Speech as a pilot input medium

The speech recognition system under development is a trainable pattern classifier based on a maximum-likelihood technique. An adjustable uncertainty threshold allows the rejection of borderline cases for which the probability of misclassification is high. The syntax of the command language spoken may be used as an aid to recognition, and the system adapts to changes in pronunciation if feedback from the user is available. Words must be separated by .25 second gaps. The system runs in real time on a mini-computer (PDP 11/10) and was tested on 120,000 speech samples from 10- and 100-word vocabularies. The results of these tests were 99.9% correct recognition for a vocabulary consisting of the ten digits, and 99.6% recognition for a 100-word vocabulary of flight commands, with a 5% rejection rate in each case. With no rejection, the recognition accuracies for the same vocabularies were 99.5% and 98.6% respectively

Evolving Plasticity for Autonomous Learning under Changing Environmental Conditions

A fundamental aspect of learning in biological neural networks is the plasticity property which allows them to modify their configurations during their lifetime. Hebbian learning is a biologically plausible mechanism for modeling the plasticity property in artificial neural networks (ANNs), based on the local interactions of neurons. However, the emergence of a coherent global learning behavior from local Hebbian plasticity rules is not very well understood. The goal of this work is to discover interpretable local Hebbian learning rules that can provide autonomous global learning. To achieve this, we use a discrete representation to encode the learning rules in a finite search space. These rules are then used to perform synaptic changes, based on the local interactions of the neurons. We employ genetic algorithms to optimize these rules to allow learning on two separate tasks (a foraging and a prey-predator scenario) in online lifetime learning settings. The resulting evolved rules converged into a set of well-defined interpretable types, that are thoroughly discussed. Notably, the performance of these rules, while adapting the ANNs during the learning tasks, is comparable to that of offline learning methods such as hill climbing.Comment: Evolutionary Computation Journa

Automatic speech recognition research at NASA-Ames Research Center

A trainable acoustic pattern recognizer manufactured by Scope Electronics is presented. The voice command system VCS encodes speech by sampling 16 bandpass filters with center frequencies in the range from 200 to 5000 Hz. Variations in speaking rate are compensated for by a compression algorithm that subdivides each utterance into eight subintervals in such a way that the amount of spectral change within each subinterval is the same. The recorded filter values within each subinterval are then reduced to a 15-bit representation, giving a 120-bit encoding for each utterance. The VCS incorporates a simple recognition algorithm that utilizes five training samples of each word in a vocabulary of up to 24 words. The recognition rate of approximately 85 percent correct for untrained speakers and 94 percent correct for trained speakers was not considered adequate for flight systems use. Therefore, the built-in recognition algorithm was disabled, and the VCS was modified to transmit 120-bit encodings to an external computer for recognition

The effects of relational psychomotricity on pre-school children

Esta presentación se centra en la discusión sobre la aplicación de la psicomotricidad relacional como parte de un estudio realizado sobre niños en edad preescolar. La literatura nos muestra que la psicomotricidad es una práctica testigo de la implantación de lo simbólico en el cuerpo y que sus efectos placenteros son una invitación a entender nuestro mundo interno a través de la motricidad. Es un método que utiliza la unidad de cuerpo y mente integrando las interacciones cognitivas, emocionales-afectivas, simbólicas y físicas en la capacidad del individuo para ser y actuar en un contexto psico-socio-cultural. Los conceptos discutidos en este documento se basan en el trabajo de pioneros Bernard Aucouturier y André Lapierre que desarrollaron una práctica basada en la externalización de la expresión de las dificultades psicoafectivas a través de actividades lúdicas acentuadas en una relación entre el sujeto y su entorno. Discutimos las observaciones de la interacción entre los niños y cuatro objetos utilizados durante las sesiones de psicomotricidad relacional. Las representaciones simbólicas de las actividades lúdicas son también objeto de reflexión como el papel de la figura adulta, actuando como un instrumento favorable a la transformación del placer de actuar en el placer de pensar.This presentation will focus on the discussion regarding the application of relational psychomotricity as part of a study involving preschool children. The literature shows that psychomotricity is a practice that witnesses the implantation of the symbolic in the body and it´s pleasurable affects through an invitation to understand our internal world through motricity. It is a method that utilizes the unity of body and mind integrating the cognitive, emotional-affective, symbolical and physical interactions in the individual’s capacity to be and to act in a psycho-socio-cultural context. The concepts discussed in this paper are based on the work of pioneers Bernard Aucouturier and André Lapierre who developed a practice based on the externalization of expression of psychoaffective difficulties through ludic activities accentuated in a relationship between the subject and his environment. We discuss the observations of the interaction between the children and four objects utilized during relational psychomotricity sessions. The symbolic representations of the ludic activities are also subject of reflection as is the role of the adult figure working as an instrument favorable to transform the pleasure of acting into the pleasure of thinking.peerReviewe

TU-Note Violin Sample Library

The presented sample library of violin sounds is designed as a tool for the research, development and testing of sound analysis / synthesis algorithms. The library features single sounds which cover the entire frequency range of the instrument in four dynamic levels, two-note sequences for the study of note transitions, and solo pieces and scales. All parts come with hand-labeled segmentation ground-truth files which mark attack, release and transition/transient segments. Additional relevant information on the samples’ properties is provided for single sounds and two-note sequences. Recordings took place in an anechoic chamber with a professional violinist and a recording engineer, using two microphone positions

Prosodic and Segmental Correlates of Spontaneous Dutch Speech in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease:A Pilot Study

This study investigates the acoustic correlates of prosody and vowel articulation in Dutch individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). We compared prosodic and segmental acoustic measures in spontaneous monologues in PD patients to those in elderly healthy controls matched for age and gender. For the prosodic measurements of pitch variability, span and speech rate, we analysed fundamental frequency and intensity. For articulation measurements, the first two formants were calculated from Dutch corner vowels extracted from the speech signal. Results show a monopitch trend, reduced speech rate, centralization of the formant frequencies and reduced first formant variability in individuals with PD compared to control group

Untangling Linguistic Salience

The concept of linguistic salience is broadly used within sociolinguistics to account for processes as diverse as language change (Kerswill & Williams, 2002) and language acquisition (Ellis, 2016) in that salient forms are e.g. more likely to undergo change, or are often acquired earlier than other features. However, the meaning of salience is “notoriously difficult to quantify” (Hickey, 2000, p. 57) and definitions of the term given in the literature often differ to such a degree that one could dispute whether the concept of salience has explanatory value (cf. Rácz, 2013). Accordingly, what makes a particular linguistic feature salient is contested: some argue that salience can be defined by linguistic traits such as loudness, high word-frequency, or a greater articulatory effort, whereas others argue that salience is a result of associations with social factors (cf. Kerswill & Williams, 2002). In a pilot study, we used eye-tracking to collect pupil dilation data while participants listened to spoken samples that were hypothesized to be either salient or not. These differences in salience were based on notions taken from the literature and included traits such as acoustical prominence, gender violations, loudness and differing realizations of the consonants /r/ and /v/. We were able to show that pupil size increased significantly for salient variables in the categories acoustic prominence, gender and loudness, pointing towards an increase in brain activity for these variables. In this poster, we propose to untangle how the concept is used. To those ends, we conducted a review of the literature on salience and identified different ways of operationalizing it. We conclude by discussing how salience could be decomposed in terms of other notions such as frequency, surprisal and markedness. We then propose a series of experiments using eye-tracking and ERP experiments

Social Representation of Elderly Violence

One of the consequences of aging is the stress of necessary adjustments in living arrangements which carry with it changes in social participation and dependency. These give rise to the phenomenon under investigation in this study: that of violence…often blatant, but sometimes muted. The literature speaks of an increase in the phenomenon worldwide which can be obscured in the non evident cases. This study attempts to surmount the obstacles not only by delving into the epidemiology, but investigating its significance and representations via the comparison of expressions from a studied population in two countries: United States and Portugal. We present the partial results of a research using both qualitative and quantitative methodology that examines the social representations of elderly violence using the framework of Moscovici's Social Representation Theory. We analysed the thoughts of sixty participants divided into three categories : elderly individuals, family members and health workers. Content analysis was treated by the ALCESTE software that allows the comparison between the elements of the corpus of words or sentences. The results revealed the social representation of elderly violence for the subjects considering their cultural differences. It also highlights the importance of the reciprocity between individuals and the environment where violence occurs. In addition, evidences the lack of educational preparation of two main support pillars to the elderly: family and health professionals. The similarities of terms associated with violence points to the possibility of using a consensual concept proposed by the authors to promote preventative strategies while discussing the phenomenon

Sound power and timbre as cues for the dynamic strength of orchestral instruments

In a series of measurements, the sound power of 40 musical instruments, including all standard modern orchestral instruments, as well as some of their historic precursors from the classical and the baroque epoch, was determined using the enveloping surface method with a 32-channel spherical microphone array according to ISO 3745. Single notes were recorded at the extremes of the dynamic range (pp and ff) over the entire pitch range. In a subsequent audio content analysis, audio features were determined for all 3482 single notes using the timbre toolbox. In order to analyze the relative contributions of timbre- and amplitude-related properties to the expression of musical dynamics in different instruments, Bayesian linear discriminant analysis and generalized linear mixed modelling were employed to determine those audio features discriminating best between extremes of dynamics both within and across instruments. The results from these measurements and statistical analyses thus deliver a comprehensive picture of the acoustical manifestation of “musical dynamics” with respect to sound power and timbre for all standard orchestral instruments.DFG, 174776315, FOR 1557: Simulation and Evaluation of Acoustical Environments (SEACEN