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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/K73848/01
Title: THE DOMAINS AND DISTRIBUTION OF DURATIONAL EFFECTS IN SPEECH
Principal Investigator: Turk, Professor A
Other Investigators:
Isard, Mr S
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 January 1996 Ends: 30 September 1999 Value (£): 152,388
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Human Communication in ICT
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
The purpose of the project is to determine the domains of various factors which affect speech segment durations so that the information can be used in speech synthesis and recognition systems. Durational information is currently difficult to exploit in automatic speech recognition systems, since durational change can be caused by many factors and it is difficult to know which factor(s) contributed to the observed duration. Our working hypothesis is that the factors which influence duration can be differentiated by their different domains of application. We propose to conduct a series of production experiments for two purposes: 1. To determine the domains of application of several durational factors (Accentual Lengthening, Added Syllable Shortening, Onset Lengthening), and 2. To determine how duration is distributed within each domain. We will test listeners' sensitivity to the observed durational effects, and the robust results of the experiments will then be incorporated into existing speech synthesis and recognition systems developed at the Centre for Speech Technology Research. It is hoped that accurate durational information will improve the naturalness of synthesised speech and will boost automatic recognition scores.Key Words: Information Technology, Speech, Prosody, Perception
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