Understanding individual-level speech variability: From novel speech production data to robust speaker recognition
The vocal tract is the universal human instrument played with great dexterity and skill in the production of speech to convey rich linguistic and paralinguistic information. The understanding of how individuals differ in their speech articulation due to differences in shape and size of their physical vocal instrument, and its acoustic consequences are not well understood. Knowledge of how people differ in their speech production can help create improved automatic speaker recognition technologies as well as inform design of technologies for robust speech-based access to people and information.