Talker identification based on phonetic information.

Abstract

Accounts of the identification of words and talkers commonly rely on different acoustic properties. To identify a word, a perceiver discards acoustic aspects of an utterance that are talker specific, forming an abstract representation of the linguistic message with which to probe a mental lexicon. To identify a talker, a perceiver discards acoustic aspects of an utterance specific to particular phonemes, creating a representation of voice quality with which to search for familiar talkers in long-term memory. In 3 experiments, sinewave replicas of natural speech sampled from 10 talkers eliminated natural voice quality while preserving idiosyncratic phonetic variation. Listeners identified the sinewave talkers without recourse to acoustic attributes of natural voice quality. This finding supports a revised description of speech perception in which the phonetic properties of utterances serve to identify both words and talkers.

Learning to recognize talkers from natural, sinewave, and reversed speech samples.

“…The study by Remez et al (1997) further showed that these phonetic properties of the sinewaves also preserve talker-specific aspects of speech. In this experiment, sinewave utterances modeled from the natural speech of 10 talkers were presented to listeners in a test of individual recognition.…”

“…Because Remez et al (1997) did not manipulate or control a listener's familiarity with the talkers in the test set, it is impossible to know whether the observed variation was due to differences in the degree or quality of familiarity or to other factors in the talker ensemble, such as perceptual distinctiveness or discriminability of the specific samples.…”

“…To address this issue, we used a laboratory-based training procedure to control for the familiarity of talkers in tests composed of materials from Remez et al (1997). The training task allowed us to pose a critical question: Is it possible to learn to recognize a talker from an acoustically unnatural signal?…”

Echoes of echoes? An episodic theory of lexical access.

“…Indeed, Van Lancker, Kreiman, and Emmorey (1985;Van Lancker, Kreiman, & Wickens, 1985) reported that famous voices are easily recognized, even when played backward or when rate compressed. More recently, Remez, Fellowes, and Rubin (1997) found that listeners can identify familiar voices, using only "sinewave sentences" as stimuli.…”

Voice processing in human and non-human primates

“…However, the vocal tract length is not an absolute indicator of identity, since it can also show some degree of within-individual variability, particularly in humans; speech is essentially a rapid succession of fast changes of vocal tract shape that induce associated changes in formant frequencies. (Yet, individuals can be identified from sine-wave versions of their speech in which only formant frequencies are represented; Remez et al 1997). Modifications of formant frequencies by alteration of the vocal tract length-such as by protruding lips-have also been observed in non-human primates, although the range of formant variation (the 'vowel space') is much smaller in non-human primates than in humans (Lieberman et al 1969;Owren & Rendall 2003).…”