Processing the Prosody of Oral Presentations

Rebecca Hincks

KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology Department of Speech, Music and Hearing The Unit for Language and Communication

[1]

English in Sweden

• • • A second language rather than a foreign language Nearly all beginners are children ASR not appropriate or necessary for acquisition of sounds Rebecca Hincks [2]

Support for advanced L2 users?

• • • • • Vision: Speech checker analogous to a spellchecker or grammar checker Practice an oral presentation, get feedback on: – Lexicon – Pronunciation – Prosody Making a presentation can be difficult in a native language, and is even more difficult in an L2 Standard advice for how to deliver a presentation–

Use a lively voice, don’t speak too fast, take pauses

These qualities can be processed automatically using speech analysis Rebecca Hincks [3]

What is a lively voice?

• • • • • • A voice that varies in pitch and rhythm A voice that shows enthusiasm Difficult for native speakers, but more difficult for non-native speakers Studies have shown that non-natives use a more narrowed pitch range than natives (Pickering 2004) Tools for helping speakers increase their liveliness should be welcomed Research Question: How can we measure liveliness automatically?

Rebecca Hincks [4]

Corpus of student speech

• • • • • Audio recordings of 35 ten-minute presentations in English made by engineering students Recordings made in the classroom Selected 10 women and 10 men – Varied levels of ability in English – All native speakers of Swedish Written feedback on the presentations from teachers and classmates In preparation: listener ratings of liveliness and fluency Rebecca Hincks [5]

Pitch dynamism quotient, PDQ PDQ =

Standard deviation of F

0

in Hertz Mean F

0

in Hertz

• • F 0 = Fundamental frequency = pitch Necessary to normalize the standard deviation in order to compare voices that are naturally high or naturally low Rebecca Hincks [6]

Time, frequencies and editing

• • • • • Between 7 and 10 minutes per person Divided in intervals of (1 min, 30 s, 15 s,) 10 seconds WaveSurfer’s ESPS settings: 60-400 Hz men, 75 600 Hz women Have also analyzed at 25-400 Hz men, 25-500 Hz women Visually inspected every contour and edited away as many errors as possible Rebecca Hincks [7]

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.25

Mean pitch dynamism quotient for 7-10 minutes of speech

Females Males 0.20

Student, by placement test

Rebecca Hincks [8]

Three proficient speakers

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

85OM 88TO 89EH 0.00

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59

Consecutive time periods of 10 seconds

Rebecca Hincks [9]

Lively speaker 1

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

Speaker 85OM4

0.05

0.00

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58

Consecutive time periods of 10 seconds

• Mean PDQ: .23

“the divergence”

“well-structured,” “confident,” “easy to follow,” “very coherent,” and the speech “well-modulated” and with “varied intonation.” Rebecca Hincks [10]

Lively speaker 2

• Mean PDQ: .21

Her presentation was “well-rehearsed” and “professional.” 0.35

0.30

Speaker 88TO4

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58

Consecutive time periods of 10 seconds

Rebecca Hincks [11]

Monotone speaker

• Mean PDQ: .12

“why is voice over IP interesting?

• Medel PDQ: .12

0.35

0.30

0.25

Speaker 89EH4

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58

Consecutive time periods of 10 seconds

Delivery was “a little deadpan,” “more animated facial expressions would be good,” and the presentation would be improved by “showing more enthusiasm.” Rebecca Hincks [12]

Selection of files for listening test

Test values; 9 per speaker

• • 3 lowest PDQ • 3 highest 0.40

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

0 Males Females 10 20 30 40 50 60

Individual ten-second segment

70 80 90 Rebecca Hincks [13]

Conclusions

• • • • • Normalized standard deviation can be used as a measure of liveliness in speaking styles used for oral presentations Hypothesis: PDQ values over .15 lively, over .30 very lively, between .20 and .25 a good target - Different preferences depending on personality and culture?

Unclear effect of Swedish L1 and of proficiency in English Applications: teaching, presentation skills Appropriate feedback: not values but a talking head that moves from alert to sleepy Rebecca Hincks [14]

Thank you for your attention…

Rebecca Hincks [15]