In this paper, we present several adaptation methods for nonnative speech recognition. We have tested pronunciation modelling, MLLR and MAP non-native pronunciation adaptation and HMM models retraining on the HIWIRE foreign accented English speech database. The “phonetic confusion” scheme we have developed consists in associating to each spoken phone several sequences of confused phones. In our...

The STRAIGHT system of voice morphing was used to create voice continua of (Korean) accented Australian English, intended to simulate phonetic variation ranging from ‘heavily accented’ to ‘unaccented’ (native-like) Australian English, employing dimensions of intra-speaker and cross-speaker variation to yield a range of synthetic voices. These synthetic voices were evaluated against actual sampl...

We investigated how the strength of a foreign accent and varying types of experience with foreign-accented speech influence the recognition of accented words. In Experiment 1, native Dutch listeners with limited or extensive prior experience with German-accented Dutch completed a cross-modal priming experiment with strongly, medium, and weakly accented words. Participants with limited experienc...

UNLABELLED Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a motor speech disorder in which changes to segmental as well as suprasegmental aspects lead to the perception of a foreign accent in speech. This paper focuses on one suprasegmental aspect, namely that of intonation. It provides an in-depth analysis of the intonation system of four speakers with FAS with the aim of establishing the intonational chang...

Lesion-symptom mapping studies reveal that selective damage to one or more components of the speech production network can be associated with foreign accent syndrome, changes in regional accent (e.g., from Parisian accent to Alsatian accent), stronger regional accent, or re-emergence of a previously learned and dormant regional accent. Here, we report loss of regional accent after rapidly regre...

Learners of a second language practice their pronunciation by listening to and imitating utterances from native speakers. Recent research has shown that choosing a well-matched native speaker to imitate can have a positive impact on pronunciation training. Here we propose a voice-transformation technique that can be used to generate the (arguably) ideal voice to imitate: the own voice of the le...

In six experiments with English-learning infants, we examined the effects of variability in voice and foreign accent on word recognition. We found that 9-month-old infants successfully recognized words when two native English talkers with dissimilar voices produced test and familiarization items (Experiment 1). When the domain of variability was shifted to include variability in voice as well a...