<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Quality of speech synthesis is a crucial issue in comparison of various text-to-speech (TTS) systems. We proposed a system for automatic evaluation of speech quality by statistical analysis of temporal features (time duration, phrasing, and time structuring of an analysed sentence) together with standard spectral and prosodic features. This system was successfully tested on sentences produced by a unit selection speech synthesizer with a male as well as a female voice using two different approaches to prosody manipulation. Experiments have shown that for correct, sharp, and stable results all three types of speech features (spectral, prosodic, and temporal) are necessary. Furthermore, the number of used statistical parameters has a significant impact on the correctness and precision of the evaluated results. It was also demonstrated that the stability of the whole evaluation process is improved by enlarging the used speech material. Finally, the functionality of the proposed system was verified by comparison of the results with those of the standard listening test.</p></abstract>

Quality of speech synthesis is a crucial issue in comparison of various text-to-speech (TTS) systems. We proposed a system for automatic evaluation of speech quality by statistical analysis of temporal features (time duration, phrasing, and time structuring of an analysed sentence) together with standard spectral and prosodic features. This system was successfully tested on sentences produced by a unit selection speech synthesizer with a male as well as a female voice using two different approaches to prosody manipulation. Experiments have shown that for correct, sharp, and stable results all three types of speech features (spectral, prosodic, and temporal) are necessary. Furthermore, the number of used statistical parameters has a significant impact on the correctness and precision of the evaluated results. It was also demonstrated that the stability of the whole evaluation process is improved by enlarging the used speech material. Finally, the functionality of the proposed system was verified by comparison of the results with those of the standard listening test.

Automatic statistical evaluation of quality of unit selection speech synthesis with different prosody manipulations

Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Applied Sciences

Journal of Electrical Engineering

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Quality of speech synthesis is a crucial issue in comparison of various text-to-speech (TTS) systems. We proposed a system for automatic evaluation of speech...

Automatic statistical evaluation of quality of unit selection speech synthesis with different prosody manipulations

Published Online: May 13, 2020

Page range: 78 - 86

Received: Oct 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jee-2020-0012

Keywords
listening test, objective and subjective evaluation, quality of synthetic speech, statistical analysis

© 2020 Jiří Přibil et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Automatic statistical evaluation of quality of unit selection speech synthesis with different prosody manipulations

Published Online: May 13, 2020

Page range: 78 - 86

Received: Oct 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jee-2020-0012

Keywordslistening test, objective and subjective evaluation, quality of synthetic speech, statistical analysis

© 2020 Jiří Přibil et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
listening test, objective and subjective evaluation, quality of synthetic speech, statistical analysis