A device for providing real time speech compression and expansion and method therefor which enables speech data, sampled at a predetermined rate, and consisting of a preselected number of bits per sample, to be compressed in real time by a factor of approximately 2:1, and upon decomposition, to be essentially indistinguishable from the original digitized speech. In particular, the apparatus employs a method which involves the digitizing of the input data, determining the maximum amplitude of the...

An educational model for teaching language grammar, parts of speech, syntax, and sentence structure is disclosed in which thirty (30) individual elements of speech are identified and grouped into ten (10) distinct sets which are embodied in physical models. Each model represents a word or group of words, referred to as "elements," which form the logical building blocks of the language. Certain elements are actually hybrid elements in that they reflect the unique properties and derivations of ver...

A dispersed vector generator used in an excitation vector generator for a speech coder/decoder is provided. The dispersed vector generator includes a pulse vector generating section that generates a pulse vector having a signed unit pulse on one element of a vector axis. The dispersed vector generator also includes a dispersion pattern storing section that stores a plurality of dispersion patterns, a switch that selects a dispersion pattern out of the plurality of dispersion patterns stored in t...

An excitation vector generator is provided for generating an excitation vector. The excitation vector includes a pulse vector generator that has at least one channel for generating pulse vectors. A memory stores at least one type of dispersion pattern for each of the channels. A dispersion pattern is selectively extracted from the memory for each of the channels. A dispersed vector generator generates a dispersed vector for every channel by convolution calculation using the extracted dispersion ...

In the speech recognizer disclosed herein, alignment of an unknown speech sediment, represented by a finely gradiated sequence of frames, with a model sediment represented by a sequence of states is performed by first preparing respective coarse sequences representing the unknown and model segments thereby to define a coarse matrix representing possible alignments. The fine sequences correspondingly define a fine matrix. A best alignment of the coarse sequences is determined thereby to define a ...

In an overlap addition unit, speech waveform data is subjected to overlap addition every period read out from a period storage unit, and in a simple addition unit, the waveform data obtained by the overlap addition and the aperiodic waveform data read out from an aperiodic waveform storage unit are added to each other. Thus, the aperiodic waveform is given to the speech waveform to improve the quality of synthesized speech.

A system for converting a speech signal into a data signal for controlling an implantable stimulation electrode array hearing prosthesis. An input speech signal is passed through three circuit arms, comprising filter circuits, zero crossing counter circuits and RMS measuring circuits (3-13), for producing signals representing amplitude and frequency of the fundamental voicing component and the first three formants of the speech signal. Computer (14) is programmed with a patient's psychophysical ...

In a pitch synchronous speech synthesizer, an output signal from a pitch phase detector is applied to a delay circuit in a digital filter portion to initialize the output contents of the delay circuit at zero for each pitch period. In this manner the sequence of neighboring frames is smoothed.

In a speech synthesizer designed so that natural speech is chopped at constant intervals of time and characteristic parameters of the speech are extracted from the chopped speech and used for synthesis of speech, the number of bits of a characteristic parameter per analytical frame is not changed, but the interval of time of one analytical frame is changed to change the amount of information per unit time, while the time interval of one synthesis frame of the synthesizer is changed with the time...

A speech synthesizer, using linear predictive coding technique, obtains variable frame lengths by multiplying a pitch period by the number of repetitions, and interpolates PARCOR coefficients at a rate different than the interpolation of amplitude.