Speech and Hearing

Papers focused on speech and hearing. Topics such as speech recognition are covered.


Articles & Tech Transfers


Speaker normalization using cortical strip maps: A neural model for steady state vowel categorization
Abstract Auditory signals of speech are speaker dependent, but representations of language meaning are speaker independent. The transformation from speaker-dependent to speaker-independent language representations enables speech to ...

Roles and representations of systematic fine phonetic detail in speech understanding
Abstract This paper aims to show how we can make progress in elucidating how people understand speech by changing our focus of inquiry from abstraction of formal units of linguistic analysis to a detailed analysis of global aspects ...

Automated categorization of bioacoustic signals: Avoiding perceptual pitfalls
Abstract Dividing the acoustic repertoires of animals into biologically relevant categories presents a widespread problem in the study of animal sound communication, essential to any comparison of repertoires between contexts, ...

Puzzle-solving science: the quixotic quest for units in speech perception
Abstract Although speech signals are continuous and variable, listeners experience segmentation and linguistic structure in perception. For years, researchers have tried to identify the basic building-block of speech perception. In ...

Neural dynamics of word recognition and recall: Attentional priming, learning, and resonance
Abstract Data and models about recognition and recall of words and non words are unified using a real-time network processing theory. Lexical decision and word frequency effect data are analyzed in terms of theoretical concepts that ...

Neural dynamics of speech and language coding: Developmental programs, perceptual grouping, and competition for short-term memory
Abstract Summary. A computational theory of how an observer parses a speech stream into context-sensitive language representations is described. It is shown how temporal lists of events can be chunked into unitized repre~ntations, ...

Parallel auditory filtering by sustained and transient channels separates coarticulated vowels and consonants
Abstract A neural model of peripheral auditory processing is described and used to separate features of coarticulated vowels and consonants. After preprocessing of speech via a filterbank, the model splits into two parallel channels, ...

A spectral network model of pitch perception
Abstract A model of pitch perception, called the spatial pitch network or SPINET model, is developed and analyzed. The model neurally instantiates ideas from the spectral pitch modeling literature and joins them to basic neural ...

Neural dynamics of variable-rate speech categorization
Abstract What is the neural representation of a speech code as it evolves in time? A neural model simulates data concerning segregation and integration of phonetic percepts. Hearing two phonetically related stops in a VC-CV pair (V = ...

The link between brain learning, attention, and consciousness
Abstract The processes whereby our brains continue to learn about a changing world in a stable fashion throughout life are proposed to lead to conscious experiences. These processes include the learning of top-down expectations, the ...

The resonant dynamics of speech perception: Interword integration and duration-dependent backward effects
Abstract How do listeners integrate temporally distributed phonemic information into coherent representations of syllables and words? For example, increasing the silence interval between the words "gray chip" may result in the ...

Neural dynamics of perceptual order and context effects for variable-rate speech syllables
Abstract How does the brain extract invariant properties of variable-rate speech? A neural model, called PHONET, is developed to explain aspects of this process and, along the way, data about perceptual context effects. For example, ...

ARTSTREAM: A neural network model of auditory scene analysis and source segregation
Abstract Multiple sound sources often contain harmonics that overlap and may be degraded by environmental noise. The auditory system is capable of teasing apart these sources into distinct mental objects, or streams. Such an ...

Evaluation of speaker normalization methods for vowel recogntion using fuzzy ARTMAP and K NN
Abstract A procedure that uses fuzzy ARTMAP and K-Nearest Neighbor (K NN) categorizers to evaluate intrinsic and extrinsic speaker normalization methods is described. Each classifier is trained on preprocessed, or normalized, vowel ...

Neural network and nearest neighbor comparison of speaker normalization methods for vowel recognition
Abstract Fuzzy ARTMAP and K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN_ categorizers were used to evaluate intrinsic and extrinsic normalization methods by training and testing on disjoint sets of speakers of the Peterson-Barney database. Intrinsic ...

ARTMAP-DS: Pattern discrimination by discounting similarities
Abstract ARTMAP-DS extends fuzzy ARTMAP to discriminate between similar inputs by discounting similarities. When two or more candidate category representations are activated by a given input, features that the candidate ...

Resonant neural dynamics of speech perception
Abstract What is the neural representation of a speech code as it evolves in time? How do listeners integrate temporally distributed phonemic information across hundreds of milliseconds, even backwards in time, into coherent ...