NSF RI Collaborative Research: Landmark-based Robust Speech Recognition Using Prosody-Guided Models of Speech Variability

The research will develop large-vocabulary psychologically realistic models of speech acoustics, pronunciation variability, prosody, and syntax by deriving knowledge representations that reflect those proposed for human speech production and speech perception, using machine learning techniques to adjust the parameters of all knowledge representations simultaneously in order to minimize the structural risk of the recognizer. The team will develop nonlinear acoustic landmark detectors and pattern classifiers that integrate auditory-based signal processing and acoustic phonetic processing, are invariant to noise, change in speaker characteristics and reverberation, and can be learned in a semi-supervised fashion from labeled and unlabeled data. In addition, they will use variable frame rate analysis, which will allow for multi-resolution analysis, as well as implement lexical access based on gesture, using a variety of training data.

The work will improve communication and collaboration between people and machines and also improve understanding of how human produce and perceive speech

Landmark-based Robust Speech Recognition Using Prosody-Guided Models of Speech Variability is a six-year, $542K grant.