Phoneme recognition using time-delay neural networks

In this paper we present a Time-Delay Neural Network (TDNN) approach to phoneme recognition which is characterized by two important properties. 1) Using a 3 layer arrangement of simple computing units, a hierarchy can be constructed that allows for the formation of arbitrary nonlinear decision surfaces. The TDNN learns these decision surfaces automatically using error backpropagation 111. 2) The time-delay arrangement enables the network to discover acoustic-phonetic features and the temporal relationships between them independent of position in time and hence not blurred by temporal shifts