Computer Speech

This new edition of Computer Speech is an introduction to multimedia speech applications that is also suitable for nonspecialists. New material treats such contemporary subjects as automatic speech recognition and speaker verification for banking by computer and privileged (medical, military, diplomatic) information and control access. The book also focuses on speech and audio compression for mobile communication and the Internet. The importance of subjective quality criteria is stressed. A brief history of speech research summarizes the development from the first talking machines in 18th-century Europe to modern x-ray methods of articulatory analysis. The book also contains introductions to human monaural and binaural hearing, and the basic concepts of signal analysis. Beyond speech processing, this revised and extended new edition of Computer Speech gives an overview of natural language technology and presents the nuts and bolts of state-of-the-art speech dialogue systems.