Recognizing Uncertainty in Speech. (8th December 2010)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pon-Barry Pon-Barry, Heather Heather; Shieber Shieber, Stuart M. Stuart M.
• Other Names: Cowie Cowie R. R. Academic Editor.
• Is Part Of: EURASIP journal on advances in signal processing. Volume 2011(2011)
• Publication Date: 2010-12-08
• Subjects: Signal processing -- Periodicals; Traitement du signal; Signal processing; Periodicals; 621.3822
• DOI: 10.1155/2011/251753
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1687-6172

Abstract

Abstract : We address the problem of inferring a speaker's level of certainty based on prosodic information in the speech signal, which has application in speech-based dialogue systems. We show that using phrase-level prosodic features centered around the phrases causing uncertainty, in addition to utterance-level prosodic features, improves our model's level of certainty classification. In addition, our models can be used to predict which phrase a person is uncertain about. These results rely on a novel method for eliciting utterances of varying levels of certainty that allows us to compare the utility of contextually-based feature sets. We elicit level of certainty ratings from both the speakers themselves and a panel of listeners, finding that there is often a mismatch between speakers' internal states and their perceived states, and highlighting the importance of this distinction.