Abstract: The invention provides a method for analysing an input signal having an input frequency bandwidth. The method comprises providing at least one frequency-bandwidth limited portion of the input signal. For each frequency-bandwidth limited portion of the input signal the durations of half-periods and signal excursions during respective half-periods are determined. Based on the signal excursions and corresponding half-periods a quality of the input signal is determined. The determined signal quality can be a vowel in a 10 speech signal or a quality related to a condition of an industrial product. The method provides speaker independent vowel recognition, and even whispered vowels can be recognised.

Abstract: The shape of energy changes of an auditory signal is used for identifying or representing features which can be perceived by a human ear as representing a distinct sound picture. In order to extract information from the shape of the energy changes, the shape is preferably represented by the shape of a transient pulse of the signal with a rise time of at most 2 ms. It is preferred that an envelope detection is being used in order to obtain the transient signal pulse. The energy change representing the distinct sound picture can be a phoneme or vowel. The invention also relates to a method for identifying the energy changes in the auditory signal by comparing the shape of energy changes of the signal, which can be represented as the shape of the transient pulse, with predetermined energy change shapes representing distinct sound pictures. The invention also relates to a method of speech synthesis wherein a series of transient pulses is generated corresponding to the series of phonemes to be synthesized.