An efficient speaker-independent automatic speech recognition by simulation of some properties of human auditory perception

An auditory model of speech perception, the Perceptually based linear predictive analysis with Root power sum metric (PLP-RPS), is applied as the front-end of an automatic speech recognizer (ASR). The PLP-RPS front-end is compared with standard linear predictive-cepstral metric (LP-CEP) front-end, and with LP-RPS and PLP-CEP front-ends. The two-spectral-peak models are the most efficient in modeling of linguistic information in speech. Consequently, in speaker-independent ASR, high analysis order front-ends are less effective than low-order front-ends. Synthetic speech is used for front-end evaluation. Some of perceptual inconsistencies of standard LP front-ends are alleviated in PLP front-ends. The PLP-RPS front-end is most sensitive to harmonic structure of speech spectrum. Perceptual experiments indicate similar tendencies in human auditory perception.