An embodiment paradigm for speech recognition systems

The problems of conventional speech recognition approaches include incomplete linguistic knowledge and inability to deal with underspecification. These issues can be addressed by understanding the constraints of speech to predict speech tendencies. We believe that understanding what constraints exist requires an embodied view of speech and that the traditional disembodied view of speech is the fundamental limitation on the robustness of many speech systems. We argue that viewing speech as a form of embodied cognition, or within context of its production and use, provides important insights in speech structure and speech recognition. In making this claim, this paper briefly outlines a strongly embodied account of cognition and develops from that an embodiment paradigm for speech recognition. The embodiment paradigm proposed leads to both an explanatory and descriptive account of linguistic structure. It simplifies the view of speech structure for automatic speech recognisers, by considering only the most directly relevant motivations or constraints influencing communication and thus speech.