COVID-19 and Computer Audition: An Overview on What Speech & Sound Analysis Could Contribute in the SARS-CoV-2 Corona Crisis

TL;DR

This paper reviews how computer audition techniques analyzing speech and sounds can aid in COVID-19 detection, monitoring, and management, highlighting their potential for real-world healthcare applications during the pandemic.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of speech and sound analysis methods relevant to COVID-19, identifying potential applications and challenges for real-life implementation.

Findings

CA can automatically assess respiratory sounds and behaviors related to COVID-19

Potential for CA in risk assessment, diagnosis, and monitoring of patients

CA tools are nearing readiness for practical deployment in pandemic response

Abstract

At the time of writing, the world population is suffering from more than 10,000 registered COVID-19 disease epidemic induced deaths since the outbreak of the Corona virus more than three months ago now officially known as SARS-CoV-2. Since, tremendous efforts have been made worldwide to counter-steer and control the epidemic by now labelled as pandemic. In this contribution, we provide an overview on the potential for computer audition (CA), i.e., the usage of speech and sound analysis by artificial intelligence to help in this scenario. We first survey which types of related or contextually significant phenomena can be automatically assessed from speech or sound. These include the automatic recognition and monitoring of breathing, dry and wet coughing or sneezing sounds, speech under cold, eating behaviour, sleepiness, or pain to name but a few. Then, we consider potential use-cases for exploitation. These include risk assessment and diagnosis based on symptom histograms and their development over time, as well as monitoring of spread, social distancing and its effects, treatment and recovery, and patient wellbeing. We quickly guide further through challenges that need to be faced for real-life usage. We come to the conclusion that CA appears ready for implementation of (pre-)diagnosis and monitoring tools, and more generally provides rich and significant, yet so far untapped potential in the fight against COVID-19 spread.