Detecting disfluency in spontaneous speech
Disfluent speech presents problems for both computational and psycholinguistic models of speech processing. The surface strings produced when speech is interrupted by disfluency require complex editing processes from computational models in order to produce well-formed strings for parsers. There is little empirical evidence about how the human speech processing mechanism deals with disfluences, but our everyday experience of listening to speech suggests that we can deal with disfluencies very smoothly and efficiently. One of the first problems for a speech processor is to detect that disfluency has occurred. No reliable acoustic or prosodic cues have been identified which signal the presence of a discontinuity. In this thesis, the main aims are to address this problem by first establishing detection points for a set of disfluent utterances and then finding out what acoustic and prosodic cues are available at these points. The main part of the study consists of a series of 5 perceptual experiments, followed by acoustic and prosodic analyses. The first 3 experiments establish detection points for disfluencies and relate these points to recognition points of the words in the vicinity of the interruption. The
Lickley, Robin J.
Detecting disfluency in spontaneous speech. Disfluent speech presents problems for both computational and psycholinguistic models of speech processing. The surface strings produced when speech is interrupted by disfluency require complex editing processes from computational models in order to produce well-formed strings for parsers. There is little empirical evidence about how the human speech processing mechanism deals with disfluences, but our everyday experience of listening to speech suggests that we can deal with disfluencies very smoothly and efficiently. One of the first problems for a speech processor is to detect that disfluency has occurred. No reliable acoustic or prosodic cues have been identified which signal the presence of a discontinuity. In this thesis, the main aims are to address this problem by first establishing detection points for a set of disfluent utterances and then finding out what acoustic and prosodic cues are available at these points. The main part of the study consists of a series of 5 perceptual experiments, followed by acoustic and prosodic analyses. The first 3 experiments establish detection points for disfluencies and relate these points to recognition points of the words in the vicinity of the interruption. The
detecting spontaneous_speech speech present problem computational psycholinguistic model speech processing surface string produce speech require complex process computational_model order_produce well formed string parser little_empirical evidence human speech processing mechanism deal everyday_experience listen speech suggest deal efficiently first problem speech processor detect occur reliable acoustic prosodic cue identify signal presence discontinuity main_aim address_problem first_establish detection point set utterance find acoustic prosodic cue available point main_part study_consist series perceptual follow acoustic prosodic_analysis first_establish detection point relate point recognition point word vicinity