NATO Advanced Study Institute -- Dynamics of Speech

NATO Advanced Study Institute

Dynamics of Speech Production and Perception

Director:
Pierre L. Divenyi, Ph.D., Speech and Hearing Research, Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care Systems and East Bay Institute of Research and Education, Martinez, California, USA
Co-director:
Klára Vicsi, Ph.D., Department of Telecommunications and Telematics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary

In great part because speech science has sprouted out of the tradition of phonetics and phonology—two fields historically preoccupied with isolated speech sounds—speech is still viewed by many practitioners (explicitly or implicitly) essentially as a sequential string of phonemes. In reality, much of the information in speech is dynamic, represented by changes in the amplitude and spectral characteristics of the speech signal. There is an increasing belief among speech scientists that the study of the dynamics of speech brings valuable benefits to science and technology by giving researchers new insights into speech production and perception, and by offering hope to engineers anxious to solve the problems of automatic speech recognition and computerized auditory scene analysis.

The objective of the present NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) was to expose young scientists from diverse disciplines to facts, theories, and issues related to speech dynamics. It surveyed both classical and contemporary speech research from the perspectives of articulatory phonetics and physiology, auditory perception of speech and other dynamically changing signals, neurophysiology of the central auditory system, spoken language processing, and speech technology, with dynamic processes as the common focus. By bringing together lecturers and students of different orientation and narrower background and by scheduling several structured discussion sessions, the main intent of the ASI was to explore fresh ideas and stimulate novel research in a lively atmosphere of learning. In addition, the ASI also provided an opportunity to pay homage to the original Speech Group at the Pavlov Institute in what was then known as Leningrad, scientists who, through many pioneering experiments, drew the first comprehensive picture of speech as a dynamic process over 30 years ago. It was our privilege that a founding members of this group Valentina V. Lublinskaya, graciously agreed to participate as lecturer.

Organizing this ASI as a forum for the study of the dynamic processes in speech was especially timely for two main reasons. First, recent advances in digital technology and bioinstrumentation made it possible to investigate complex problems, such as the analysis and synthesis of complex acoustic and physiological signals, indispensable for research on speech dynamics. For the ASI to treat a topic that had only begun to benefit from these new technological possibilities, and which is guaranteed to experience a rapid growth in the near future, was an auspicious educational undertaking. Second, the ASI was able to line up a list of distinguished lecturers—experts in diverse areas of speech, some with careers spanning many decades. Although some of these experts did sporadically share the same pulpit in the past, together as a group they never stood in front of a select, educated audience. Students at the ASI were thus given the opportunity to spend two weeks with these particular experts—who represent a great diversity of scientific generations, orientations, and philosophies—and to thereby witness a synthesis of findings, theories, experiences, and styles that was likely to be a unique educational experience. Following the tradition of NATO ASI’s, material presented at our ASI will appear in the book Dynamics of Speech Production and Perception (Pierre L. Divenyi and Georg F. Meyer, eds.) to be published by IOS Press (Amsterdam) in the summer of 2004.

The ASI was organized in three sections. The first consisted of two three-hour lecture periods (9:00-12:00 and 14:30-17:30). The second consisted of organized discussion periods. The third consisted of two sessions of student posters on original research relevant to the central theme of the ASI. These posters were viewable non-stop over several days and became the gathering place of students and faculty before and after the scheduled lectures. The quality and seriousness of the posters was especially noteworthy, such that three of them were given awards by the organizing committee and will be included in the ASI book.

By all counts, the ASI was regarded as a success. Much of it was due to the enthusiastic support of Dr. W. Katzenberger, Director of the Life Sciences and Technology Programme at the NATO Scientific Affairs Division, and the other sponsors of the event: AFOSR, ONR, NSF, ISCA, the Oticon Foundation, and Phonak AG. Last but not least, the invaluable and indefatigable assistance of Mr. Bruno Giannasi, Director of Conferences at the Centro di Congressi Il Ciocco (LU), Italy, as well as of his dedicated team is gratefully acknowledged.

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