INTERSPEECH 2011 12th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association Florence, Italy August 27-31. 2011

Analysis of Acoustic-Prosodic Features Related to Paralinguistic Information Carried by Interjections in Dialogue Speech

Carlos T. Ishi, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Norihiro Hagita

ATR IRC, Japan

Interjections are often used in dialogue communication for expressing a reaction (such as agreement, surprise and disgust) to the interlocutor. Thus, a correct interpretation of the paralinguistic information (intention, attitude or emotion) carried by interjections is important for achieving a smooth dialogue interaction between humans and robots. In the present work, analyses are conducted on several interjections appearing in spontaneous conversational speech databases to investigate the relationship between acousticprosodic features (related to intonation and voice quality) and their paralinguistic functions in dialogue speech. It is found that there are common and interjection-dependent relationships between acoustic features and paralinguistic information. Regardless of the interjection type, non-modal voice qualities, such as whispery, harsh and pressed voices, are shown to be important cues for the expression of emotions and attitudes.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Ishi, Carlos T. / Ishiguro, Hiroshi / Hagita, Norihiro (2011): "Analysis of acoustic-prosodic features related to paralinguistic information carried by interjections in dialogue speech", In INTERSPEECH-2011, 3133-3136.