Speech Acoustics

Below you will find a paper on Speech Acoustics, written for OCE 471 Underwater Acoustics. Very little prior knowledge of signal processing is assumed, but reader will benifit from an basic understanding of spectrum analysis.

If you read the paper, please download record.m and the sample waveforms. The Matlab GUI, Record, (tested on Matlab versions 5.3 and later) will allow the user to perform the same types of analysis described in the text. This will make the paper more interactive and assist with the learning process. If you have any questions on the paper or the Matlab programs please email me at hansenj@ele.uri.edu

Speech Acoustics Paper

Matlab programs

  • record.m: Wave files can be recorded or imported for spectrogram analysis (Instructions can be found in Section 1.2 of the paper)
  • analysis.m: Works in conjunction with Record to find the 2-D spectrum of a waveform segment

Sample waveforms mentioned in the paper

Below is a screen-shot of the Matlab Record GUI. The waveform (top) and the spectrogram (bottom) correspond to an utterance of the word "already", one of the sample waveforms listed above. Besides being an elegant and beautiful representation of a waveform, the spectrogram is also useful for identifying important features, called formants, which can be seen as horizontal blue bands. More details on speech production and features can be found in the paper. The paper also contains a guide to using the Record GUI. Additional details on the GUI can be found here.



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