ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By ge ....ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By generating an explosion of new approaches and knowledge, the network will build Australia's reputation as a leader in communication science and technology via advances in automatic speech recognition, distress call monitoring, hearing prostheses, web interfaces, and data retrieval and data mining systems.Read moreRead less
Physiologically accurate audio processing in cochlear implants. This project proposes to use a physiologically motivated computational model of the cochlea, which along with newly developed cochlear-implant electrode technology will produce the next quantum improvement in speech intelligibility and quality of hearing for implant recipients.
Building a Talking Head via Dynamic & 3D-Static, and Age- & Ethnically-Varied Databases: Perceptibility and Acceptability. This project will provide cutting edge realistic, perceptible talking head animation. Based on rich 3D face motion and static face databases, it will allow the study of the facial structure of specific groups of people, and the creation of a lasting cultural heritage of faces. Information in these databases will be useful for research in high-quality 3D face reconstruction ....Building a Talking Head via Dynamic & 3D-Static, and Age- & Ethnically-Varied Databases: Perceptibility and Acceptability. This project will provide cutting edge realistic, perceptible talking head animation. Based on rich 3D face motion and static face databases, it will allow the study of the facial structure of specific groups of people, and the creation of a lasting cultural heritage of faces. Information in these databases will be useful for research in high-quality 3D face reconstruction, with applications as wide as multimodal Biometric Identification, finding lost children, and security systems. The novel methods in this project will also advance auditory-visual speech and emotion research with particular commercial applications in telecommunications, human-machine interfaces, foreign language teaching, humanoid development, animation, and film.Read moreRead less
Making demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison a practical everyday reality in Australia. To assist Australian law-enforcement agencies and courts in the process of the conviction of the guilty and the exoneration of the innocent, this project will develop and test a practical and demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison system for use with Australian voices. This will allow forensic scientists to produce reliable strength of evidence statements for presentation in court using the ....Making demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison a practical everyday reality in Australia. To assist Australian law-enforcement agencies and courts in the process of the conviction of the guilty and the exoneration of the innocent, this project will develop and test a practical and demonstrably reliable forensic voice comparison system for use with Australian voices. This will allow forensic scientists to produce reliable strength of evidence statements for presentation in court using the same evaluative framework as used with DNA. In addition, application of the system during criminal investigations may lead to the refocussing of investigations on other suspects, or may help leverage guilty pleas, thus saving substantial time and money.Read moreRead less
Speech recognition adaptation for low resource populations. Automatic speech recognition is an essential attribute of mobile devices and consumer electronics. Unfortunately, as these systems are trained with adult speech, they perform poorly when used by children and people with speaking difficulties. The lack of available training speech from these groups makes developing models for them difficult. We will investigate efficient model adaptation methods that use minimal training data to adapt ex ....Speech recognition adaptation for low resource populations. Automatic speech recognition is an essential attribute of mobile devices and consumer electronics. Unfortunately, as these systems are trained with adult speech, they perform poorly when used by children and people with speaking difficulties. The lack of available training speech from these groups makes developing models for them difficult. We will investigate efficient model adaptation methods that use minimal training data to adapt existing adult speech recognition models for use with children and people with speaking difficulties. The intended outcomes will improve access to automatic speech recognition systems for Australians whose communication with speech-controlled environmental and educational devices is currently restricted.Read moreRead less
Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project repr ....Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project represents a truly innovative pathway forward in the development of cochlear implant sound coding that could substantially increase the speech perception of users, enabling these people to become and remain active and productive members of our community.Read moreRead less
Two-way Auslan: Automatic Machine Translation of Australian Sign Language. This project aims to develop an automatic two-way machine-translation system between Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and English by researching and leveraging advanced computer vision and machine learning technology. The project expects to advance research in AI technology on topics including visual recognition, language processing and deep learning. This will boost Australia's national research capacity and global com ....Two-way Auslan: Automatic Machine Translation of Australian Sign Language. This project aims to develop an automatic two-way machine-translation system between Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and English by researching and leveraging advanced computer vision and machine learning technology. The project expects to advance research in AI technology on topics including visual recognition, language processing and deep learning. This will boost Australia's national research capacity and global competitiveness. Expected outcomes of this project will help to break the communication barriers between the Deaf and hearing population. This should provide significant benefits to Deaf communities through enhanced communication and improved quality-of-life, leading to a fair, more inclusive and resilient Australian society.Read moreRead less
Neurocognitive substrates of naming facilitation in aphasia. This research directly addresses the national research priority goal of ageing well, ageing productively, by providing foundational knowledge for improved outcomes in the growing population of individuals in Australia with language impairments from age-related disease. Outcomes of the proposed research will include (1) development of a new theory of word production which can improve treatment of language impairment, (2) an enhanced und ....Neurocognitive substrates of naming facilitation in aphasia. This research directly addresses the national research priority goal of ageing well, ageing productively, by providing foundational knowledge for improved outcomes in the growing population of individuals in Australia with language impairments from age-related disease. Outcomes of the proposed research will include (1) development of a new theory of word production which can improve treatment of language impairment, (2) an enhanced understanding of the cognitive and brain mechanisms involved in word production and its treatment after stroke, and (3) postgraduate training in state-of-the-art cognitive neuroimaging and language neuroscience research. Read moreRead less
An Electro-Neural Vision System for the Blind. This project is aimed at the development of a device that can provide blind people with limited visual perception of the environment (i.e. alternative vision) via the use of miniature stereo video cameras, laser range sensors, vision processing equipment and electrodes placed on the surface of the skin for delivering the visual information to the brain.