Time- and Frequency-Altered Speech

Improving speech playback using time-compression and speech recognition

“…Since SOLAFS time-compression maintains the pitch of the original speaker, listeners are able to comprehend speech played at higher rates compared to without time-compression [4]. Furthermore, once accustomed to time-compressed speech, people prefer it over uncompressed speech [3]. Another demonstrated success for time-compression includes the following example: when presented with audio of teaching materials, subjects who listened to a timecompressed recording twice at twice-normal rate performed better than counterparts who listed to the same recording once a normal rate [16].…”

Psychophysical and behavioral peripheral and central auditory tests

“…Time-compressed speech tests employ speech that is compressed electronically by systematically sampling and discarding segments of the signal without distorting the frequency aspects of the signal (Beasley et al, 1972;Beasley and Maki, 1976). Time compression currently is accomplished using waveform editing software that alters the rate of speech without altering the power spectrum or pitch.…”

Phoneshell

“…Office phones forward to an ISDN based voice mail server which plays greetings and records messages; when a new message is taken, email notification is sent to the recipient [14]. 1 >I sent you a fax of a comic strip, but it probably >didn't >come out well. Let me know --now that I'm >at work and can access real copying machines I can >probably do better!…”

“…Users can and do increase the rate of both synthesized and digitized speech; listeners quickly adapt to faster speech [8], and, after some exposure, find normal speech rates unseemingly slow [1]. Filtering at many levels is essential.…”