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Search results for: ALLOPHONIC SPEECH TRANSCRIPTION
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Methodology and technology for the polymodal allophonic speech transcription
PublicationA method for automatic audiovisual transcription of speech employing: acoustic and visual speech representations is developed. It adopts a combining of audio and visual modalities, which provide a synergy effect in terms of speech recognition accuracy. To establish a robust solution, basic research concerning the relation between the allophonic variation of speech, i.e. the changes in the articulatory setting of speech organs for...
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Methodology and technology for the polymodal allophonic speech transcription
PublicationA method for automatic audiovisual transcription of speech employing: acoustic, electromagnetical articulography and visual speech representations is developed. It adopts a combining of audio and visual modalities, which provide a synergy effect in terms of speech recognition accuracy. To establish a robust solution, basic research concerning the relation between the allophonic variation of speech, i.e., the changes in the articulatory...
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Material for Automatic Phonetic Transcription of Speech Recorded in Various Conditions
PublicationAutomatic speech recognition (ASR) is under constant development, especially in cases when speech is casually produced or it is acquired in various environment conditions, or in the presence of background noise. Phonetic transcription is an important step in the process of full speech recognition and is discussed in the presented work as the main focus in this process. ASR is widely implemented in mobile devices technology, but...
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Analysis of allophones based on audio signal recordings and parameterization
PublicationThe aim of this study is to develop an allophonic description of English plosive consonants based on recordings of 600 specially selected words. Allophonic variations addressed in the study may have two sources: positional and contextual. The former one depends on the syllabic or prosodic position in which a particular phoneme occurs. Contextual allophony is conditioned by the local phonetic environment. Co-articulation overlapping...
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Optimizing Medical Personnel Speech Recognition Models Using Speech Synthesis and Reinforcement Learning
PublicationText-to-Speech synthesis (TTS) can be used to generate training data for building Automatic Speech Recognition models (ASR). Access to medical speech data is because it is sensitive data that is difficult to obtain for privacy reasons; TTS can help expand the data set. Speech can be synthesized by mimicking different accents, dialects, and speaking styles that may occur in a medical language. Reinforcement Learning (RL), in the...
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Bimodal classification of English allophones employing acoustic speech signal and facial motion capture
PublicationA method for automatic transcription of English speech into International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) system is developed and studied. The principal objective of the study is to evaluate to what extent the visual data related to lip reading can enhance recognition accuracy of the transcription of English consonantal and vocalic allophones. To this end, motion capture markers were placed on the faces of seven speakers to obtain lip...
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The Impact of Foreign Accents on the Performance of Whisper Family Models Using Medical Speech in Polish
PublicationThe article presents preliminary experiments investigating the impact of accent on the performance of the Whisper automatic speech recognition (ASR) system, specifically for the Polish language and medical data. The literature review revealed a scarcity of studies on the influence of accents on speech recognition systems in Polish, especially concerning medical terminology. The experiments involved voice cloning of selected individuals...
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Building Knowledge for the Purpose of Lip Speech Identification
PublicationConsecutive stages of building knowledge for automatic lip speech identification are shown in this study. The main objective is to prepare audio-visual material for phonetic analysis and transcription. First, approximately 260 sentences of natural English were prepared taking into account the frequencies of occurrence of all English phonemes. Five native speakers from different countries read the selected sentences in front of...
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MACHINE LEARNING–BASED ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH LATERAL ALLOPHONES
PublicationAutomatic classification methods, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), the k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and selforganizing maps (SOMs), are applied to allophone analysis based on recorded speech. A list of 650 words was created for that purpose, containing positionally and/or contextually conditioned allophones. For each word, a group of 16 native and non-native speakers were audio-video recorded, from which seven native speakers’...
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Determining Pronunciation Differences in English Allophones Utilizing Audio Signal Parameterization
PublicationAn allophonic description of English plosive consonants, based on audio-visual recordings of 600 specially selected words, was developed. First, several speakers were recorded while reading words from a teleprompter. Then, every word was played back from the previously recorded sample read by a phonology expert and each examined speaker repeated a particular word trying to imitate correct pronunciation. The next step consisted...
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Marking the Allophones Boundaries Based on the DTW Algorithm
PublicationThe paper presents an approach to marking the boundaries of allophones in the speech signal based on the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm. Setting and marking of allophones boundaries in continuous speech is a difficult issue due to the mutual influence of adjacent phonemes on each other. It is this neighborhood on the one hand that creates variants of phonemes that is allophones, and on the other hand it affects that the border...
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ALOFON corpus
Open Research DataThe ALOFON corpus is one of the multimodal database of word recordings in English, available at http://www.modality-corpus.org/. The ALOFON corpus is oriented towards the recording of the speech equivalence variants. For this purpose, a total of 7 people who are or speak English with native speaker fluency and a variety of Standard Southern British...
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Recent advances in transcription regulation
e-Learning CoursesRecent advances in transcription regulation
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Computer-assisted pronunciation training—Speech synthesis is almost all you need
PublicationThe research community has long studied computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) methods in non-native speech. Researchers focused on studying various model architectures, such as Bayesian networks and deep learning methods, as well as on the analysis of different representations of the speech signal. Despite significant progress in recent years, existing CAPT methods are not able to detect pronunciation errors with high...
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Evaluation of Lombard Speech Models in the Context of Speech in Noise Enhancement
PublicationThe Lombard effect is one of the most well-known effects of noise on speech production. Speech with the Lombard effect is more easily recognizable in noisy environments than normal natural speech. Our previous investigations showed that speech synthesis models might retain Lombard-effect characteristics. In this study, we investigate several speech models, such as harmonic, source-filter, and sinusoidal, applied to Lombard speech...
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Transcription-Austin
Journals -
Speech Intelligibility Measurements in Auditorium
PublicationSpeech intelligibility was measured in Auditorium Novum on Technical University of Gdansk (seating capacity 408, volume 3300 m3). Articulation tests were conducted; STI and Early Decay Time EDT coefficients were measured. Negative noise contribution to speech intelligibility was taken into account. Subjective measurements and objective tests reveal high speech intelligibility at most seats in auditorium. Correlation was found between...
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Language Models in Speech Recognition
PublicationThis chapter describes language models used in speech recognition, It starts by indicating the role and the place of language models in speech recognition. Mesures used to compare language models follow. An overview of n-gram, syntactic, semantic, and neural models is given. It is accompanied by a list of popular software.
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Transient detection for speech coding applications
PublicationSignal quality in speech codecs may be improved by selecting transients from speech signal and encoding them using a suitable method. This paper presents an algorithm for transient detection in speech signal. This algorithm operates in several frequency bands. Transient detection functions are calculated from energy measured in short frames of the signal. The final selection of transient frames is based on results of detection...
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Improving the quality of speech in the conditions of noise and interference
PublicationThe aim of the work is to present a method of intelligent modification of the speech signal with speech features expressed in noise, based on the Lombard effect. The recordings utilized sets of words and sentences as well as disturbing signals, i.e., pink noise and the so-called babble speech. Noise signal, calibrated to various levels at the speaker's ears, was played over two loudspeakers located 2 m away from the speaker. In...
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Applying the Lombard Effect to Speech-in-Noise Communication
PublicationThis study explored how the Lombard effect, a natural or artificial increase in speech loudness in noisy environments, can improve speech-in-noise communication. This study consisted of several experiments that measured the impact of different types of noise on synthesizing the Lombard effect. The main steps were as follows: first, a dataset of speech samples with and without the Lombard effect was collected in a controlled setting;...
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Constructing a Dataset of Speech Recordingswith Lombard Effect
PublicationThepurpose of therecordings was to create a speech corpus based on the ISLEdataset, extended with video and Lombard speech. Selected from a set of 165sentences, 10, evaluatedas having thehighest possibility to occur in the context ofthe Lombard effect,were repeated in the presence of the so-called babble speech to obtain Lombard speech features. Altogether,15speakers were recorded, and speech parameterswere...
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Improved method for real-time speech stretching
Publicationn algorithm for real-time speech stretching is presented. It was designed to modify input signal dependently on its content and on its relation with the historical input data. The proposed algorithm is a combination of speech signal analysis algorithms, i.e. voice, vowels/consonants, stuttering detection and SOLA (Synchronous-Overlap-and-Add) based speech stretching algorithm. This approach enables stretching input speech signal...
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Real-time speech-rate modification experiments
PublicationAn algorithm designed for real-time speech time scale modification (stretching) is proposed, providing a combination of typical synchronous overlap and add based time scale modification algorithm and signal redundancy detection algorithms that allow to remove parts of the speech signal and replace them with the stretched speech signal fragments. Effectiveness of signal processing algorithms are examined experimentally together...
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Description of the Dataset Hanow – Praecepta de Arte Disputandi – Transcription and Photographs
PublicationThis article briefly characterises the “Hanow – Praecepta de arte disputandi – transcription and photographs” research dataset. The dataset was created based on photographs and transcriptions of the manuscript of the Latin lectures on the rules of effective discussion (the title of the manuscript: Praecepta de arte disputandi) by Michael Chris-toph Hanow (1695–1773), professor of Gdańsk Academic Gymnasium. The original document...
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Improving Objective Speech Quality Indicators in Noise Conditions
PublicationThis work aims at modifying speech signal samples and test them with objective speech quality indicators after mixing the original signals with noise or with an interfering signal. Modifications that are applied to the signal are related to the Lombard speech characteristics, i.e., pitch shifting, utterance duration changes, vocal tract scaling, manipulation of formants. A set of words and sentences in Polish, recorded in silence,...
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Speech Analytics Based on Machine Learning
PublicationIn this chapter, the process of speech data preparation for machine learning is discussed in detail. Examples of speech analytics methods applied to phonemes and allophones are shown. Further, an approach to automatic phoneme recognition involving optimized parametrization and a classifier belonging to machine learning algorithms is discussed. Feature vectors are built on the basis of descriptors coming from the music information...
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Speech synthesis controlled by eye gazing
PublicationA method of communication based on eye gaze controlling is presented. Investigations of using gaze tracking have been carried out in various context applications. The solution proposed in the paper could be referred to as ''talking by eyes'' providing an innovative approach in the domain of speech synthesis. The application proposed is dedicated to disabled people, especially to persons in a so-called locked-in syndrome who cannot...
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Detecting Lombard Speech Using Deep Learning Approach
PublicationRobust Lombard speech-in-noise detecting is challenging. This study proposes a strategy to detect Lombard speech using a machine learning approach for applications such as public address systems that work in near real time. The paper starts with the background concerning the Lombard effect. Then, assumptions of the work performed for Lombard speech detection are outlined. The framework proposed combines convolutional neural networks...
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Acoustic Sensing Analytics Applied to Speech in Reverberation Conditions
PublicationThe paper aims to discuss a case study of sensing analytics and technology in acoustics when applied to reverberation conditions. Reverberation is one of the issues that makes speech in indoor spaces challenging to understand. This problem is particularly critical in large spaces with few absorbing or diffusing surfaces. One of the natural remedies to improve speech intelligibility in such conditions may be achieved through speaking...
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Time-domain prosodic modifications for text-to-speech synthesizer
PublicationAn application of prosodic speech processing algorithms to Text-To-Speech synthesis is presented. Prosodic modifications that improve the naturalness of the synthesized signal are discussed. The applied method is based on the TD-PSOLA algorithm. The developed Text-To-Speech Synthesizer is used in applications employing multimodal computer interfaces.
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A Method of Real-Time Non-uniform Speech Stretching
PublicationDeveloped method of real-time non-uniform speech stretching is presented.The proposed solution is based on the well-known SOLA algorithm(Synchronous Overlap and Add). Non-uniform time-scale modification isachieved by the adjustment of time scaling factor values in accordance with thesignal content. Dependently on the speech unit (vowels/consonants), instantaneousrate of speech (ROS), and speech signal presence, values of the scalingfactor...
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Interpretable Deep Learning Model for the Detection and Reconstruction of Dysarthric Speech
PublicationWe present a novel deep learning model for the detection and reconstruction of dysarthric speech. We train the model with a multi-task learning technique to jointly solve dysarthria detection and speech reconstruction tasks. The model key feature is a low-dimensional latent space that is meant to encode the properties of dysarthric speech. It is commonly believed that neural networks are black boxes that solve problems but do not...
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Examining Influence of Distance to Microphone on Accuracy of Speech Recognition
PublicationThe problem of controlling a machine by the distant-talking speaker without a necessity of handheld or body-worn equipment usage is considered. A laboratory setup is introduced for examination of performance of the developed automatic speech recognition system fed by direct and by distant speech acquired by microphones placed at three different distances from the speaker (0.5 m to 1.5 m). For feature extraction from the voice signal...
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Comparison of various speech time-scale modificartion methods
PublicationThe objective of this work is to investigate the influence of the different time-scale modification (TSM) methods on the quality of the speech stretched up using the designed non-uniform real-time speech time-scale modification algorithm (NU-RTSM). The algorithm provides a combination of the typical TSM algorithm with the vowels, consonants, stutter, transients and silence detectors. Based on the information about the content and...
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Speech codec enhancements utilizing time compression and perceptual coding
PublicationA method for encoding wideband speech signal employing standardized narrowband speech codecs is presented as well as experimental results concerning detection of tonal spectral components. The speech signal sampled with a higher sampling rate than it is suitable for narrowband coding algorithm is compressed in order to decrease the amount of samples. Next, the time-compressed representation of a signal is encoded using a narrowband...
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Tensor Decomposition for Imagined Speech Discrimination in EEG
PublicationMost of the researches in Electroencephalogram(EEG)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are focused on the use of motor imagery. As an attempt to improve the control of these interfaces, the use of language instead of movement has been recently explored, in the form of imagined speech. This work aims for the discrimination of imagined words in electroencephalogram signals. For this purpose, the analysis of multiple variables...
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DNAffinity: a machine-learning approach to predict DNA binding affinities of transcription factors
PublicationWe present a physics-based machine learning approach to predict in vitro transcription factor binding affinities from structural and mechanical DNA properties directly derived from atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. The method is able to predict affinities obtained with techniques as different as uPBM, gcPBM and HT-SELEX with an excellent performance, much better than existing algorithms. Due to its nature, the method can...
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Multimodal English corpus for automatic speech recognition
PublicationA multimodal corpus developed for research of speech recognition based on audio-visual data is presented. Besides usual video and sound excerpts, the prepared database contains also thermovision images and depth maps. All streams were recorded simultaneously, therefore the corpus enables to examine the importance of the information provided by different modalities. Based on the recordings, it is also possible to develop a speech...
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Methods of Improving Speech Intelligibility for Listeners with Hearing Resolution Deficit
PublicationMethods developed for real-time time scale modification (TSM) of speech signal are presented. They are based onthe non-uniform, speech rate depended SOLA algorithm (Synchronous Overlap and Add). Influence of theproposed method on the intelligibility of speech was investigated for two separate groups of listeners, i.e. hearingimpaired children and elderly listeners. It was shown that for the speech with average rate equal to or...
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An audio-visual corpus for multimodal automatic speech recognition
Publicationreview of available audio-visual speech corpora and a description of a new multimodal corpus of English speech recordings is provided. The new corpus containing 31 hours of recordings was created specifically to assist audio-visual speech recognition systems (AVSR) development. The database related to the corpus includes high-resolution, high-framerate stereoscopic video streams from RGB cameras, depth imaging stream utilizing Time-of-Flight...
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Investigating Noise Interference on Speech Towards Applying the Lombard Effect Automatically
PublicationThe aim of this study is two-fold. First, we perform a series of experiments to examine the interference of different noises on speech processing. For that purpose, we concentrate on the Lombard effect, an involuntary tendency to raise speech level in the presence of background noise. Then, we apply this knowledge to detecting speech with the Lombard effect. This is for preparing a dataset for training a machine learning-based...
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Decoding imagined speech for EEG-based BCI
PublicationBrain–computer interfaces (BCIs) are systems that transform the brain's electrical activity into commands to control a device. To create a BCI, it is necessary to establish the relationship between a certain stimulus, internal or external, and the brain activity it provokes. A common approach in BCIs is motor imagery, which involves imagining limb movement. Unfortunately, this approach allows few commands. As an alternative, this...
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Comparison of Acoustic and Visual Voice Activity Detection for Noisy Speech Recognition
PublicationThe problem of accurate differentiating between the speaker utterance and the noise parts in a speech signal is considered. The influence of utilizing a voice activity detection in speech signals on the accuracy of the automatic speech recognition (ASR) system is presented. The examined methods of voice activity detection are based on acoustic and visual modalities. The problem of detecting the voice activity in clean and noisy...
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Ranking Speech Features for Their Usage in Singing Emotion Classification
PublicationThis paper aims to retrieve speech descriptors that may be useful for the classification of emotions in singing. For this purpose, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and selected Low-Level MPEG 7 descriptors were calculated based on the RAVDESS dataset. The database contains recordings of emotional speech and singing of professional actors presenting six different emotions. Employing the algorithm of Feature Selection based...
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System Supporting Speech Perception in Special Educational Needs Schoolchildren
PublicationThe system supporting speech perception during the classes is presented in the paper. The system is a combination of portable device, which enables real-time speech stretching, with the workstation designed in order to perform hearing tests. System was designed to help children suffering from Central Auditory Processing Disorders.
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Silence/noise detection for speech and music signals
PublicationThis paper introduces a novel off-line algorithm for silence/noise detection in noisy signals. The main concept of the proposed algorithm is to provide noise patterns for further signals processing i.e. noise reduction for speech enhancement. The algorithm is based on frequency domain characteristics of signals. The examples of different types of noisy signals are presented.
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High quality speech codec employing sines+noise+transients model
PublicationA method of high quality wideband speech signal representation employing sines+transients+noise model is presented. The need for a wideband speech coding approach as well as various methods for analysis and synthesis of sines, residual and transient states of speech signal is discussed. The perceptual criterion is applied in the proposed approach during encoding of sines amplitudes in order to reduce bandwidth requirements and...
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Virtual keyboard controlled by eye gaze employing speech synthesis
PublicationThe article presents the speech synthesis integrated into the eye gaze tracking system. This approach can significantly improve the quality of life of physically disabled people who are unable to communicate. The virtual keyboard (QWERTY) is an interface which allows for entering the text for the speech synthesizer. First, this article describes a methodology of determining the fixation point on a computer screen. Then it presents...
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Virtual Keyboard controlled by eye gaze employing speech synthesis
PublicationThe article presents the speech synthesis integrated into the eye gaze tracking system. This approach can significantly improve the quality of life of physically disabled people who are unable to communicate. The virtual keyboard (QWERTY) is an interface which allows for entering the text for the speech synthesizer. First, this article describes a methodology of determining the fixation point on a computer screen. Then it presents...