consonant burst regions, within the critical bands covering the burst, systematically (and significantly) shift the recognition scores P c (SNR).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perceptual effects of plosive feature modification

Kapoor

Allen

2012

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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In the 1970-1980's, a number of papers explored the role of the transitional and burst features in consonant-vowel context. These papers left unresolved the relative importance of these two acoustic cues. This research takes advantage of refined signal processing methods, allowing for the visualization and modification of acoustic details. This experiment explores the impact of modifying the strength of the acoustic burst feature on the recognition scores P c (SNR) (function of the signal-to-noise ratio), for four plosive sounds /ta, ka, da, ga/. These results show high correlations between the relative burst intensity and the scores P c (SNR). Based on this correlation, one must conclude that these bursts are the primary acoustic cues used for the identification of these four consonants. This is in contrast to previous experiments, which used less precise methods to manipulate speech, and observe complex relationships between the scores, bursts and transition cues. In cases where the burst feature is removed entirely, it is shown that naturally existing conflicting acoustic features dominate the score. These observations seem directly inconsistent with transition cues playing a role: if the transition cues were important, they would dominate over low-level conflicting burst cues. These limited results arguably rule out the concept of redundant cues.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Effects Of Feature Removal and Conflicting Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conflicting features separate real and synthetic speech. This filtered burst is decoded by the auditory system as several independent cues (Li and Allen, 2011).…”

Section: A Effects Of Feature Removal and Conflicting Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perceptual effects of plosive feature modification

Kapoor

Allen

2012

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Brain-inspired speech segmentation for automatic speech recognition using the speech envelope as a temporal reference

Lee

Cho

2016

Sci Rep

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Speech segmentation is a crucial step in automatic speech recognition because additional speech analyses are performed for each framed speech segment. Conventional segmentation techniques primarily segment speech using a fixed frame size for computational simplicity. However, this approach is insufficient for capturing the quasi-regular structure of speech, which causes substantial recognition failure in noisy environments. How does the brain handle quasi-regular structured speech and maintain high recognition performance under any circumstance? Recent neurophysiological studies have suggested that the phase of neuronal oscillations in the auditory cortex contributes to accurate speech recognition by guiding speech segmentation into smaller units at different timescales. A phase-locked relationship between neuronal oscillation and the speech envelope has recently been obtained, which suggests that the speech envelope provides a foundation for multi-timescale speech segmental information. In this study, we quantitatively investigated the role of the speech envelope as a potential temporal reference to segment speech using its instantaneous phase information. We evaluated the proposed approach by the achieved information gain and recognition performance in various noisy environments. The results indicate that the proposed segmentation scheme not only extracts more information from speech but also provides greater robustness in a recognition test.

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Calibration of Consonant Perception to Room Reverberation

Vlahou

Ueno

Shinn‐Cunningham

et al. 2021

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose We examined how consonant perception is affected by a preceding speech carrier simulated in the same or a different room, for different classes of consonants. Carrier room, carrier length, and carrier length/target room uncertainty were manipulated. A phonetic feature analysis tested which phonetic categories are influenced by the manipulations in the acoustic context of the carrier. Method Two experiments were performed, each with nine participants. Targets consisted of 10 or 16 vowel–consonant (VC) syllables presented in one of two strongly reverberant rooms, preceded by a multiple-VC carrier presented in either the same room, a different reverberant room, or an anechoic room. In Experiment 1, the carrier length and the target room randomly varied from trial to trial, whereas in Experiment 2, they were fixed within a block of trials. Results Overall, a consistent carrier provided an advantage for consonant perception compared to inconsistent carriers, whether in anechoic or differently reverberant rooms. Phonetic analysis showed that carrier inconsistency significantly degraded identification of the manner of articulation, especially for stop consonants and, in one of the rooms, also of voicing. Carrier length and carrier/target uncertainty did not affect adaptation to reverberation for individual phonetic features. The detrimental effects of anechoic and different reverberant carriers on target perception were similar. Conclusions The strength of calibration varies across different phonetic features, as well as across rooms with different levels of reverberation. Even though place of articulation is the feature that is affected by reverberation the most, it is the manner of articulation and, partially, voicing for which room adaptation is observed.

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Manipulation of Consonants in Natural Speech

Cited by 35 publications

References 51 publications

Perceptual effects of plosive feature modification

Perceptual effects of plosive feature modification

Brain-inspired speech segmentation for automatic speech recognition using the speech envelope as a temporal reference

Calibration of Consonant Perception to Room Reverberation

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