Interactive tools for making temporally variable, multiple-attributes, and multiple-instances morphing accessible: Flexible manipulation of divergent speech instances for explorational research and education

TL;DR

This paper presents interactive tools that simplify the process of creating and exploring complex, multi-attribute, temporally variable speech morphs, enhancing research and education in speech diversity.

Contribution

The authors developed and integrated interactive tools to make complex speech morphing more accessible for research and educational purposes.

Findings

Successful integration of tools in graduate education

Enhanced exploration of speech diversity through interactive morphing

Facilitated research on temporally variable speech attributes

Abstract

We generalized a voice morphing algorithm capable of handling temporally variable, multiple-attributes, and multiple instances. The generalized morphing provides a new strategy for investigating speech diversity. However, excessive complexity and the difficulty of preparation have prevented researchers and students from enjoying its benefits. To address this issue, we introduced a set of interactive tools to make preparation and tests less cumbersome. These tools are integrated into our previously reported interactive tools as extensions. The introduction of the extended tools in lessons in graduate education was successful. Finally, we outline further extensions to explore excessively complex morphing parameter settings.