Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems

We present a system for detection of lexical stress in English words spoken by English learners. This system was designed to be part of the EduSpeak® computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software. The system uses both prosodic and spectral features to detect the level of stress (unstressed, pr...

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Autores principales: Ferrer, L., Bratt, H., Richey, C., Franco, H., Abrash, V., Precoda, K.
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Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_01676393_v69_n_p31_Ferrer
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spelling todo:paper_01676393_v69_n_p31_Ferrer2023-10-03T15:05:01Z Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems Ferrer, L. Bratt, H. Richey, C. Franco, H. Abrash, V. Precoda, K. Computer-assisted language learning Gaussian mixture models Lexical stress detection Mel frequency cepstral coefficients Prosodic features Computational linguistics Computer aided instruction Consumer products E-learning Feature extraction Linguistics Probability Speech recognition Computer assisted language learning Gaussian Mixture Model Mel frequency cepstral co-efficient Prosodic features Stress detection Learning systems We present a system for detection of lexical stress in English words spoken by English learners. This system was designed to be part of the EduSpeak® computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software. The system uses both prosodic and spectral features to detect the level of stress (unstressed, primary or secondary) for each syllable in a word. Features are computed on the vowels and include normalized energy, pitch, spectral tilt, and duration measurements, as well as log-posterior probabilities obtained from the frame-level mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs). Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) are used to represent the distribution of these features for each stress class. The system is trained on utterances by L1-English children and tested on English speech from L1-English children and L1-Japanese children with variable levels of English proficiency. Since it is trained on data from L1-English speakers, the system can be used on English utterances spoken by speakers of any L1 without retraining. Furthermore, automatically determined stress patterns are used as the intended target; therefore, hand-labeling of training data is not required. This allows us to use a large amount of data for training the system. Our algorithm results in an error rate of approximately 11% on English utterances from L1-English speakers and 20% on English utterances from L1-Japanese speakers. We show that all features, both spectral and prosodic, are necessary for achievement of optimal performance on the data from L1-English speakers; MFCC log-posterior probability features are the single best set of features, followed by duration, energy, pitch and finally, spectral tilt features. For English utterances from L1-Japanese speakers, energy, MFCC log-posterior probabilities and duration are the most important features. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. JOUR info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ar http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_01676393_v69_n_p31_Ferrer
institution Universidad de Buenos Aires
institution_str I-28
repository_str R-134
collection Biblioteca Digital - Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (UBA)
topic Computer-assisted language learning
Gaussian mixture models
Lexical stress detection
Mel frequency cepstral coefficients
Prosodic features
Computational linguistics
Computer aided instruction
Consumer products
E-learning
Feature extraction
Linguistics
Probability
Speech recognition
Computer assisted language learning
Gaussian Mixture Model
Mel frequency cepstral co-efficient
Prosodic features
Stress detection
Learning systems
spellingShingle Computer-assisted language learning
Gaussian mixture models
Lexical stress detection
Mel frequency cepstral coefficients
Prosodic features
Computational linguistics
Computer aided instruction
Consumer products
E-learning
Feature extraction
Linguistics
Probability
Speech recognition
Computer assisted language learning
Gaussian Mixture Model
Mel frequency cepstral co-efficient
Prosodic features
Stress detection
Learning systems
Ferrer, L.
Bratt, H.
Richey, C.
Franco, H.
Abrash, V.
Precoda, K.
Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
topic_facet Computer-assisted language learning
Gaussian mixture models
Lexical stress detection
Mel frequency cepstral coefficients
Prosodic features
Computational linguistics
Computer aided instruction
Consumer products
E-learning
Feature extraction
Linguistics
Probability
Speech recognition
Computer assisted language learning
Gaussian Mixture Model
Mel frequency cepstral co-efficient
Prosodic features
Stress detection
Learning systems
description We present a system for detection of lexical stress in English words spoken by English learners. This system was designed to be part of the EduSpeak® computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software. The system uses both prosodic and spectral features to detect the level of stress (unstressed, primary or secondary) for each syllable in a word. Features are computed on the vowels and include normalized energy, pitch, spectral tilt, and duration measurements, as well as log-posterior probabilities obtained from the frame-level mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs). Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) are used to represent the distribution of these features for each stress class. The system is trained on utterances by L1-English children and tested on English speech from L1-English children and L1-Japanese children with variable levels of English proficiency. Since it is trained on data from L1-English speakers, the system can be used on English utterances spoken by speakers of any L1 without retraining. Furthermore, automatically determined stress patterns are used as the intended target; therefore, hand-labeling of training data is not required. This allows us to use a large amount of data for training the system. Our algorithm results in an error rate of approximately 11% on English utterances from L1-English speakers and 20% on English utterances from L1-Japanese speakers. We show that all features, both spectral and prosodic, are necessary for achievement of optimal performance on the data from L1-English speakers; MFCC log-posterior probability features are the single best set of features, followed by duration, energy, pitch and finally, spectral tilt features. For English utterances from L1-Japanese speakers, energy, MFCC log-posterior probabilities and duration are the most important features. © 2015 Elsevier B.V.
format JOUR
author Ferrer, L.
Bratt, H.
Richey, C.
Franco, H.
Abrash, V.
Precoda, K.
author_facet Ferrer, L.
Bratt, H.
Richey, C.
Franco, H.
Abrash, V.
Precoda, K.
author_sort Ferrer, L.
title Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
title_short Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
title_full Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
title_fullStr Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
title_full_unstemmed Classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
title_sort classification of lexical stress using spectral and prosodic features for computer-assisted language learning systems
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_01676393_v69_n_p31_Ferrer
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