Systematic speaker variation and within-speaker center of gravity correlations in the TIMIT database
Hector Raul Javkin, Carol Christie, Gaston R. Cangiano, Elaine Drom, Katia McClain · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2004
The systematicity of speaker variation in consonants was examined by measuring the noise component of consonants in the TIMIT database. Fricatives and stops were compared by measuring at the temporal middle of fricatives and at the release of stops. There is a high correlation between many of the center of gravity measures. For example, if a speaker has a particularly high center of gravity in the sound /t/, she or he will also have a high center of gravity in /d/, /s/, /p/, /k/, and other consonants. The full set of correlations will be described in the paper. The correlations appear to stem from individual differences and not from dialect variations. The implications of the results for rapid speaker adaptation in speech recognition will be explored. [Work supported by San Jose State University Faculty Grant.]