Re: Replacing Voices

  • From: "Will Pearson" <will-pearson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 14:27:26 -0000

Hi;

It's worth stressing that ECI.INI also contains the phoneme characteristics
that are used by Eloquence.  Phonemes are a group of sounds at specific
frequencies that represent the sounds contained within a given speech sound,
mainly consisting of four formants, or four frequencies within the frequency
spectrum where the signal amplitude is the strongest.  Basically, the
phonemes determine how speech sounds such as a, b, c,d, aa, ba, ca, da, etc.
are pronounced.

Playing with these is like playing Russian roulette.  I recently read a
research paper in the online journal, Nature Neuroscience.  The paper was on
early language acquisition, both auditory and visual.  The conclusions were
quite interesting.  They concluded that our brains, as humans, are finely
tuned to discriminate between different phoneme blocks, and that our brain
trains itself to become accustomed to the phonemes we encounter at an early
age.  So, you are basically accustomed to the phonemes you were listening to
when you were about one or two years old.  This doesn't prohibit someone
from listening to different phoneme blocks, just that it is going to be more
difficult for someone to determine where one phoneme block finishes, and the
other starts, in situations where the phonemes differ from what someone is
accustomed to.  Of course, as our brains have a certain plasticity, they can
become reconditioned to detect different phoneme blocks, something that
becomes very difficult beyond a certain age, but at least initially, someone
listening to a different set of phonemes will find it hard to actually
detect words, sentences, etc. correctly.  One situation where I'm sure we've
all experienced this, is when listening to a speech synthesiser for the
first time.  It takes months for our brains to become conditioned to the
phonemes contained within a speech synthesiser, and changing these phonemes
will mean your brain will have to become reconditioned all over again, same
goes for learning a foreign language.

So, if you change the phonemes you will get mispronunciation by Eloquence,
or at least it will appear as mispronunciation to you.  IMO, if Freedom
Scientific responded to any bugs raised regarding mispronunciation by
Eloquence after someone had altered the phoneme characteristics, with the
response that it's a system, or user, specific fault, they'd be right on the
money.

Will Pearson
Researcher (Accessibility and Human Computer Interaction) - Sheffield Hallam
University
Microsoft MVP (Visual Developer/VC++)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Horspool, Matthew F." <drjaws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 10:12 AM
Subject: RE: Replacing Voices


> OK!  This has opened up a new world!
>
> -------------------------
> Mr. Matthew F. Horspool
>
> Send me an Electronic Mail to
> drjaws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Add
> horspool@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> to your MSN contact list
>
> Or Visit my web site at
> http://www.horspool.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
> -------------------------
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Ricque
> Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 9:21 PM
> To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Replacing Voices
>
>
> Hi Matthew,
> With respect to the Rocco voice,
> Yes, I have already done this with versions 3.7 thru 6.0
> I'm guessing that it goes for all voices, but I am waiting to hear from
> Jack, for clerification on that. Richard Justice
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Horspool, Matthew F." <drjaws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 3:58 PM
> Subject: RE: Replacing Voices
>
>
> > So does this mean that you can take Eloquence from JAWS 3.2 and import
>
> > it to JAWS 4.51?  Or possibly later?
> >
> > -------------------------
> > Mr. Matthew F. Horspool
> >
> > Send me an Electronic Mail to
> > drjaws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Add
> > horspool@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > to your MSN contact list
> >
> > Or Visit my web site at http://www.horspool.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
> > -------------------------
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> > Behalf Of Jack Lowe
> > Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 10:58 PM
> > To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: Rocco Voice
> >
> >
> > Yes, you can replace the new Rocco voice with the old one, and here's
> > how... First of all, you'll need an old version of Jaws on CD.
> Version
> > 4.02 or
> > older.  I have the file saved if anyone would want it.  I don't know
> if
> > this
> > group allows attachments or not.
> > Anyway, the name of the Rocco voice file is ECI.INI.  Here's how you
> > replace
> > the new one with the old one.
> > I do have to say that I haven't tried this with 6.0 yet because the
> > files
> > aren't in the same place as they've been in past versions.  But i'm
> sure
> >
> > that you can do this in 6.0 as well.
> > First, get a copy of the old ECI.INI file.
> > Then, go to drive C and look for your Jaws program.  Mine says Jaws
> 510.
> > Open that folder and paste the original ECI.INI file into that folder.
> > It
> > will ask you if you want to replace one with the other.  Tell it yes.
> > Now you can exit out of there. Now, close Jaws with incert F4, then
> > restart it.  The old rocco voice will
> > be there when the program restarts.    Jack
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Chris & Mary" <cmchaffin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 5:43 PM
> > Subject: Re: Rocco Voice
> >
> >
> > > Hi there,
> > > I was not aware that you could take a voice from one Jaws and
> replace
> > > it with an older version of the same voice. Could you please explain
> > > the steps in doing this? Thanks in advance,
> > > Chris Chaffin
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Jack Lowe" <akronjack1982@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 4:37 PM
> > > Subject: Rocco Voice
> > >
> > >
> > >> Hey Everyone,
> > >> I've mentioned this to a few other people and I was wondering...
> Is
> > >> it just me, or is the newer Rocco voice really offal!  Well, I've
> > >> found a way around that.  I went back to Jaws 4.02, before they
> > >> changed it, and took the original Rocco voice and incorporated it
> > >> into my current version of Jaws.  Now, I haven't tried this with
> 6.0
> > >> yet, but it works just great with 5.10.  The newer voice sounds
> like
> > >> he has a mouth full of marbles. I
> > >> really like the original version of Rocco much better.   Jack
> > >> --
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