On the Normalization of Syllable Prominence Ratings

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The instructions under which raters quantify syllable prominence perception need to be simple in order to maintain immediate reactions. This leads to noise in the rating data that can be dealt with by normalization, e.g. setting central tendency = 0 and dispersion = 1 (as in Z-score normalization). Questions arise such as: Which parameter is adequate here to capture central tendency? Which reference distribution should the normalization be based on? In this paper 16 different normalization methods are evaluated. In a perception experiment using German read speech (prose and poetry), syllable prominence ratings were collected. From the rating data 16 complete “mirror” data-sets were computed according to the 16 methods. Each mirror data-set was correlated with the same set of measures from the underlying acoustic data, focusing on raw syllable duration which is seen as a rather straightforward acoustic aspect of syllable prominence. Correlation coefficients could be raised considerably by selected methods.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2012
EditorsQiuwu Ma, Hongwei Ding, Daniel Hirst
Number of pages4
Volume1
PublisherTongji University Press
Publication date2012
Pages314-317
ISBN (electronic)978-7-5608-4869-3
Publication statusPublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event6th International Conference: Speech Prosody - ISCA Speech 2012: Prosody in the real world: Understanding and approaching human prosodic performance - Shanghai, China
Duration: 22.05.201225.05.2012
Conference number: 6
http://www.isle.illinois.edu/sprosig/sp2012/

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