Hey Siri, Can You Hear Me? #ASA184

Hey Siri, Can You Hear Me? #ASA184

Experiments show how speech and comprehension change when people communicate with artificial intelligence.

Media Contact:
Ashley Piccone
AIP Media
301-209-3090
media@aip.org

CHICAGO, May 9, 2023 – Millions of people now regularly communicate with AI-based devices, such as smartphones, speakers, and cars. Studying these interactions can improve AI’s ability to understand human speech and determine how talking with technology impacts language.

In their talk, “Clear speech in the new digital era: Speaking and listening clearly to voice-AI systems,” Georgia Zellou and Michelle Cohn of the University of California, Davis will describe experiments to investigate how speech and comprehension change when humans communicate with AI. The presentation will take place Tuesday, May 9, at 12:40 p.m. Eastern U.S. in the Los Angeles/Miami/Scottsdale room, as part of the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America running May 8-12 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel.

Humans change their voice when communicating with AI. Credit: Michelle Cohn

In their first line of questioning, Zellou and Cohn examined how people adjust their voice when communicating with an AI system compared to talking with another human. They found the participants produced louder and slower speech with less pitch variation when they spoke to voice-AI (e.g., Siri, Alexa), even across identical interactions.

On the listening side, the researchers showed that how humanlike a device sounds impacts how well listeners will understand it. If a listener thinks the voice talking is a device, they are less able to accurately understand. However, if it sounds more humanlike, their comprehension increases. Clear speech, like in the style of a newscaster, was better understood overall, even if it was machine-generated.

“We do see some differences in patterns across human- and machine-directed speech: People are louder and slower when talking to technology. These adjustments are similar to the changes speakers make when talking in background noise, such as in a crowded restaurant,” said Zellou. “People also have expectations that the systems will misunderstand them and that they won’t be able to understand the output.”

Clarifying what makes a speaker intelligible will be useful for voice technology. For example, these results suggest that text-to-speech voices should adopt a “clear” style in noisy conditions.

Looking forward, the team aims to apply these studies to people from different age groups and social and language backgrounds. They also want to investigate how people learn language from devices and how linguistic behavior adapts as technology changes.

“There are so many open questions,” said Cohn. “For example, could voice-AI be a source of language change among some speakers? As technology advances, such as with large language models like ChatGPT, the boundary between human and machine is changing – how will our language change with it?”

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are 300 to 500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org.  For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

Warmer Climate Could Cause Puerto Rico’s Frogs to Croak #ASA184

Warmer Climate Could Cause Puerto Rico’s Frogs to Croak #ASA184

Rising temperatures leave their mark in the distinctive calls of the coqui frog.

Media Contact:
Ashley Piccone
AIP Media
301-209-3090
media@aip.org

CHICAGO, May 8, 2023 – The coqui frog is one of Puerto Rico’s most iconic animals. It gets its name from its distinctive two-note call, “co-qui,” which can be heard throughout the island every night. The males of the species produce these calls to mark their territory and ward away rivals, but scientists can also use them to study the changing climate.

Peter Narins of the University of California, Los Angeles will describe changes in the calls of the coqui frog over a 23-year period in his talk, “Climate change drives frog call change in Puerto Rico: Predictions and implications.” The presentation will take place Monday, May 8, at 2:40 p.m. Eastern U.S. in room Chicago F/G, as part of the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America running May 8-12 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel.

Male coqui calling in El Yunque, Puerto Rico. Credit: K. Wells

Over two decades ago, Narins recorded the sounds of the coqui frog along the slopes of Puerto Rico’s El Yunque Peak. His team discovered the calls changed based on elevation. Like all amphibians, coqui frogs are highly sensitive to changes in temperature. On cold mountain peaks, the frogs grow larger than in warmer valleys, and this size discrepancy is reflected in their calls.

“Coqui that produced short, high-pitched calls at high rates lived near the base of the mountain, while the calls of animals living near the mountain’s peak were longer, lower-pitched, and repeated less frequently,” said Narins.

Upon returning to the mountain two decades later, Narins and a team including colleague Sebastiaan Meenderink discovered that every frog call had grown higher in pitch.

“In order to record a call with certain characteristics we had to move to a slightly higher altitude,” said Meenderink. “It was as if all the animals had moved up the mountain.”

This mini-migration corresponds with the temperature shift induced by climate change and foreshadows a dire future for the coqui. As temperatures continue to rise, the frogs will continue to retreat up the mountain until they run out of room.

“For now, the consequences are not dire,” said Meenderink. “A barely perceptible change in frog body size and call has little impact on the environment. However, if left unabated, the temperature increase will eventually cause a collapse of the coqui population, which will be catastrophic for the Puerto Rican ecosystem.”

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are 300 to 500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org.  For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

A Cocktail Party of 3D-Printed Robot Heads #ASA184

A Cocktail Party of 3D-Printed Robot Heads #ASA184

Human simulators that talk and listen to each other facilitate research on the head’s acoustic properties for better designed audio devices.

Media Contact:
Ashley Piccone
AIP Media
301-209-3090
media@aip.org

CHICAGO, May 8, 2023 – Imagine a cocktail party full of 3D-printed, humanoid robots listening and talking to each other. That seemingly sci-fi scene is the goal of the Augmented Listening Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Realistic talking (and listening) heads are crucial for investigating how humans receive sound and developing audio technology.

The head simulators are 3D-printed into components and assembled, enabling customization at low cost. Credit: Augmented Listening Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The team will describe the talking human head simulators in their presentation, “3D-printed acoustic head simulators that talk and move,” on Monday, May 8, at 12:15 p.m. Eastern U.S. in the Northwestern/Ohio State room of the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel. The talk comes as part of the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America running May 8-12.

Algorithms used to improve human hearing must consider the acoustic properties of the human head. For example, hearing aids adjust the sound received at each ear to create a more realistic listening experience. For the adjustment to succeed, an algorithm must realistically assess the difference between the arrival time at each ear and amplitude of the sound.

It is important to study human listening in natural environments, like cocktail parties, where many conversations occur at once.

“Simulating realistic scenarios for conversation enhancement often requires hours of recording with human subjects. The entire process can be exhausting for the subjects, and it is extremely hard for a subject to remain perfectly still in between and during recordings, which affects the measured acoustic pressures,” said Austin Lu, a student member of the team. “Acoustic head simulators can overcome both drawbacks. They can be used to create large data sets with continuous recording and are guaranteed to remain still.”

Since researchers have precise control over the simulated subject, they can adjust the parameters of the experiment and even set the machines in motion to simulate neck movements.

In a feat of design and engineering, the heads are 3D-printed into components and assembled, enabling customization at low cost. The highly detailed ears are fitted with microphones along different parts to simulate both human hearing and Bluetooth earpieces. The “talkbox,” or mouthlike loudspeaker, closely mimics human vocals. To facilitate motion, the researchers paid special attention to the neck. Because the 3D model of the head design is open source, other teams can download and modify it as needed. The diminishing cost of 3D printing means there is a relatively low barrier for fabricating these heads.

“Our acoustic head project is the culmination of the work done by many students with highly varied technical backgrounds,” said Manan Mittal, a graduate researcher with the team. “Projects like this are due to interdisciplinary research that requires engineers to work with designers.”

The Augmented Listening Laboratory has also created wheeled and pully-driven systems to simulate walking and more complex motion, which they describe on their website.

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are 300 to 500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org.  For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

Beyond Necessity, Hearing Aids Bring Enjoyment Through Music #ASA184

Beyond Necessity, Hearing Aids Bring Enjoyment Through Music #ASA184

Hearing aids aren’t particularly good at preserving the sound quality of music – but some manufacturers do better than others.

Media Contact:
Ashley Piccone
AIP Media
301-209-3090
media@aip.org

CHICAGO, May 8, 2023 – For decades, hearing aids have been focused on improving communication by separating speech from background noise. While the technology has made strides in terms of speech, it is still subpar when it comes to music.

Over the years, hearing aids have improved in terms of speech. But they are still subpar when it comes to music. Credit: Emily Sandgren

In their talk, “Evaluating the efficacy of music programs in hearing aids,” Emily Sandgren and Joshua Alexander of Purdue University will describe experiments to determine the best hearing aids for listening to music. The presentation will take place Monday, May 8, at 11:45 a.m. Eastern U.S. in the Indiana/Iowa room, as part of the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America running May 8-12 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel.

“Americans listen to music for more than two hours a day on average, and music can be related to mental and emotional health. But research over the past two decades has shown that hearing aid users are dissatisfied with the sound quality of music when using their hearing aids,” said Sandgren. “People with hearing loss deserve both ease of communication and to maintain quality of life by enjoying sources of entertainment like music.”

In response to this problem, hearing aid manufacturers have designed music programs for their devices. To test and compare each of these programs, Sandgren and Alexander took over 200 recordings of music samples as processed by hearing aids from seven popular manufacturers.

They asked study participants to rate the sound quality of these recordings and found that the hearing aids had lower ratings for music than their control stimuli. The researchers found bigger differences in music quality between hearing aid brands than between speech and music programs, with two manufacturers standing out among the rest.

The team is still trying to determine the causes behind these differences.

“One contributing factor is how hearing aids adapt to loud, sudden sounds,” said Sandgren. “When you’re listening to a conversation, if a door slams behind you, you don’t want that door slam to be amplified very much. But with music, there are loud sudden sounds that we do want to hear, like percussion instruments.”

Distortion may be one of the biggest problems. Unlike speech, music often has intense low-frequency harmonics.

“Our analyses suggest that brands rated highest in music quality processed the intense ultralow frequency peaks with less distortion than those rated lowest in music quality,” said Alexander.

This work will improve future technology and help audiologists select the best current hearing aids for their patients.

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are 300 to 500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org.  For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

ASA Press Conferences Livestreamed from Chicago, May 9 #ASA184

Media invited to in-person and virtual presentations about communicating with artificial intelligence, listening to the world’s largest tree, achieving linguistic justice for African American English, making music from ocean data, and other topics.

CHICAGO, April 27, 2023 – The 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America will include three press conferences on Tuesday, May 9, in the Lakeville room of the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel. The in-person presentations will also be livestreamed and recorded.

Topics will focus on a wide range of newsworthy sessions from the upcoming meeting, which runs May 8-12. This includes 3D-printing head simulators, tracking immune cells with ultrasound, investigating the impact of skin color on breast cancer diagnosis, mimicking insects to create miniature microphones, and locating leaks in water networks.

To register for in-person attendance, email media@aip.org. To watch the livestream virtually, please visit our registration page. Video recordings of the press conference sessions will be available upon request.

ASA Press Conference Schedule – Tuesday, May 9 (topics/times subject to change)

10:30 a.m. ET / 9:30 a.m. CT

Fighting Racial Bias in Next-Gen Breast Cancer Screening – Seonyeong Park, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Session 2pPA11 – Virtual imaging trials to investigate impact of skin color on three-dimensional optoacoustic tomography of the breast, Tuesday, May 9 at 5:15 p.m. CT

Fire Hydrant Hydrophones Find Water Leaks – Pranav Agrawal, University of California, Los Angeles
Session 4aSP10 – Maximum likelihood estimation for leak localization in water distribution networks using in-pipe acoustic sensing, Thursday, May 11 at 11:25 a.m. CT

Achieving Linguistic Justice for African American English – Yolanda F. Holt, East Carolina University
Session 3aSC7 – Kids talk too: Linguistic justice and child African American English, Wednesday, May 10 at 9:50 a.m. CT

A Cocktail Party of 3D-Printed Robot Heads – Manan Mittal, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Session 1aEA9– 3D-printed acoustic head simulators that talk and move, Monday, May 8 at 11:15 a.m. CT

1:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. CT

These Sounds Are Out of This World! – Timothy G. Leighton, University of Southampton, and Andi Petculescu, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Session 4aPAa9 – What might we hear on other worlds? A free demonstration programme for planetaria, Thursday, May 11 at 11:00 a.m. CT

Small but Mighty: Insect-Inspired Microphones – Andrew Reid, University of Strathclyde
Session 3aEA1 – Unnatural hearing—3D printing functional polymers as a path to bio-inspired microphone design, Wednesday, May 10 at 9:05 a.m. CT

Microbubble Macrophages Track Tumors – Ashley Alva, Georgia Institute of Technology
Session 1aBAb11 – Tracking macrophages with ultrasound, Monday, May 8 at 11:15 a.m. CT

4:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. CT

Hey Siri, Can You Hear Me? – Georgia Zellou, University of California, Davis
Session 2aSC8 – Clear speech in the new digital era: Speaking and listening clearly to voice-AI systems, Tuesday, May 9 at 11:40 a.m. CT

Songs of the Oceans Raise Environmental Awareness – Colin Malloy, Ocean Network Canada
Session 3pMU5 – Sonification of ocean data in art-science, Wednesday, May 10 at 2:25 p.m. CT

Listening to the Largest Tree on Earth – Jeff Rice, sound artist
Session 3aABa7 – Beneath the tree: The sounds of a trembling giant, Wednesday, May 10 at 9:30 a.m. CT

###

For more information:
Ashley Piccone, AIP Media
+1 301-209-3090
media@aip.org

———————– MORE MEETING INFORMATION ———————–
Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING23&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM
In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS
ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION
ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org.  For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT ASA
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year.

Lead Vocal Tracks in Popular Music Go Quiet

Lead Vocal Tracks in Popular Music Go Quiet

An analysis of top popular music from 1946 to 2020 shows a marked decrease in volume of the lead vocal track and differences across musical genres.

Estimated lead-to-accompaniment-ratio, LAR, for songs in five genres from 1990-2020. Purple circles correspond to solo artists and green squares to bands. Credit: Kai Siedenburg

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2023 – A general rule of music production involves mixing various soundtracks so the lead singer’s voice is in the foreground. But it is unclear how such track mixing – and closely related lyric intelligibility – has changed over the years.

Scientists from the University of Oldenburg in Germany carried out an analysis of hundreds of popular song recordings from 1946 to 2020 to determine…click to read more

From the Journal: JASA Express Letters
Article: Lead-vocal level in recordings of popular music 1946-2020
DOI: 10.1121/10.0017773