LINGUIST List 17.1885

Mon Jun 26 2006

FYI: Artificial Speech Listening Tests

Editor for this issue: Svetlana Aksenova <svetlanalinguistlist.org>

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Directory         1.    Tina Bennett, Artificial Speech Listening Tests

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Message 1: Artificial Speech Listening Tests
Date: 23-Jun-2006
From: Tina Bennett <cbennett+linglistcs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Artificial Speech Listening Tests


The Blizzard Challenge 2006:Evaluating corpus-based speech synthesis on common datahttp://www.festvox.org/blizzard/

LISTENING TESTS:

In order to investigate corpus-based speech synthesis techniques we havedevised a large experiment in which research laboratories around the worldused the same speech databases to build synthetic voices.

Year two of the Blizzard Challenge is upon us, and once again, we wouldlike to have as many people take part as possible. We also feel thatdiverse bodies of participants (i.e. those who are knowledgeable aboutspeech, those knowledgeable about technology, and lay people) allow forinteresting comparisons.

In the web-based listening tests, various waveform files are played to thelistener who then is asked to score them on a 1-5 scale or in some tests,to type in what they hear.

To participate in the listening tests please go to:

http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/blizzard2006/register-R.html

You will be asked to register, then listen to and evaluate a set ofsentences. It takes around 30-60 minutes to complete all the tests. It isbest if the tests are completed in a single session, but it is possible toleave and return later, continuing from where you left off.

When you have finished, please give us as much feedback (via the exitquestionnaire) as you are willing. Native language information, etc. willbe especially useful.

Thanks for helping to improve the quality of spoken output!

Tina BennettPh.D. student, Speech groupLanguage Technologies InstituteCarnegie Mellon University

Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable