Toward models for human production and perception of speech

Abstract

Two of the goals of research in speech communication are to develop models of normal speech production and normal speech perception. Related objectives are to uncover the process by which children acquire the knowledge implicit in these models and to determine how the models are modified for disordered speech. Even partial achievement of these goals can have significant practical consequences, including machine recognition and synthesis of speech, and improved methods for diagnosis and remediation of speech disorders. In this paper, a current view of a framework for models of speech production and perception will be described, and some of the steps that have led to refinement of these models over the past 50-odd years will be described. Advances have been made in quantifying acoustic mechanisms of speech production and in specifying the nature of the discrete linguistic representation of an utterance in memory. From studies of speech perception and speech motor control, some understanding has been gained of how properties of the sound are related to the linguistic representation. There are large deficiencies, however, in our understanding of variability in speech due to speaker differences, speaking style, and context. [Work supported in part by NIH Grants DC00075 and DC02525.]