How%20(Not)%20to%20Add%20Laughter%20to%20Synthetic%20Speech

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How (Not) to Add Laughter to Synthetic Speech
Jürgen Trouvain trouvain_at_phonetik-buero.de
Marc Schröder schroed_at_dfki.de
Laughter in Human Interactions

• Laughter in Dialogues
• speaker laughs more often than listener
• speaker laughs before/after articulation
  phases

• Functions of Laughter
• humour
• social bonding
• contempt
• irony
• ...

• Forms of Laughter
• great repertoire mild forms frequent
• speech-laughs
• smiling while speaking

Experiment

• Scenario
• function of laughter social bonding
• two dialogues with two synthetic voices (male
  and female diphone voice)
• various versions of "synthetic laughs"

• Perception test
• 14 subjects
• 6-point scale

Question 1How well do both speakers like each
other?
1 modal voice
2 soft voice
3 loud voice
4 same speaker, intense
5 same speaker, medium
6 other speaker, mild
baseline no laughter
diphone-based
natural
Example dialogue A Shall we do it this way? B
Okay ltlaughgt Then we see each other on Monday.
Question 2How well does the laughter fit into
the dialogue?
Ja o - kay, ltlaugh 4gt
Ja o - kay, ltlaugh 6gt
Discussion
Outlook

• best results for version 6 other speaker,
  mild intensity
• worst results for version 4 same speaker,
  high intensity
• gt important careful control of laugh intensity!
• intriguing usually, for synthetic speech,
  natural signal diphones sounds bad

• more functions and forms of laughter to
  investigate
• examine criteria for acceptability synthesis
  method speaker intensity duration voicing
  vowel quality ...
• extend to other affect bursts