Modelling Speaker Variability Using Covariance Learning

Abstract

In this contribution, we investigate the relationship between speakers and speech utterance, and propose a speaker normalization/adaptation model that incorporates correlation amongst the utterance classes produced by male and female speakers of varying age categories (children: 0–15; youths: 16–30; adults: 31–50; seniors: ${>}50$). Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), a speaker space was constructed, and based on the speaker covariance matrix obtained directly from the speech data signals, a visualisation of the first three principal components (PCs) was achieved. For effective covariance learning, a component-wise normalisation of each vector weights of the covariance matrix was performed, and a machine learning algorithm (the SOM: self organising map) implemented to model selected speaker features (F0, intensity, pulse) variability. Results obtained reveal that, for the features selected, F0 gave the most variance, as both genders exhibited high variability. For male speakers, PC1 captured the most variance of 87%, while PC2 and PC3 captured the least variances of 7% and 3%, respectively. For female speakers, PC1 captured the most variance of 97%, while PC2 and PC3 captured the least variances of 2% and 1%, respectively. Further, intensity and pulse features show close similarity patterns between the speech features, and are not most relevant for speaker variability modelling. Component planes visualisation of the respective speech patterns learned from the features covariance revealed consistent patterns, and hence, useful in speaker recognition systems.