SPEECH FILTERS

• US 20080201141A1
• Filed: 02/15/2008
• Published: 08/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Igor Abramov, Patrick O. Nunally
• Original Assignee: Igor Abramov, Patrick O. Nunally
• Inventors: Nunally, Patrick O., Abramov, Igor
• Application Number:
  US12/031,712
• Publication Number:
  US 20080201141A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/234
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/033 Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2021/0135 Voice conversion or morphing

Abstract

Utterances by a speaker are analyzed by an appropriate computational system. The spoken words are recognized and indexed to their respective analogs which are used to tailor the speech sequence to conform to a pre-determined standard of speech characteristics which could be fixed for a given language or chosen based on the regional characteristics of the said common language target for a communication session. Thusly selected audio sequences are then tailored or synthesized into the normalized characteristics and inserted into the outgoing speech stream such that the resulting audio sequence exhibits reduced speech characteristics deemed undesirable.

Claims

1. A method of adjusting the characteristics of a speaker'"'"'s voice perceived by a listener or listeners during an interaction between the speaker and the listener or listeners based upon a targeted objective, such method comprising the steps of:

a) referencing a predetermined objective for the adjustment of a speakers voice,

b) retrieving a predetermined set of interaction parametric values based upon the targeted objective for the adjustment of a speakers voice,

c) detecting aspects of the speaker'"'"'s voice, and

d) modifying speaker'"'"'s voice perceived by a listener or listeners to the targeted objective based upon the predetermined set of interaction parametric values to produce a spoken voice perceived by the listener or listeners based upon the detected content, wherein said speaker and listener or listeners are different and said listener or listeners only hear the modified voice of the speaker.

2. A system for speech alteration comprising:

a) acquisition of speech signals;

b) algorithmic recognition of speech patterns, and their conversion to distinct phoneme and morpheme representations;

c) algorithmic selection of the appropriate instances of said distinct phoneme and morpheme representations from a plurality of instances residing in said system'"'"'s memory, said selection process governed by the predetermined objective for the adjustment of a speakers voice;

d) algorithmic alteration of the appropriate instances of said distinct phoneme and morpheme representations from a plurality of instances residing in said system'"'"'s memory, said alteration process governed by the predetermined objective for the adjustment of a speakers voice;

;

f) digital output of altered speech representations stored in system memory.

3. A method of altering spoken speech, comprising:

a) parsing speech input with speech recognition algorithms;

b) identification of portions of the speech input inconsistent with a pre-determined pronunciation objective indexed in part by the parsed speech input;

c) combinatorial processing of the speech input and said pre-determined pronunciation objective;

4. An ambient noise cancelling speech-based communication system, said noise cancellation effected by:

a. accepting audio input;

b. parsing audio input with speech recognition algorithms;

c. identification of portions of the speech input inconsistent with a pre-determined pronunciation objective indexed in part by the parsed speech input;

d. combinatorial processing of the speech input and said pre-determined pronunciation objective.

5. A speech-conversion processing apparatus, comprising:

a) memory storing digital signals representing at least a portion of speech to be converted;

b) a microprocessor executing algorithm to convert a portion of speech to be converted to stored in memory phoneme and morpheme representations; and

to algorithmically alter portions of stored speech to be consistent with a set of pronunciation objectives stored in memory;

6. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the algorithms to convert said portion of stored speech is based in part on speech recognition algorithms.

7. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein a speech-conversion algorithm includes a threshold of acceptable variance between portions of stored speech and the set of pronunciation objectives stored in memory

8. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the speech-conversion algorithm includes a threshold of unacceptable variance between portions of stored speech and the set of pronunciation objectives stored in memory

9. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the set of pronunciation objectives stored in memory comprises representations of phoneme and morpheme patterns.

10. The speech-conversion processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the microprocessor controls the algorithmic mapping between the storing digital signals representing at least a portion of speech to be converted and the set of pronunciation objectives stored in memory.