ACOUSTIC AND PERCEPTUAL INVARIANCE IN SPEECH

本提案的总体目标是继续开发和测试一个 语音声学不变性理论。 为此，我们将扩大 塞音对鼻音发音部位的研究 摩擦音通过调查是否可以得出不变的性质为 在这两个辅音类别中的发音位置。 我们还将探索 这些属性在这些不同的 发音的方式。 对于鼻音，我们将探讨相对变化 在鼻腔附近的高频和低频的频谱能量中 release. 对于摩擦音，我们将探讨频谱模式和整体 摩擦音的振幅特性，以及模式 摩擦音释放附近的光谱变化。 此外，本发明还提供了一种方法， 我们将研究一些语音方面有关的方式， 清晰度 我们将进一步阐述所提出的不变性质 通过检查振幅变化的模式， 发生在停止滑行附近的特定频带中 release. 最后，我们将尝试确定不变属性是否可以 鼻音-塞音对比和塞音-塞擦音-摩擦音 对比度 对于鼻音和塞音的区别，我们将探讨语音 特征[鼻]通过研究鼻的光谱特性 杂音和元音共振峰中的鼻音化的存在。 为 塞音-破擦音-擦音对比，我们将重点放在振幅模式 辅音释放的早期部分的变化。 我们的一般研究策略包括执行详细的声学 分析自然语音标记并进行感知实验 使用合成和计算机编辑的自然语音。 的目标 声学分析是为了识别那些与 特别是语音特征，以设计量化这些算法 性能，并通过应用这些措施来测试其有效性 将它们转换为一组新的自然语音数据。 感知实验将是 进行，以帮助我们专注于声学的潜在关键部分， 信号，其中不变的属性可能驻留，并探索 这些属性的感知后果，用于识别 特殊的语音维度。

The broad objectives of this proposal are to continue to develop and test a theory of acoustic invariance in speech. To this end, we will extend our research on place of articulation in stop consonants to nasals and fricatives by investigating whether invariant properties can be derived for place of articulation in these two consonant classes. We will also explore the extent to which such properties generalize across these different manners of articulation. For nasals, we will explore the relative changes in spectral energy at high and low frequencies in the vicinity of the nasal release. For fricatives, we will explore the spectral patterns and overall amplitude characteristics of the fricative noise, as well as the patterns of spectral change in the vicinity of the fricative release. In addition, we will investigate a number of phonetic dimensions relating to manner of articulation. We will further elaborate the invariant property proposed for the stop-glide distinction by examining patterns of amplitude change occurring in particular frequency bands in the vicinity of the stop-glide release. Finally, we will attempt to determine if invariant properties can be derived for the nasal-stop contrast and the stop-affricate-fricative contrast. For the nasal-stop distinction, we will explore the phonetic feature [nasal] by investigating the spectral properties of the nasal murmur and the presence of nasalization in the vowel formants. For the stop-affricate-fricative contrast, we will focus on patterns of amplitude change in the early portions of the consonant release. Our general research strategy includes performing detailed acoustic analyses of natural speech tokens and conducting perception experiments using synthetic and computer-edited natural speech. The goals of the acoustic analyses are to identify those invariant properties relating to particular phonetic features, to devise algorithms for quantifying these properties, and to test the effectiveness of these measures by applying them to a new set of natural speech data. Perception experiments will be conducted to help us focus on potentially critical portions of the acoustic signal where invariant properties are likely to reside, and to explore the perceptual consequences of these properties for the identification of particular phonetic dimensions.