Tag: Speech

Whale Mimics Human Speech Audio,Video
SAN DIEGO – A new paper published by the National Marine Mammal Foundation in the scientific
journal Current Biology sheds light on the ability of marine mammals to spontaneously mimic human
speech. The study details the case of a white whale named NOC who began to mimic the human voice,
presumably a result of vocal learning.

amy Whale, breaching, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The whale’s vocalizations often sounded as if two people were conversing in the distance,” says Dr.
Sam Ridgway, President of the National Marine Mammal Foundation. “These ‘conversations’ were
heard several times before the whale was eventually identified as the source. In fact, we discovered it
when a diver mistook the whale for a human voice giving him underwater directions.”
Click here to see a photo of NOC and listen to a recording of him imitating human
speech. (Most of NOC’s spontaneous mimicry of human speech sounds like
mumbled conversation rather than clearly understandable words.)

As soon as the whale was identified as the source, NMMF scientists recorded his
speech-like episodes both in air and underwater, studying the physiology behind
his ability to mimic. It’s believed that the animals close association with humans
played a role in how often he employed his ‘human’ voice, as well as in its quality.
Researchers believe NOC’s sonic behavior is an example of vocal learning by a
white whale. After about four years, NOC’s speech-like behavior subsided.
“When NOC matured, we no longer heard speech-like sounds, but he did
remain quite vocal,” Ridgway said. “While it’s been a number of years since we first encountered this
spontaneous mimicry, it’s our hope that publishing our observations now will lead to further
discoveries about marine mammal learning and vocalization. How this unique ‘mind’ interacts with
other animals, humans and the ocean environment is a major challenge of our time.”

http://nmmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/NMMF-News-Release-Whale-Mimicry-10-22-12.pdf
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28 Oct 2012
Computer That Translates Thoughts into Words
Scientists are reported to have developed a Computer that can read and translate these thoughts into words.

The Computer analyses the electron discharges in the Brain and converts them into words.

That thoughts are electrical activity has been accepted recently by Scientists.

In fact some form of Epileptic seizures, like Grand mal seizure, is due to high rate of electrical discharge in the Brain.

In fact Science will come to know that it is not electrical discharge that happens in the brain but Magnetic discharges.

This has been explained in Buddhist Treatises and in Vaiseshika System of Indian Philosophy,

The underlying concept in this experiment is that the thought process is Linear.

True, but the process of Intellect is Magnetic and Non Linear- Result of the Activity of the Brain is Thought;Activity of the Brain is Intellect at a higher plane is Intellect, which determines the Course of your thoughts.

Even this is another process by Chitta.

When people ask you to meditate it is only the modification of the Chitta that is being addressed to

Neuroscientists at the University of California Berkeley put electrodes inside the skulls of brain surgery patients to monitor information from their temporal lobe, which is involved in the processing of speech and images.

As the patient listened to someone speaking, a computer program analysed how the brain processed and reproduced the words they had heard.

The scientists believe the technique could also be used to read and report what they were thinking of saying next.

In the journal PLoS Biology, they write that it takes attempts at mind reading to ‘a whole new level’.

A computer programme analysed the activity from the electrodes, and reproduced the word they had heard or something very similar to it at the first attempt.

Spectrogram of Brain Activity.

Co-author Brian Pasley said there is already mounting evidence that ‘perception and imagery may be pretty similar in the brain’.

Therefore with more work, brain recordings could allow scientists to ‘synthesise the actual sound a person is thinking, or just write out the words with a type of interface device.’

Their study also shows in sharp relief how the auditory system breaks down sound into its individual frequencies – a range of around 1 to 8,000 Hertz for human speech.

Pasley told ABC News: ‘This study mainly focused on lower-level acoustic characteristics of speech. But I think there’s a lot more happening in these brain areas than acoustic analysis’.

He added: ‘We sort of take it for granted, the ability to understand speech. But your brain is doing amazing computations to accomplish this feat.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2094671/Mind-boggling-Science-creates-decode-thoughts-words.html
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3 May 2012
Ultra Sound translates dying languages.
Image via Wikipedia

Sounds originate from three areas.

Mouth. ‘a

Throat’vu”

and

Belly.’Ma”

Studying the pattern and quality of sound from these different regions might be of help.

Story:

For someone who studies phonetics—the science of how sounds are perceived, articulated and organized in different languages—it is crucial for Miller to track the speaking tongue. Miller is a visiting assistant professor at Ohio State University and one of about 40 linguists worldwide who uses ultrasound. This portable technology, which became affordable to linguists around 2000, allows researchers to see the tongue as it moves in real time. It is one of the only medical scanning devices that can keep up with speech; MRIs, for example, are too slow.

Before ultrasound, linguists relied on x-rays and glue-on electronic probes. The x-rays failed because they exposed subjects to harmful radiation, whereas the probes were often inconvenient. “You can imagine if you walk into a village and say, ‘Look, people, all I want to do is blow-dry your tongue and glue things to it,’ people might be a little nervous,” says Diana Archangeli, a linguistics professor at the University of Arizona who has worked with ultrasound since 2004.

Thanks to this emerging technology, Miller and her colleagues have documented some of the fastest sounds in human speech: the click consonants present in many rare African languages.

——

Miller has investigated more than 40 different kinds of click consonants. Her research, published in 2009, organized the clicks based on attributes such as airstream (where the air comes from), place (where the mouth constricts) and manner of articulation. These changes have allowed the clicks to be properly classified into the alphabet. “Once you have the [clicks’ classifications and] subclassifications, you can begin to see similarities … to other sounds in English, for example,” Miller says. Both “t” and “k” share some characteristics of click consonants.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-click-of-the-tongue&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_TECH_20101222
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31 Dec 2010