An improved spectrum mapping applied to speaker adaptive Kroean word recognition

This paper improves the previously proposed spectral mapping method for supervised speaker adaptation in which a mapped spectrum is interpolated from speaker difference vectors at typical spectra based on a minimized distortion criterion. In estimating these difference vectors, it is important to find an appropriate number of typical points. The previous method empirically adjusts the number of typical points, while the present method optimizes the effective number by rank reduction of normal equation. This algorithm was applied to a supervised speaker adaptation for Korean word recognition using the templates form a prototype male speaker. The result showed that the rank reduction technique not only can automatically determine an optimal number of code vectors, but also slightly improves the recognition scores compared with those obtained by the previous method.