Computerized chironomy: evaluation of hand-controlled intonation reiteration

Chironomy means in this paper of intonation modeling in terms of hand movements. An experiment in hand-controlled intonation reiteration is described. A system for real-time intonation modification driven by a graphic tablet is presented. This system is used for reiterating a speech corpus (sentences of 1 to 9 syllables, natural and reiterant speech). The subjects also produced vocal imitation of the same corpus. Correlation and distances between natural and reiterated intonation contours are measured. These measures show that chironomic reiteration and vocal reiteration give comparable, and good, results. This paves the way to several applications in expressive intonation synthesis and to a new intonation modeling paradigm in terms of movements.