Barry Arons

Abstract

Skimming or browsing audio recordings is much more difficult than visually scanning a document because of the temporal nature of audio. By exploiting properties of spontaneous speech it is possible to automatically select and present salient audio segments in a time-efficient manner. Techniques for segmenting recordings and a prototype user interface for skimming speech are described. The system developed incorporates time-compressed speech and pause removal to reduce the time needed to listen to speech recordings. This paper presents a multi-level approach to auditory skimming, along with user interface techniques for interacting with the audio and providing feedback. Several time compression algorithms ami an adaptive speech detection technique are also stuntnarized.