Abstract: A speech analysis apparatus analyzing prosodic characteristics of speech information and outputting a prosodic discrimination result includes an input unit inputting speech information, an acoustic analysis unit calculating relative pitch variation and a discrimination unit performing speech discrimination processing, in which the acoustic analysis unit calculates a current template relative pitch difference, determining whether a difference absolute value between the current template relative pitch difference and a previous template relative pitch difference is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold or not, when the value is not less than the threshold, calculating an adjacent relative pitch difference, and when the adjacent relative pitch difference is equal to or less than a previously set margin value, executing correction processing of adding or subtracting an octave of the current template relative pitch difference to calculate the relative pitch variation by applying the relative pitch differe

Abstract: A method and system for the assessment and diagnosis of voice in normal and diseased states can include determining at least one quantitative measure of vocal fold vibration using a laryngeal image recording of a subject's vocal fold obtained from an endoscopic device or an auditory recording of a subject during a phonatory task, and can include subsequent analysis of a waveform selected from waveform types comprising a) an acoustic recording, and b) a glottal waveform that is extracted from the laryngeal image recording. The method and system can generate a comprehensive, at-a-glance, physician friendly visual pattern and characteristics of vocal fold vibrations and correlate with specific voice conditions for diagnosis and assessment of voice and therapies and treatments of voice disorder.

Abstract: The present invention concerns an automatic method for measuring a baby's cry, comprising the following step: A. having N samples ?(i), for i=O, 1, . . . , (N?1), of an acoustic signal p(t) representing the cry, sampled at a sampling frequency? for a period of duration P; the method being characterised in that it assigns a score PainScore to the acoustic signal p(t) by means of a function AF of one or more acoustic parameters selected from the group comprising: —a root-mean-square or rms value prms of the acoustic signal p(t) in the period P; —a fundamental or pitch frequency F0 of the acoustic signal p(t), i.e. the minimum frequency at which a peak in the spectrum of the acoustic signal p(t) occurs in the period P; and—a configuration of amplitude and frequency modulation of the acoustic signal p(t) in the period P. The invention further concerns the apparatus performing the method.

Abstract: There is provided a method of selecting a pitch lag value for a portion of a speech signal, the method comprising: computing a weighted correlation function of the portion of the speech signal for a range of delay times, wherein the weighting of the correlation function depends on both the delay time and a characteristic of one or more previous portions of the speech signal; and selecting the pitch lag value based on a delay time from the range of delay times that maximizes the weighted correlation function.

Abstract: A method for processing speech data includes obtaining a pitch and at least one formant frequency for each of a plurality of first speech data; constructing a first feature space with the obtained fundamental frequencies and formant frequencies as features; and classifying the plurality pieces of first speech data using the first feature space, and thus a plurality of speech data classes and the corresponding description are obtained.

Abstract: An audio waveform processing not imparting any feeling of strangeness and high in definition, in which time stretch and pitch shift are performed by a vocoder method, and the variation of phase over the whole waveform caused by the vocoder method at all times is reduced. An audio input waveform is handled as one band as it is or subjected to frequency band division into bands. While performing time stretch and pitch shift of each band waveform like conventional vocoder methods, the waveforms are combined. The combined waveform of the band is phase-synchronized at regular intervals to reduce the variation of phase. The phase-synchronized waveforms of the band are added, thus obtaining the final output waveform.