This is the only book to relate all three of the currently interactive areas of speech science-acoustic phonetics, speech perception, and speech technology. The book presents a gradual course, starting with a clear tutorial approach to basic speech then leading to speech perception research, the various theories of speech perception, and the modern speech technologies of computer synthesis and recognition of speech messages. The aim is to bring the reader through basic acoustics, spectrum analysis, vowel and consonant acoustics, and into the research literature of speech perception technology. The basic acoustic theory of speech production, the Source-Filter Theory, is clarified via text and diagrams. This knowledge is then applied to interpreting spectrograms of speech examples that sample all the phonetic distinctions among vowels and consonants. Distinctive acoustical patterns for vowel and consonant perception by listeners are summarized in detail based on the research literature. Critical discussions provide theories of motor, auditory, and computer recognition of speech. Consonant and vowel recognition by the hearing-impaired is described in relation to acoustic phonetic distinctions. Techniques of speech synthesis, recognition analysis by machines, and speech technologies are thoroughly explained. Anyone interested in speech acoustics, acoustic phonetics, speech and hearing science, psychoacoustics, and speech perception at any level.

In communication acoustics, the communication channel consists of a sound source, a channel (acoustic and/or electric) and finally the receiver: the human auditory system, a complex and intricate system that shapes the way sound is heard. Thus, when developing techniques in communication acoustics, such as in speech, audio and aided hearing, it is important to understand the time–frequency–space resolution of hearing. This book facilitates the reader’s understanding and development of speech and audio techniques based on our knowledge of the auditory perceptual mechanisms by introducing the physical, signal-processing and psychophysical background to communication acoustics. It then provides a detailed explanation of sound technologies where a human listener is involved, including audio and speech techniques, sound quality measurement, hearing aids and audiology. Key features: Explains perceptually-based audio: the authors take a detailed but accessible engineering perspective on sound and hearing with a focus on the human place in the audio communications signal chain, from psychoacoustics and audiology to optimizing digital signal processing for human listening. Presents a wide overview of speech, from the human production of speech sounds and basics of phonetics to major speech technologies, recognition and synthesis of speech and methods for speech quality evaluation. Includes MATLAB examples that serve as an excellent basis for the reader’s own investigations into communication acoustics interaction schemes which intuitively combine touch, vision and voice for lifelike interactions.

This book presents the most contemporary and comprehensive description of the acoustics of the sounds used in American English. Intended to serve as an introductory text for students and professionals interested in acoustic phonetics, linguistics, physics, electrical engineering, and computer science, the authors bring to the subject the points of view of both linguistics and physics. The book uses numerous examples of acoustic spectrograms to show the continuities and variability of natural speech. The book begins by introducing the basic concepts of phonetics, phonology, and linguistics to readers whose background is in physics or engineering and introducing the physics of sound generation and analysis for speech scientists and linguists. The authors then use the tools developed in the first part to examine the characteristics of individual phonemes as well as the changes introduced when individual sounds are combined in speech. Modern applications of speech acoustics, especially speech synthesis and recognition, are also discussed.

- Speech Generation: Acoustics, Models and Applications (Arild Lacroix). - The Evolution of Digital Audio Technology (John Mourjopoulos). - Audio-Visual Interaction (Armin Kohlrausch) . - Speech and Audio Coding (Ulrich Heute) . - Binaural Technique (Dorte Hammerhoei, Henrik Moeller). - Auditory Virtual Environment (Pedro Novo). - Evolutionary Adaptions for Auditory Communication (Georg Klump). - A Functional View on the Human Hearing Organ (Herbert Hudde). - Modeling of Binaural Hearing (Jonas Braasch). - Psychoacoustics and Sound Quality (Hugo Fastl). - Semiotics for Engineers (Ute Jekosch). - Quality of Transmitted Speech for Humans and Machines (Sebastian Möller).

This book assembles major writings in speech production and phonetics of the pioneering Gunnar Fant, along with his more recent work on speech prosody. The book reviews the stages of the speech chain, covering production, speech data analysis and speech perception. 19 selected articles are grouped in 6 chapters, including a historical outline plus Speech production and synthesis; The voice source; Speech analysis and features; Speech perception; Prosody.

This analysis of speech ranges from clarifying physiological, biological and neurological bases of speech through defining the principles of electrical and computer models of speech production.