Investigating voice characteristics of different larynx heights and imitating conversational laughter
Speaker:Eva Lasarcyk
Institution: Saarland University
Abstract:
In this talk I will present two short-term projects. In both of them, the central topic is the imitation of human speech production with an articulatory synthesizer.
The first project is about how speech characteristics change when you change the position (height) of the larynx. When humans shift their larynx during speech, voice characteristics change as an unintended consequence. This is because the overall shape and tension of the vocal tract is varied inevitably. The acoustic differences of different larynx settings show a certain direction. The same direction can be obtained with the 3D articulatory synthesizer I am currently working with.
The second projects deals with laughter. I analyzed real laughter in a conversational environment and resynthesized some instances of it using different techniques. The results of an informal listening test show that some stimuli are comparable to natural laughter with regard to naturalness.