Related Experiment Videos
Acceptability for temporal modification of single vowel segments in isolated words
H Kato1, M Tsuzaki, Y Sagisaka
1ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories, Hikaridai, Seikacho, Kyoto, Japan. kato@hip.atr.co.jp
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
|July 22, 1998
Summary
Listeners found vowel duration changes less acceptable in certain contexts. Vowel position, quality, and following consonant type significantly impacted acceptable duration ranges for speech synthesis.
Area of Science:
- Phonetics
- Speech Perception
- Acoustic Phonetics
Background:
- Perceptual studies on speech temporal aspects often overlook segmental duration acceptability.
- Understanding segmental duration rules is crucial for advancing speech synthesis technology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the perceptual acceptability of altered vowel durations.
- To determine how segment attributes and context influence acceptable durational modifications.
Main Methods:
- Seven listeners evaluated word stimuli with modified vowel durations (-50 ms to +50 ms in 5 ms steps).
- Vowel modifications occurred in 70 contexts, varying mora position, vowel quality (/a/ vs. /i/), and following consonant voicing.
Main Results:
- Acceptable duration modification ranges were narrower for initial vowels than final vowels.
- Vowels /a/ and those preceding unvoiced consonants showed narrower acceptable ranges.
- Vowel position, quality, and following consonant voicing significantly influenced durational acceptability.
Conclusions:
- Contextual factors like mora position, vowel quality, and consonant voicing are critical for acceptable vowel duration in speech.
- Original vowel duration did not significantly affect the acceptability of temporal modifications.