How prosodic cues could lead to information center in speech - An alternative to ASR

It has been reported in ASR literature that prosody helps retrieve important textual information by word. We therefore believe that prosodic information in the speech signal could be used to facilitate speech processing more directly. The prosodic word, a perceptually identifiable unit which is usually slightly larger in size than lexical word, can be a possible alternative to help locate important information in speech. Acoustic analysis across labels of perceived prosodic highlighted part in prosodic words and semantic foci in words are compared. The results demonstrate that prosodic highlights occur before targeted key information and function as advanced prompts to outline upcoming sematic foci ahead of time. Semantic saliency of targeted words are thus enhanced beforehand while correct anticipation can be facilitated prior to detailed lexical processing. Further automatic identification approach of key content by prosodic features also shows the possibility to retrieve important information through prosodic words. We believe the results demonstrate that not all information is equally important in speech, locating information center is the key to speech communication, and the contribution of prosody is critical.