A new approach to compensate degeneration of speech intelligibility for elderly listeners-development of a portable real time speech rate conversion system

Nakamura, Akira; Seiyama, Nobumasa; Imai, Atsushi; Takagi, Tohru; Miyasaka, Eiichi

doi:10.1109/11.536593

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Concerning the development of signal processing listening aids, some speaking rate-conversion hearing aids have been reported (Picheney et al, 1989; Imaizumi and Kidhtani, 1992; Nakamura et al, 1994;Nejime et al, 1994). This is not surprising because the rate of speaking is known to be an important factor affecting speech perception in hearingimpaired persons (Picheny et al, 1985(Picheny et al, , 1986Hosoi et al, 1992aHosoi et al, ,b, 1994Hayashi et al, 1992).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Listener adaptive characteristics of vowel devoicing in Japanese dialogue

Imaizumi

Hayashi

Deguchi

1995

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Listener adapative characteristics of Japanese vowel devoicing were investigated by analyzing (i) dialogues between professional teachers and hearing-impaired (HI) or normal-hearing (NH) children, and (ii) speech samples read by the teachers as fast and clearly as possible (RD). The teachers reduced the devoicing rate and lengthened the moras more in the HI vs NH samples, and even more in the HI vs RD samples. A logistic regression analysis of the devoicing rate suggests that the speech rate dependency of the devoicing rate is different among the HI, NH, and RD samples. When moras are lengthened, the predicted devoicing rate decreases more for the HI vs NH samples, and even more in the HI vs RD samples, suggesting that not only rate-dependent adjustments but also rate-independent adjustments significantly affect devoicing reduction. These results suggest the following: (1) Professional teachers of hearing-impaired children reduce their devoicing not only by lengthening the interval of successive voicing/devoicing gestures, but also by resizing component gestures to some extent, probably to improve the listener's comprehension; (2) vowel devoicing should be represented in terms of parameters of speech motor control; (3) it may be possible to develop an optimized communication method for hearing-impaired children by simulating such listener-adaptive adjustments in speech production.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Listener adaptive characteristics of vowel devoicing in Japanese dialogue

Imaizumi

Hayashi

Deguchi

1995

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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“…This rate is substantially slower than the average speaking rate usually found in programs for native speakers, which ranges from 450 to 570 morae per minute [29]. An important point about radio broadcasts is that they are listened to by both native speakers and non-native speakers, who have different preferences for speaking style.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The speaking rates are controlled by uniformly and linearly converting phoneme durations in the parameter generation process. A survey of broadcasted programs shows that the average speaking rate on Japanese programs ranges from 450 to 570 morae per minute [29]. We assume that an easier speaking rate for understanding by non-native speakers would be slower, so in this research we tested the effect of five speaking rates: 240, 280, 320, 360, and 400 morae per minute.…”

Section: Speaking Rate Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of preferred speaking rate and pause in spoken easy Japanese for non-native listeners

Prafiyanto

Nose

Chiba

et al. 2018

Acoust. Sci. & Tech.

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Abstract:We investigate the effect of speaking rate and pauses on the perception of spoken Easy Japanese, which is Japanese language with mostly easy words to facilitate understanding by non-native speakers. In this research, we used synthetic speech with various speaking rates, pause positions, and pause lengths to investigate how they correlate with the perception of Easy Japanese for non-native speakers of Japanese. We found that speech rates of 320 and 360 morae per minute are perceived to be close to the ideal speaking rate. Inserting pauses in natural places for Japanese native speakers, based on the dependency relation rule of Japanese, makes sentences easier to listen to for non-native speakers as well, whereas inserting too many pauses makes the sentences hard to listen to.

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“…As a result, the need to convert voice at different speeds and play it back with its naturalness maintained, has increased. For example, the technologies that slow the speech rate of an input voice have been developed and are used in broadcasting such as television or radio [9][10][11].…”

Section: A) Background In Speech Rate Conversion Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of speech technologies to support hearing through mobile terminal users

Togawa

Otani

Suzuki

et al. 2015

SIP

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Development of speech technologies to support hearing through mobile terminal userstaro togawa 1 , takeshi otani 1 , kaori suzuki 2 and tomohiko taniguchi 3Mobile terminals have become the most familiar communication tool we use, and various types of people have come to use mobile terminals in various environments. Accordingly, situations in which we talk over the telephone in noisy environments or with someone who speaks fast have increased. However, it is sometimes difficult to hear a person s voice in these cases. To make the voice received through mobile terminals easy to hear, authors have developed two technologies. One is a voice enhancement technology that emphasizes a caller s voice according to the noise surrounding the recipient, and the other is a speech rate conversion technology that slows speech while maintaining voice quality. In this paper, we explain the trends and the features of these technologies and discuss ways to implement their algorithms on mobile terminals. Cellular phones and smartphones are communication tools that can be easily used anytime and anywhere, including in noisy environments. When a user is talking over the telephone in a noisy environment, his/her voice sent to call partner on the other end of the line (sending voice) mixes with the surrounding noise and becomes difficult for the call partner to hear, and the voice that is sent by the call partner (received voice) is buried by the noise surrounding the user. However, various speech technologies for improving the quality of the received voice have been developed and installed in mobile terminals. For example, a noise suppression technology that suppresses only the noise from the sending voice, with which the noise mixes, to improve voice quality has been developed [1]. In addition, a voice enhancement technology that emphasizes the call partner's voice according to the volume and type of surrounding noise in noisy environments such as station platforms has been developed and installed. Furthermore, a speech rate conversion technology that slows the fast voice of the call partner while maintaining voice quality has been developed and installed.We first explain the trends and technical features of voice enhancement technologies for improving the quality of the received voice according to the usage environment of the mobile terminal in Section II and those of speech rate conversion technologies in Section III. We then explain the implementation of the algorithms of our proposed technologies in mobile terminals in Section IV and explain other technologies for improving the quality of the received voice in Section V. Finally, we explain future applications of the speech technologies in Section VI. I IIt is generally known that the quality of received voice is deteriorated by the noise or the reverberation generated in the user environment or the call partner's environment, and information compression according to audio coderdecoder (CODEC) when talking over the telephone with the mobile terminals. However, various speech techno...

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A new approach to compensate degeneration of speech intelligibility for elderly listeners-development of a portable real time speech rate conversion system

Cited by 17 publications

References 8 publications

Listener adaptive characteristics of vowel devoicing in Japanese dialogue

Listener adaptive characteristics of vowel devoicing in Japanese dialogue

Analysis of preferred speaking rate and pause in spoken easy Japanese for non-native listeners

Development of speech technologies to support hearing through mobile terminal users

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