Method and apparatus for speech analysis
First Claim
1. A method for determining emotional arousal of a subject by speech analysis, comprising the steps of:
- obtaining a speech sample;
pre-processing the speech sample into silent and active speech segments and dividing the active speech segments into strings of equal length blocks;
said blocks having primary speech parameters including pitch and amplitude parameters;
deriving a plurality of selected secondary speech parameters indicative of characteristics of equal-pitch, rising-pitch and falling-pitch trends in said strings of blocks;
comparing said secondary speech parameters with predefined, subject independent values representing non-emotional speech to generate a processing result indicative of emotional arousal, and outputting said generated processed result to an output device, wherein said plurality of selected secondary speech parameters is selected from the list of;
(a) Average length of short silences and/or short silences frequency;
(b) Average length of equal pitch segments and/or equal pitch segments frequency;
(c) Rising pitch segments length average and/or rising pitch segments frequency and/or falling pitch segments length average and/or falling pitch segments frequency; and
(d) The average amplitude dispersion within equal pitch segments of speech.
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Abstract
An apparatus for determining emotional arousal of a subject by speech analysis, and an associated method. In the method, a speech sample is obtained, the speech sample is pre-processed into silent and active speech segments and the active speech segments are divided into strings of equal length blocks (the blocks having primary speech parameters including pitch and amplitude parameters), a plurality of selected secondary speech parameters indicative of characteristics of equal-pitch are derived, rising-pitch and falling-pitch trends in the strings of blocks, the secondary speech parameters are compared with predefined, subject independent values representing non-emotional speech to generate a processing result indicative of emotional arousal, and the generated processed result is outputted to an output device.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method for determining emotional arousal of a subject by speech analysis, comprising the steps of:
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obtaining a speech sample;
pre-processing the speech sample into silent and active speech segments and dividing the active speech segments into strings of equal length blocks;
said blocks having primary speech parameters including pitch and amplitude parameters;
deriving a plurality of selected secondary speech parameters indicative of characteristics of equal-pitch, rising-pitch and falling-pitch trends in said strings of blocks;
comparing said secondary speech parameters with predefined, subject independent values representing non-emotional speech to generate a processing result indicative of emotional arousal, and outputting said generated processed result to an output device, wherein said plurality of selected secondary speech parameters is selected from the list of;
(a) Average length of short silences and/or short silences frequency;
(b) Average length of equal pitch segments and/or equal pitch segments frequency;
(c) Rising pitch segments length average and/or rising pitch segments frequency and/or falling pitch segments length average and/or falling pitch segments frequency; and
(d) The average amplitude dispersion within equal pitch segments of speech. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification