Bozena Kostek

Intelligent Processing of Stuttered Speech

The process of counting stuttering events could be carried out more objectively through the automatic detection of stop-gaps, syllable repetitions and vowel prolongations. The alternative would be based on the subjective evaluations of speech fluency and may be dependent on a subjective evaluation method. Meanwhile, the automatic detection of intervocalic intervals, stop-gaps, voice onset time and vowel durations may depend on the speaker and the rules derived for a single speaker might be unreliable when trying to consider them as universal ones. This implies that learning algorithms having strong generalization capabilities could be applied to solve the problem. Nevertheless, such a system requires vectors of parameters, which characterize the distinctive features in a subjects speech patterns. In addition, an appropriate selection of the parameters and feature vectors while learning may augment the performance of an automatic detection system.The paper reports on automatic recognition of stuttered speech in normal and frequency altered feedback speech. It presents several methods of analyzing stuttered speech and describes attempts to establish those parameters that represent stuttering event. It also reports results of some experiments on automatic detection of speech disorder events that were based on both rough sets and artificial neural networks.

Computer-based recognition of musical phrases using the rough-set approach

Abstract The aim of this work is to study problems related to the recognition of musical pieces using the rough set approach. A database consisting of MIDI files based on Bachs fugues is prepared. Some modified forms of musical phrases are included. Methods for converting MIDI files into raw data at first, and then into feature vectors are presented. A rough set-based system is used for the recognition of musical phrases. Problems related to automatic recognition of musical phrases are discussed.

“Computing with words” Concept Applied to Musical Information Retrieval

Abstract The objective of the paper is to provide cognitive-based mechanisms underlying processing of musical instrument sounds. The system proposed by the author based on the rough set method and on fuzzy logic provides knowledge on how humans internally represent such notions as quality and timbre and therefore it allows for the human-like automatic processing of musical data. Therefore ”Computing with words” concept can be used in musical information retrieval domain by offering better processing of subjective descriptors of musical instrument sounds and enabling the analysis of data that would result in extraction of semantic information related to musical instrument sounds. This paper shows first a review of developments in the domain of timbre mapping and classification. A decision table is built of semantic descriptors of musical instrument sounds, then rules extracted by the rough set method and the processing of musical timbre based on fuzzy logic is shown. An example of rough-fuzzy processing is given and conclusions are derived.

Soft set approach to the subjective assessment of sound quality

Subjective assessment of sound quality is an important issue in acoustics, telecommunications and multimedia. An attempt to assess sound quality based on the soft set approach was made. For that purpose techniques derived from rough and fuzzy set theories have been implemented. A short discussion of standard testing methods in acoustic sound quality evaluation was included Some exemplary data derived from subjective testing were presented and then processed using non-statistical (soft computing) methods. Conclusions resulting from the comparison of investigated approaches to the processing of subjective testing results were included.

Soft Computing-Based Recognition of Musical Sounds

Due to the development of multimedia technology and digital transmission of signals, there is rapid growth in the amount of audio data stored on various computer sites. Consequently, the problem is to find methods allowing one to explore a huge collection of data in order to find needed information in an effective way.

A method for spectral transposition of speech signal applicable in profound hearing loss

Experiments that have been carried out by the authors so far point out that locating the essential components of the speech signal in a low frequency band can improve the speech intelligibility of some hearing impaired people. It is caused by the fact that such persons can maintain their hearing ability in this range of frequencies. The experiments were performed with the use of an electronic device operating in real-time with an algorithm for lowering the audio signals frequency. The satisfactory results of these tests encouraged them to run a research project that involves designing a new digital speech processor and elaborating an advanced algorithm for the spectral transposition of speech. The paper presents a new concept of a hearing aid employing the spectral transposition method. It presents the general scheme of the vocoder-based transposition of speech signals and gives a brief description of the new speech processor implementing this method.

Determining Influence of Visual Cues on the Perception of Surround Sound Using Soft Computing

Contemporary digital video, film or multimedia presentations are often accompanied by the surround sound. Techniques and standards involved in digital video processing are much more developed than concepts underlying creating recording and mixing of the multichannel sound. The main challenge in the sound processing in the multichannel system is to create an appropriate basis for the relating multimodal context of visual and sound domains. Therefore, one of the purposes of experiments is to study in which way and how the surround sound interferes or is associated with the visual context. This kind of study was hitherto carried out when two-channel sound technique was associated with a stereo TV. However, there is not much study done yet that associates surround sound and digital video presented at the TV screen. The main issue in such experiments is the analysis of the influence of visual cues on perception of the surround sound. This problem will be solved with the application of fuzzy logic to the processing of subjective test results.

Influence of visual cues on the perception of surround sound

Contemporary digital video, film, or multimedia presentations are often accompanied by the surround sound. Techniques and standards involved in digital video processing are much more developed than concepts underlying creating recording and mixing of the multichannel sound. The main challenge in the sound processing in the multichannel system is to create an appropriate basis for connecting multimodal context of visual and sound domains. Therefore one of the purposes of experiments is to study in which way and how the surround sound interferes or is associated with the visual context. This kind of study was hitherto carried out when two‐channel sound technique was associated with a stereo TV. However, there are not many studies done yet that associate surround sound and digital video presented at the TV screen. The main issue in such experiments is the analysis of the influence of visual cues on perception of the surround sound. This problem will be addressed in the paper.

Principles and acoustical foundations of the computer‐based hearing screening method

The hearing impairment is one of the fastest growing diseases in modern societies. Therefore it is very important to organize screening tests allowing us to find people suffering from this kind of impairment. The computer‐based system was designed to conduct hearing screening, mainly in children and youth. The test uses automatic questionnaire analysis, audiometric tone test procedure, and testing speech intelligibility in noise. The starting point of the test is an automatic interview with the individual to be tested. Based on the interview, the electronic questionnaire is filled out. After the questionnaire has been filled out and the specially conceived three tone audiometric test is completed, the mode of the speech‐in‐noise based test might be selected as appropriate for the specific age. When all the testing is completed, the system ‘‘I CAN HEAR...’’ automatically analyzes the results for every person examined. Based on the number of wrong answers those who may have hearing problems are referred to ...

Expert media approach to Hearing aids Fitting

The engineered Multimedia Hearing Aid Fitting Expert System is the experimental software that allows one to find the characteristics of a hearing aid matching patients needs and to choose automatically suitable hearing device characteristics. The key issues related to the engineered application are based on the expert system implementation. This expert system uses both fuzzy logic and rough set processing of analytical data. The principles of the engineered expert media application and some details of the rough set and fuzzy logic implementation will be presented in this article.