• 한국정보컨버전스학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.53-56
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• 2008

This paper reports on the ACQA(Animated agent for Conversational Question Answering) project conducted at LIMSI. The aim is to design an expressive animated conversational agent(ACA) for conducting research along two main lines: 1/ perceptual experiments(eg perception of expressivity and 3D movements in both audio and visual channels): 2/ design of human-computer interfaces requiring head models at different resolutions and the integration of the talking head in virtual scenes. The target application of this expressive ACA is a real-time question and answer speech based system developed at LIMSI(RITEL). The architecture of the system is based on distributed modules exchanging messages through a network protocol. The main components of the system are: RITEL a question and answer system searching raw text, which is able to produce a text(the answer) and attitudinal information; this attitudinal information is then processed for delivering expressive tags; the text is converted into phoneme, viseme, and prosodic descriptions. Audio speech is generated by the LIMSI selection-concatenation text-to-speech engine. Visual speech is using MPEG4 keypoint-based animation, and is rendered in real-time by Virtual Choreographer (VirChor), a GPU-based 3D engine. Finally, visual and audio speech is played in a 3D audio and visual scene. The project also puts a lot of effort for realistic visual and audio 3D rendering. A new model of phoneme-dependant human radiation patterns is included in the speech synthesis system, so that the ACA can move in the virtual scene with realistic 3D visual and audio rendering.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether young children with cleft palate differ from those of noncleft typically developing children in terms of expressive vocabulary size, phonological characteristics and lexical selectivity. A total of 12 children with cleft palate and 12 noncleft children who were matched by age and gender participated in the study. The groups were compared by size of expressive vocabulary reported on Korean version of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and the number of different words, consonant inventory, the percentage of words beginning with obstruents and vowels, nasal, and glottal sounds, and the percentage of words which do not include obstruents in a language sample. Also, correlation analysis were performed to examine the relationship between measures on size of expressive vocabulary and phonological characteristics. The results showed that expressive vocabulary size and consonant inventory for children with cleft palate produced significantly smaller than those for noncleft children. Children with cleft palate produced significantly more words beginning with vowel or which do not include obstruents, and fewer words beginning with obstruents than noncleft children. The two groups showed different results on significant correlations between measures on size of expressive vocabulary and phonological characteristics indicating that children with cleft palate show different lexical selectivity from their noncleft peers. The results suggest that children with cleft palate aged 18-30 months demonstrate a slower rate of lexical and phonological development compared with their noncleft peers and they develop lexical selectivity reflecting cleft palate speech. The results will have a clinical implication on speech-language intervention for young children with cleft palates.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.247-254
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• 2005

This study aimed at clarifing clinical effects of eight-step continuum treatment in a patient who showed apraxia of speech after stroke. The eight-step continuum treatment consisted of 8 steps and its clinical efficacy has been proven with American apraxic patients. However, it has not been clinically proven to be effective in Korean patients with apraxia of speech as of yet. Therefore, this study was conducted in an effort to provide preliminary clinical evidence regarding its effectiveness regardless of the linguistic differences between Korean and English. The therapy took place twice a week for 6 months, a total of 48 times. The results showed that the patient's receptive language was improved from 83% to 89% and 37% in accuracy, and expressive language from 15% to 37%. It seemed that spontaneous recovery did not playa role in his improvement since the study was conducted 2 years after the stroke. In addition, the improvement of expressive language was much greater(22%) than that of receptive language(6%), which implied that the therapy was effective in apraxia of speech because apraxia of speech is relatively confined to expressive ability, more specifically motor programming and sequencing.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.121-131
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• 2002

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the characteristics of receptive and expressive language development of cleft palate infants aged under 3. Twenty-six cleft palate infants and 52 normal infants were grouped into 3 chronological age groups with 1 year intervals: less than 1, 1, and 2 years old. The cleft palate infants were divided into 2 groups: cleft palate only, and cleft lip & palate. Each mother of the infants was asked to complete the questionnaire, Sequenced Language Scale for Infants (SELSI). Receptive and Expressive language scores of SELSI were computed. The scores of receptive and expressive language were respectively analyzed into 4 categories of language: phonology/prosody, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. The results, concerning the differences of language development between the cleft palate and the normal infants, were as follows: (1) expressive language scores were significantly different at age 2 between the cleft palate and the normal infants; (2) cleft plate groups aged less than 1 and 1 showed lower scores of phonology/prosody of expressive language than the normal groups; (3) cleft palate group aged 2 showed lower scores than the normal group in semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. The results, concerning the characteristics of language development between the cleft palate only and the cleft lip & palate infants, were as follows: (1) the scores of expressive and receptive language were not statistically different between the 2 groups; (2) both groups did not show any difference in .the scores of phonology/ prosody, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics of receptive and expressive language.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to compare receptive language performance and expressive language performance in 13 patients with aphasia by using three stimulus presentation modes: Stimulus mode I (picture), Stimulus mode II (written word), Stimulus m (question using verbal explanation). The stimulus consisted of 10 words. They included 5 functional words and 5 non-functional words. The 13 subjects with aphasia were divided into 2 aphasic types: 5 Broca's aphasics and 8 anomie aphasics. The results were as follows: Firstly, the three stimulus modes didn't affect receptive language performance of aphasia subjects. Secondly; the three stimulus modes were effective on expressive language performance of aphasia subjects. Particularly, stimulus mode II (written words) was effective in naming the aphasia subjects. Thirdly, the functional words with high frequency were better than non-functional words with low frequency on expressive language performance, but not on receptive language performance of aphasia subjects. Finally, the interaction between three stimulus modes and the functional (nonfunctional) words affected expressive language performance only, but not receptive language performance. Particularly, presenting stimulus in written words which are functional words produced the best expressive language performance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.2893-2899
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• 2009

The study classified speech styles of shopping hosts and tried to examine how the classified speech styles have an effect on the evaluation of shopping hosts and the purchase intentions. In the evaluation of speech styles of shopping hosts, except customer-oriented confutative style, credibility, descriptive relevance, other speech styles are analyzed to have an impact on the styles. When we investigate the influential relations between speech styles proved by a theory and the evaluation of shopping hosts, the demonstrative style comes first, the expressive style is next and the descriptive follows in terms of influential power. In terms of the purchasing intention, speech styles of shopping hosts have an effect on the demonstrative and expressive types rather than the elucidative and descriptive ones. Namely, the analysis shows that the speech style which is logically persuasive and expresses the contents in detail is preferred to the descriptive and leading speech style.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.67-76
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• 2021

Nanta means "tapping" using percussion instruments such as drums, which is the rhythm of Samulnori, a tradtional Korean music. Nanta speech rhythm intervention program was developed and applied for the children with limited speech sound production and investigated its effect. Nanta program provided audible stimulation, various sound loudness and beats, and rhythms. Nanta program consists of three stages : Respiration, phonation and articulation with the rhythm. Six children with language development delay participated in this study. Children were encouraged to explore sounds and beats and freely express sounds and beats. Along with the rhythm, children also were encouraged to produce speech sounds by increasing the length of syllables in mimetic and imitating words. A total of 15 sessions were conducted twice a week for 40 minutes per session. For exploring the effectiveness, raw scores from preschool receptive-expressive scales (PRES) and receptive-expressive vocabulary test (REVT) were obtained and compared before and after therapy. The results demonstrated that significantly improved receptive (p=.027) and expressive language scores (p=.024) in PRES and receptive (p=.028) and expressive (p=.028) vocabulary scores following intervention using Wilcoxon signed-rank test.These findings suggest that the nanta rhythm program can be useful for improving language development and vocabulary in children with limited speech sound production.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.7-17
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• 2005

This study aimed at investigating the validity and reliability of the Daegu Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (DDAE). The DDAE has been developed to assess aphasics' receptive and expressive language ability. One hundred and forty eight aphasics (96 males and 52 females) diagnosed as aphasics participated in this study. Reliability coefficients showed that the DDAE was highly consistent and accurate (Cronbach's a = .76$\sim$.82). For its' content-validity, a 5-point scale was administered. Four speech and language pathologists served as evaluator. The receptive language mean score was 4.29, the expressive language mean score was 4.09, and the right-hemisphere function mean score was 4.00. For construct validity, the correlation total scores were calculated. The results showed a significant correlation.

• Korean Journal of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
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• v.61 no.12
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• pp.644-649
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• 2018

Background and Objectives The objective of this study was to examine the effect of early cochlear implantation (CI) performed in infants less than 12 months of age. Subjects and Method Twenty-five children who received their first CI before 12 months of age were included in this study (infant group). The speech perception and language outcomes of these children were compared with those of 14 children who received their first CI between 13 and 24 months of age (older group). All children received sequential bilateral CI with the inter-stage interval of less than 2 years. Speech perception was measured using Categories of Auditory Performance, monosyllabic word test and sentence test, and language ability was measured using Sequenced Language Scale for Infants, Preschool Receptive-Expressive Language Scale, or Receptive & Expressive Vocavulary Test, depending on the age at the time of testing. Results There were no significant differences in speech perception abilities between the infant group and the older group. The mean expressive language score of infant group was higher than that of the older group, but the difference was not statistically significant. However, the receptive language score of infant group was significantly higher than that of the older group. Conclusion Children who received CI before 12 months of age achieved better receptive language ability than those who received it after 12 months of age. Thus CI should be performed as early as before 12 months of age to achieve better language ability.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.16-25
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• 2018

The talking head (TH) indicates an utterance face animation generated based on text and voice input. In this paper, we propose the generation method of TH with facial expression and intonation by speech input only. The problem of generating TH from speech can be regarded as a regression problem from the acoustic feature sequence to the facial code sequence which is a low dimensional vector representation that can efficiently encode and decode a face image. This regression was modeled by bidirectional RNN and trained by using SAVEE database of the front utterance face animation database as training data. The proposed method is able to generate TH with facial expression and intonation TH by using acoustic features such as MFCC, dynamic elements of MFCC, energy, and F0. According to the experiments, the configuration of the BLSTM layer of the first and second layers of bidirectional RNN was able to predict the face code best. For the evaluation, a questionnaire survey was conducted for 62 persons who watched TH animations, generated by the proposed method and the previous method. As a result, 77% of the respondents answered that the proposed method generated TH, which matches well with the speech.