A Phonetic Analysis of Natural Laughter, for Use in Automatic Laughter Processing Systems

[en] In this paper, we present the detailed phonetic annotation of the publicly available AVLaughterCycle database, which can readily be used for automatic laughter processing (analysis, classification, browsing, synthesis, etc.). The phonetic annotation is used here to analyze the database, as a first step. Unsurprisingly, we find that h-like phones and central vowels are the most frequent sounds in laughter. However, laughs can contain a lot of other sounds. In particular, nareal fricatives (voiceless friction sounds in the nostrils) are frequent both in inhalation and exhalation phases. We also show that the airflow direction (inhaling or exhaling) changes significantly the duration of laughter sounds. Individual differences in the choice of phones and their duration are also examined. The paper is concluded with some perspectives the annotated database opens.

Disciplines :

Languages & linguistics

Author, co-author :

Urbain, Jérôme ; Université de Mons > Faculté Polytechnique > Information, Signal et Intelligence artificielle

Dutoit, Thierry ; Université de Mons > Faculté Polytechnique > Information, Signal et Intelligence artificielle

Language :

English

Title :

A Phonetic Analysis of Natural Laughter, for Use in Automatic Laughter Processing Systems

Publication date :

09 October 2011

Event name :

Fourth bi-annual International Conference of the HUMAINE Association on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII2011)

Event place :

Memphis, United States - Tennessee

Event date :

2011

Research unit :

F105 - Information, Signal et Intelligence artificielle

Research institute :

R450 - Institut NUMEDIART pour les Technologies des Arts Numériques

Available on ORBi UMONS :

since 01 February 2012

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