The Prototype Model in Speaker Identification by Human Listeners

Abstract

Little is known about the perceptual processes of speaker identification and their relationship to the acoustic features of the speaker's voice. A study of speaker perception and identification by psychoacoustic experiments was carried out. Twenty male speakers were recorded and thirty listeners participated in the experiments. Statistical analysis of the results suggests that the prototype model is appropriate for explaining the process of speaker identification. The most important features for speaker identification were the fundamental frequency, the third and fourth formants, and the closing phase of the glottal wave. For different listeners, different sets of features were found to be significant for coding speaker identity.