Laughter modulation: from speech to speech-laugh

Laughing while speaking, also referred to as speech-laugh, occurs frequently in social conversations. In order to understand how laughter influences the acoustics of its co-occurring speech signal, we take a synthesis approach in designing an interactive system for artificial “laughter modulation”: users input an arbitrary speech signal, and the system processes the signal to yield acoustic patterns characteristic of a speech-laugh. Implemented using the ChucK audio programming language, our prototype allows for real-time manipulation of modulation parameters for rapid experimentation. This paper describes key components of our prototype, to be demonstrated at the 2013 Interspeech Show & Tell. This synthesis-based approach to speech-laughs may serve as a starting point for the future of affective machinegenerated speech.