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From: eugene@AMES-PIONEER.ARPA (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Tough speech recognition examples (summary)
Message-ID: <8704292135.AA01784@ames-pioneer.arpa>
Date: Wed, 29-Apr-87 17:35:00 EDT
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Posted: Wed Apr 29 17:35:00 1987
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Attached are my so far collected examples of tough speech
problems (synthesis and recognition).  I am a bit disappointed
with the list: smaller, poorer quality, and have not heard from
people who are really doing lots of this work.  {messages were sent to
ailist, comp.ai on the usenet, nihongo on the ARPAnet [Japanese being a
significantly difficult language and the NGCProj]}.

My plan is to keep this list {collective ailist memory} and ask for
new contributions every year (along with my other lists).  It will
be ftpable from a machine at Ames, as soon as I decide where to put
it probably (aurora).  My hope is to have a ready list of tests for
speech processing naive people to gain some understanding of the problems.
I am posting this summary now in hopes of getting a few last examples.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene

=============================================================
From: elman@amos.ling.ucsd.edu (Jeff Elman)
Subject: Re: Tough speech recognition examples

Raj Reddy (at CMU) has a couple of examples of difficult
utterances they gave to HEARSAY and HARPY.  One of these was

"In mud eels are, in tar none are".

The lack of semantic support, plus the ambiguity of segmentation
make it almost impossible for someone to understand this sentence
when you read it to them at a normal rate of speech.

I'd like to hear what responses you get.  Would you let me know?
Thanks,

Jeff Elman
Phonetics Lab, C-008
Univ. of Calif., San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093
Internet:  elman@amos.ling.ucsd.edu

==================================================================
From: mcguire@aero2.aero.org

>From my days many years ago in a linguistics laboratory I remember
some examples showing the importance of phonetic juncture:

   grey day / grade A
   euthanasia / youth in Asia
   "Whats that up in the road" ahead / a head?

Happy collecting

Another cute example (though it may not what you are looking for) is to
say to somebody:

   "Take off your hat and dloves"

and then ask them what you said. 99% of all people will insist that
you said the word "gloves".

==================================================================
From: minow%thundr.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM  (Martin Minow THUNDR::MINOW
   ML3-5/U26 223-9922)

I'd be happy if you could do the digits, including "Oh", and Yes/No.
Continuous digits, telephone quality, no training, male and female voice.

DECtalk should be very easy, as it's predictable.

Martin Minow
(ex-DECtalk developer)

The problem is in distinguishing "oh" from "no".

Getting the alphabet (not "alpha", "bravo", but "aye", "bee") would
be nice, too.

Martin.

==================================================================

From: Marc Majka <ames!seismo!ubc-vision!vision.ubc.cdn!majka>

Here one that my office mate Nou Dadoun came up with:

I love you
Isle of View

==================================================================
From Joseph_D._Becker.osbunorth@Xerox.COM Fri Apr 24 10:06:44 1987


I think you need at least one example in Chinese, and here's my favorite
(because I actually said it by mistake).  The numbers after the words
are phonic "tones".  What I meant to say was:

Wo(3) hen(3) xiang(3) shui(4)-jiao(4)  -- I want to go to sleep

... but what I actually ended up saying was:

Wo(3) hen(3) xiang(4) shui(3)-jiao(3)  -- I am like a boiled ravioli

Joe

==================================================================

    "ice cream"/"I scream"
    "beginning"/"big inning"
    "soccer"/"sock her"
    "its hardware problems are intermittent"/"it's hard where problems ..."

from Mark Twain:
    "Good-bye God, I'm going to Missouri."/"Good, by God, I'm going to
 Missouri."
    
--Stephen Slade
  Slade@Yale.Arpa

Came across this last night

    "attacks"/"a tax"

--Stephen