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Chironomic stylization of intonation
Christophe d'Alessandro1, Albert Rilliard, Sylvain Le Beux
1LIMSI-CNRS (Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), BP 133, Orsay 91403, France. cda@limsi.fr
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|March 25, 2011
Summary
Chironomy, the study of hand gestures mimicking speech intonation, allows for accurate intonation stylization. Gestural imitation results are comparable to vocal imitation, suggesting hand movements can effectively represent prosodic contours.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Speech Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Intonation stylization is crucial for speech synthesis and analysis.
- Chironomy offers a novel approach by drawing parallels between manual gestures and vocal prosody.
- Understanding this analogy can enhance our methods for manipulating and replicating speech intonation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effectiveness of chironomy for intonation stylization.
- To compare the accuracy of gestural imitation with vocal imitation of intonation patterns.
- To assess the perceptual quality of stylized intonation contours generated through hand movements.
Main Methods:
- An intonation mimicking paradigm was employed with ten subjects using a graphic tablet for real-time manual intonation modification.
- Subjects copied intonation patterns gesturally and vocally.
- Acoustic distance measures and perceptual testing (mean opinion score) were used to evaluate performance and quality.
Main Results:
- Chironomic imitation accurately stylized intonation contours.
- Gestural and vocal imitation results were comparable, though vocal imitation showed slightly better performance.
- Stylized contours, especially for female speech, were perceptually indistinguishable or nearly indistinguishable from natural contours.
Conclusions:
- Chironomy is an effective method for intonation stylization.
- Hand movements can serve as a valid analogy for prosodic movements in speech.
- This research validates the potential of gestural control for speech intonation manipulation.
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