Mathematical modeling of the temporal acpects of speech based on human perceptual and cognitive mechanisms

基于人类感知和认知机制的语音时间方面的数学建模

基本信息

批准号：
16200016
负责人：
KATO Hiroaki
金额：
$ 31.62万
依托单位：
Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International
依托单位国家：
日本
项目类别：
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)
财政年份：
2004
资助国家：
日本
起止时间：
2004 至 2007
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

The purpose of this project was to find clues by which humans retrieve the temporal structure of speech, to understand their usage, and to establish a quantitative method to evaluate the temporal adequateness or naturalness of a given speech sound that can replicate the performance of human judgment. For this purpose, three fundamental investigative tasks were implemented a study at the psychophysical level, a study at the linguistic level, and the construction of an evaluation model. One distinguishing feature of this project is that it emphasized the psychophysical aspects nearly as much as the linguistic, even though its primary object was spoken language.Since a person can easily recognize fast speech, even in the case of a foreign language where the meaning is unknown, it is assumed that the processing of the temporal aspects of speech undoubtedly involve non-linguistic and therefore language-independent activities. By concentrating on such processing that is independent of a give … More n language, we developed the basic technology toward a system with small overhead for language processing as well as simple extensibility to multiple languages. The major results follow.(I) Psychophysical level : An algorithm was developed to predict temporal reference points in a given speech by replicating the function of human auditory processing. This algorithm's most important benefit is its applicability to virtually unlimited language variations since it doesn't require any linguistic knowledge.(II) Linguistic level : An empirical study levealed that factors, which affect the perception of prosodic units, vary depending on the particular language's choice of units. This finding provides practical implications concerning how much weight should be placed on prosodic factors when designing effective foreign-language training methods.(III) Modeling : By integrating auditory functions derived from investigation at the psychophysical level, a mathematical model was implemented to automatically evaluate the naturalness of the speech of the English learners. The model's performance closely approximated the subjective evaluation of a native-speaking English instructor. This result not only suggests the importance of psychophysical factors in the adequateness or naturalness evaluation of speech but it also implies potential extensibility of the proposed model to multiple languages. Less

该项目的目的是找到集群，人类通过这些群体检索言语的临时结构，了解其用法，并建立一种定量方法来评估给定语音的临时充分性或自然性，以复制人类判断的表现。为此，在心理物理水平，语言水平的研究以及评估模型的构建上实施了三项基本调查任务。该项目的一个区别特征是，它强调了心理物理方面几乎与语言学一样多，即使其主要对象是口语的。通过专注于独立于给予……更多n语言的处理，我们将基本技术开发了一个针对语言处理的小额开销以及对多种语言的简单扩展性的系统。（i）心理物理水平：开发了一种算法，以通过复制人类听觉处理的功能来预测给定语音中的临时参考点。该算法最重要的好处是它适用于几乎无限的语言变化，因为它不需要任何语言知识。（ii）语言层面：一项经验研究措施阐明了因素，这些因素会影响对韵律单位的感知，这取决于特定语言的单位选择。这一发现提供了有关在设计有效的外语训练方法时应在韵律因素上放大重量的实际含义。（iii）建模：通过整合从心理物理级别的投资中获得的听觉功能，实施了数学模型，以自动评估英语学习者演讲的自然性。该模型的表现紧密近似于讲英语讲师的主题评估。该结果不仅表明了心理物理因素在适当性或自然性评估中的重要性，而且还暗示了所提出的模型对多种语言的潜在可扩展性。较少的