We propose a variety of Hollywood’s film screenings as a productive tool for phonetic and prosodic research through analysis-by-synthesis. An initial study where the method is used to allow a potential target audience, rather than trained experts, to point out oddities in an extended stretch of connected synthesised speech is presented as proofof-concept.

Robustness and reliability is the essence of speech communication. The senses collaborate with memory and other brain mechanisms to decode spoken language in the harsh and often unpredictable environments of the real world. How the brain makes speech “stick” is the focus of this special session, which examines how the senses and motor system coordinate during speech perception and production.

This paper reviews a range of studies illustrating the ways in which speech technology has enabled richer analyses of corpora of young children’s speech and infants’ speech-like vocalizations. One set of studies illustrates the use of speech synthesis technology, such as VLAM, an articulatory synthesis system that models the transfer functions of childor infantproportioned vocal tracts. VLAM ha...

This paper describes work in progress concerning the adequate modeling of fast speech in unit selection speech synthesis systems, mostly having in mind blind and visually impaired users. Initially, a survey of the main characteristics of fast speech will be given. Subsequently, strategies for fast speech production will be discussed. Certain requirements concerning the ability of a speaker of a...

(Please refer to Appendix for easy reading.)

We introduce a method of generating grain parameters of a granular synthesiser in real-time by using a network of artificial spiking neurons, the behaviour of which is determined by user-control of a small number of network parameters; ‘Neurogranular synthesis’. The artificial network can exhibit a wide variety of behaviour from loosely correlated to highly synchronised, which can produce inter...

This paper presents a methodology of parametric tolerance synthesis with respect to output aleatory uncertainty specifications. It relies on density function propagation through the inverse model. The resulting parameter density function is then used to synthesize a confidence interval suitable for sizing purpose. As an illustration, parametric tolerance synthesis on a DC motor rotating a load ...