College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Professor Simon King

Inaugural lecture of Professor Simon King, 6 February 2012.

Event details

Lecture title: "Using speech synthesis to give everyone their own voice"

Date: 6 February 2012, 5pm

Venue: Auditorium lecture theatre, Business School

Lecture abstract

This lecture will start with an accessible introduction to how computers can be used generate natural-sounding speech.

It will then introduce a method of automatically creating voices that sound like particular individuals, based on relatively short recordings of their voice. The method works for both normal speech and disordered speech.

The lecture will conclude with a showcase of recent work from the Centre for Speech Technology Research which includes the use of this technology to provide personalised communication aids for those who are losing the ability to speak, such as people with Motor Neurone Disease.

Lecture video