The Acoustics of Speech Communication : Fundamentals, Speech Perception Theory, and Technology

This is the only book to relate all three of the currently interactive areas of speech science - acoustic phonetics, speech perception, and speech technology.

The book presents a gradual course: starting with a clear tutorial approach to basic acoustics of speech and then leading to successively higher levels, explaining speech perception research, the various theories of speech perception, and the modern speech technologies of computer synthesis and recognition of speech messages.

The aim is to gradually bring the student through basic acoustics, spectrum analysis, vowel and consonant acoustics, and into the research literature of speech perception and technology.

The technical terms, essential to understanding acoustic speech sounds and how they are produced, are all explained clearly. The basic acoustic theory of speech production, the Source-Filter Theory, is clarified via text and diagrams.

This knowledge is then applied to interpreting spectrograms of speech examples that sample all the phonetic distinctions among vowels and consonants.

Distinctive acoustical patterns for vowel and consonant perception by listeners are summarized in detail based on the research literature. Critical discussions and tables provide and summarize the theories of motor, auditory, and computer recognition of speech.

Consonant and vowel recognition by the hearing-impaired is described in relation to acoustic phonetic distinctions.

Techniques of speech synthesis, recognition analysis by machines, and speech technologies are thoroughly explained.