Analysis and Calibration of Lombard Effect and Whisper for Speaker Recognition.

Variations in vocal effort can create challenges for speaker recognition systems that are optimized for use with neutral speech. The Lombard effect and whisper are two commonly-occurring forms of vocal effort variation that result in non-neutral speech, the first due to noise exposure and the second due to intentional adjustment on the part of the speaker. In this article, a comparative evaluation of speaker recognition performance in non-neutral conditions is presented using multiple Lombard effect and whisper corpora.

Changes in Speech Chunking in Reading Aloud is a Marker of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Speech and Language Impairments, generally attributed to lexico-semantic deficits, have been documented in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study investigates the temporal organisation of speech (reflective of speech production planning) in reading aloud in relation to cognitive impairment, particularly working memory and attention deficits in MCI and AD. The discriminative ability of temporal features extracted from a newly designed read speech task is also evaluated for the detection of MCI and AD.

Effects of cognitive impairment on prosodic parameters of speech production planning in multiple sclerosis.

Cognitive impairment (CI) affects 40-65% of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). CI can have a negative impact on a patient's everyday activities, such as engaging in conversations. Speech production planning ability is crucial for successful verbal interactions and thus for preserving social and occupational skills.