[speaker007:] I was just thinking that [comment] in the meeting you could like [comment] have this secret thing that would play music if you're [disfmarker] [vocalsound] if you got bored.
[speaker006:] Yeah, that's right!
[speaker007:] Give you stock quotes [@ @]. Nobody would know, right?
[speaker006:] Thanks.
[speaker007:] No, I mean, just like no one would know if something's actually [comment] coming through if you got bored or something, cuz [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Ch ch ch, ch ch ch, ch ch ch, ch ch ch
[speaker003:] Well, it's being recorded anyway, right?
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker003:] Why listen to the guy?
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker002:] Yeah, right.
[speaker007:] You sit at the meeting but you just [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Yeah, that's right.
[speaker007:] Yeah, you just say, "Mm hmm. Mm hmm".
[speaker002:] You need me, yeah.
[speaker003:] If you need it you may record it. [comment] Then we can get Liz's X marks later to see if there are any important things.
[speaker007:] Right. Right.
[speaker008:] Oh,
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker008:] so,
[speaker002:] I really count.
[speaker008:] you have to turn those things on if they're not on already. Are they [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] Mine is on. Where am I?
[speaker008:] There's a switch on top.
[speaker003:] Which one?
[speaker006:] There's a switch on top. So. "On off".
[speaker003:] Which one?
[speaker004:] Hello?
[speaker001:] This is on.
[speaker008:] OK,
[speaker001:] Hi,
[speaker008:] Looks good.
[speaker001:] hi, hi.
[speaker003:] Channel [disfmarker] Oh, I'm on two. Good.
[speaker001:] Hello? Hello? I'm [disfmarker] I'm on zero! Yes!
[speaker003:] You are on zero.
[speaker001:] Oh, uh I'm being recorded by the wire.
[speaker005:] Hello?
[speaker006:] The [disfmarker] the wireless ones are actually labeled.
[speaker007:] Hello?
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] I'm on channel four? Channel four, channel four,
[speaker003:] Oh, they're already labeled?
[speaker004:] channel four?
[speaker006:] They have a little piece of tape.
[speaker003:] Yeah, that's what I figured out. No?
[speaker004:] Why?
[speaker002:] And is that the channel number or the microphone number?
[speaker003:] I'm, uh [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] That was good.
[speaker003:] Well, I mean, you're counting maybe from one instead of zero,
[speaker006:] That's r exactly the problem.
[speaker004:] Hey.
[speaker003:] so.
[speaker006:] Subtract one from the mike number to get the channel number.
[speaker004:] Hey. Hey. You know, I have a feeling we're on reversed.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker005:] Right.
[speaker003:] Right.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] And what about these?
[speaker001:] and Mike are coming on my channel.
[speaker006:] Or maybe add one.
[speaker008:] No, no, no, no, no, no.
[speaker004:] Does yours say "three"?
[speaker007:] Where's the [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] No, no. You subtract [disfmarker] He was just saying trap subtract one.
[speaker004:] No?
[speaker008:] But you have to [disfmarker] the channel [disfmarker] uh the number on the mike is the number on the screen plus one, of course.
[speaker004:] Oh, thank you. Sss this is the problem.
[speaker003:] Right.
[speaker004:] Good. OK, good, good, good.
[speaker006:] Of course.
[speaker004:] Thank you.
[speaker008:] Cuz, uh, otherwise we would've [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So I guess I am channel eight.
[speaker005:] Hmm.
[speaker004:] Whoa! I guess so.
[speaker007:] Am I nine? OK.
[speaker006:] You look ni You look nine.
[speaker004:] Hello? Yeah, I'm number three. That's right. OK.
[speaker003:] So, yeah.
[speaker006:] Funny, you don't look a day over seven.
[speaker007:] Well, thank you. This is kinda fun.
[speaker001:] So I guess now we have a lot of censors self censorship going on.
[speaker002:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker007:] No, But it won't last long.
[speaker003:] No!
[speaker008:] That's right.
[speaker006:] Yeah,
[speaker003:] This is [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] so it's r it's remarkable how quickly people forget.
[speaker001:] No, we got to relax and let go.
[speaker007:] It probably [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Ch ch.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker002:] These are disturbing. Being just in front of your ears, it [disfmarker] you can [disfmarker] you can hear the shadow it creates.
[speaker006:] So far, e
[speaker002:] There was this like little acoustic shadow
[speaker005:] Oh! Really?
[speaker008:] Oh, god.
[speaker002:] from having this in front, yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah? Uh huh.
[speaker007:] You can hear it.
[speaker005:] Uh.
[speaker002:] Well, I can [disfmarker] I can feel it.
[speaker007:] The rest of us [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] You h you must have much better ear. And so far every meeting I've recorded someone has at one point or another said, "Oh, I probably shouldn't have said that."
[speaker007:] That's amazing.
[speaker002:] There's too much [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So I think they're [disfmarker] they're [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] So, Harry, we should maybe record some of your clicks and, you know.
[speaker005:] I've been clicking plenty.
[speaker001:] He [disfmarker] he's a [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] But they don't show up.
[speaker001:] the sound effect man.
[speaker004:] Wow!
[speaker001:] Yeah. Alright.
[speaker004:] That's great!
[speaker005:] They don't show up on that thing.
[speaker006:] Well, I [disfmarker] I bet they're recorded
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Oh, yeah.
[speaker004:] They'll be [disfmarker] they'll be deaf deafening the transcriber.
[speaker006:] quite loudly.
[speaker005:] Yeah, I'm sure [disfmarker] I'm sure they're recorded.
[speaker006:] Yeah, so it [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] They want to do something serious with this research.
[speaker005:] They tend to clip.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] That's a nice user interface, Dan.
[speaker004:] That's [disfmarker] that's really something.
[speaker006:] Very [disfmarker] what does "solo" mean?
[speaker008:] Uh, it means I was trying to think of things they put on real mixers that I should have on mine.
[speaker006:] Ah!
[speaker004:] Oh.
[speaker008:] But it it's really good. The solo actually [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] So you can feed it to the [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Solo means you just [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Ahh.
[speaker002:] feed it through the headphones, for example.
[speaker008:] cuz it's actually [disfmarker] you know, it's [disfmarker] it's how to [disfmarker] it's what can I [disfmarker] what application can I have for a [disfmarker] for a, uh, a class method rather [disfmarker] or a class [disfmarker] you know, a class procedure.
[speaker001:] can [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] So the solo by sa satellite. Then if you click on one of the other ones, it clears that one.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] Oh, but it doesn't actually do anything else?
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker008:] Doesn't do anything, no, no. But I mean, it's [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] So you've implemented radio buttons.
[speaker004:] It looks pretty slick though. That's great.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] Ca can [disfmarker] can we fast forward through this conversation?
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Oh, yeah, that's right.
[speaker008:] Yeah, the uh,
[speaker003:] Actually I think this thing is really cutting the blood flow.
[speaker004:] No.
[speaker008:] those [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] I'm gonna pass out.
[speaker001:] Wait, you you're going to be [disfmarker] you're going to be saying, you know, funnier things,
[speaker003:] This is a very sensual thing.
[speaker006:] Yeah, I think a lot o a lot of us ended up wearing it around your neck and then facing up.
[speaker001:] so leave it on.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] I kn and, uh, just because there doesn't seem to be a good way to mount it.
[speaker003:] Maybe this is a little better.
[speaker001:] Yeah,
[speaker004:] That's really nice.
[speaker001:] I mean [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] Boy!
[speaker001:] Clearly [disfmarker] I mean, my impression is i if I have to wear this thing, you know, more than five minutes, uh, uh, uh, I mean, I [disfmarker] I will be completely affected by it somehow.
[speaker004:] Huh.
[speaker001:] So.
[speaker006:] This [disfmarker] this thing?
[speaker001:] I wouldn't be [disfmarker] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Or [disfmarker] or just that one?
[speaker001:] Oh. That [disfmarker] that one.
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] The one I tried.
[speaker004:] I mean, on [disfmarker] on the temple's the pressure?
[speaker001:] I'd [disfmarker] They really press my temples,
[speaker004:] Uh huh.
[speaker007:] Oh yeah.
[speaker001:] otherwise my ear channels,
[speaker007:] That would give you a headache.
[speaker005:] What happened?
[speaker001:] otherwise my joints here. I mean, depending where I put it, [comment] it press different things,
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] but that's a [@ @] fine.
[speaker004:] I think we have to add that to the [disfmarker] to the form they sign.
[speaker001:] I mean [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so the [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Yeah. So,
[speaker002:] Yes, that's right.
[speaker001:] I mean, this [disfmarker] this thing of course is probably, you know, acoustically more challenging
[speaker002:] The medical.
[speaker006:] I think [disfmarker] Yeah.
[speaker001:] but I like this.
[speaker006:] Oh, yeah. But this is very comfortable.
[speaker001:] Th
[speaker006:] I mean, I [disfmarker] I could wear this without any difficulty.
[speaker001:] Is it?
[speaker007:] Can you convert these ear ones to something comfortable? I mean, just by putting little [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] They have so much pressure at th it's [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] But [disfmarker] but there [disfmarker] there I think, is a t you know,
[speaker006:] I [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] Yeah, this is just m bad design. This, um, this is [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] We c we'd [disfmarker] we'd have to buy new ones.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Or j Yeah, I mean, you can just use the microphone and take the headband off.
[speaker006:] The [disfmarker] the other wa the other way I had it, which might work, is you put one over an ear and then you can adjust the other one.
[speaker004:] Uh oh.
[speaker006:] And that didn't [disfmarker] that seemed to be pretty [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] Ouch.
[speaker006:] That doesn't work for you?
[speaker001:] No. A Anything which is distracting or painful, [vocalsound] is going to impact negatively with this.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] But maybe the [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so you see how Jane's wearing it?
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] That seems to work OK too.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] It's very comfortable.
[speaker001:] But I mean,
[speaker006:] And you just have to bring it up.
[speaker001:] but at that point [disfmarker] at that point it wouldn't be much different to [disfmarker] to wear this or that.
[speaker003:] Yeah, go to that.
[speaker008:] Right, right.
[speaker006:] Well, except you can bring it quite a bit closer to your mouth. So.
[speaker001:] Hhh. [comment] OK.
[speaker008:] But, uh, yeah, but it's not such a [disfmarker] it's not such a directional microphone probably.
[speaker001:] I mean, but probably this is designed in such a way that it should be closer. And this, eh, eh [disfmarker] but this is designed to be worn like this [disfmarker] to be worn like this.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Right. So. Yeah, we [disfmarker] maybe we should look into [pause] if we can buy a replacement.
[speaker004:] Sure.
[speaker006:] If they're eighty bucks, that might be worth doing cuz they're very uncomfortable.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] I mean, I really like this. Uh I [disfmarker] I mean, if I have to design the thing, uh I [disfmarker] I would rather, you know, use this type of thing than the other ones.
[speaker006:] Well, I mean, what you'd rather do is nothing at all,
[speaker001:] And also i is [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Wow.
[speaker005:] Just trying to give you a hard transcription task.
[speaker006:] of course, but to get [disfmarker] to get a good quality [disfmarker] I mean, if [disfmarker] if you were listening to it downstairs, that one's quite a bit lower quality.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] No. I'm sorry.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] Hey, whi what [disfmarker] where are [@ @]?
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker003:] What are you doing?
[speaker007:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, I noticed that.
[speaker004:] Do you s do you know [disfmarker] Have you studied a click language?
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker001:] I noticed that.
[speaker004:] I don't [@ @] [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] But, you know, that [disfmarker] that might be the challenging part.
[speaker005:] No, I wish. No.
[speaker004:] Wow.
[speaker005:] No.
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] Just studied phonetics in general.
[speaker001:] I mean, because otherwise you are [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] If it didn't [disfmarker] if it didn't hurt, you know, if it was comfortable but you knew it was there, would it bother you?
[speaker004:] OK. I'll just take [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] If it was comfortable [disfmarker] OK.
[speaker006:] Yeah. Well [disfmarker] well try this one on.
[speaker007:] Because I actually think it sort of makes everybody act a little more professional.
[speaker004:] I didn't know that you could whistle that [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker004:] You're a very soft whistler, you're mostly able to do that without much air at all,
[speaker003:] Actually, I use something like this on [disfmarker] on the telephone and it's very comfortable.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I, uh,
[speaker006:] I
[speaker007:] Your telephone,
[speaker004:] aren't you?
[speaker001:] I mean, no.
[speaker007:] and people use it for cell phones
[speaker005:] Yeah, it's weird.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] It's kind of, uh,
[speaker007:] and.
[speaker001:] I mean,
[speaker005:] apical alveolar kind of thing.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] I don't know.
[speaker008:] Right,
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker008:] cuz you've got [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] It's [disfmarker] [comment] You know?
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker001:] I [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Wow, that's amazing!
[speaker001:] I [disfmarker] I mean, I'm kind of more deaf on this ear, whatever this is on. Uh, I could wear it this way. Still, I [disfmarker] I [disfmarker] I mean, I'm
[speaker005:] Get a very high pitch that way too. And you get dogs to d cock their heads and stuff.
[speaker008:] Yeah it is,
[speaker001:] I
[speaker008:] yeah.
[speaker001:] I mean, it's my impression. I mean, of course there is a lot more work to do with this one
[speaker005:] It's really good.
[speaker004:] Oh, how fun!
[speaker005:] Cuz you can get really high.
[speaker004:] Can you project it pretty well? I mean [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] but [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] No. Not too well.
[speaker004:] OK. OK.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] But they're just very, very sensitive.
[speaker005:] But it's that you get enough of the high frequencies.
[speaker001:] I mean if [disfmarker] if you want something really [disfmarker] really nonintrusive, really nonintrusive, really something that [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Yeah, that you really get [disfmarker] you really get animals like [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Fascinating! Wow.
[speaker007:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Well, I guess my feeling is that this is for collecting a corpus not for an actual end user application.
[speaker004:] Huh.
[speaker006:] And so I think a little bit of intrusion is not [pause] ridiculous.
[speaker001:] OK. OK.
[speaker003:] Not for this, for sure. No. I mean, it's just [disfmarker] But talking in general, yeah, that's, uh [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] So [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker007:] I think you can't do any research otherwise.
[speaker001:] Well [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] What exactly is the purpose of the corpus?
[speaker006:] Yeah, I agree.
[speaker007:] It's just [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] I mean, you think [disfmarker] you think if you [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] What's the purpose of the [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Training s Training speech recognition systems.
[speaker007:] It's too hard. It's too hard without [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Do you think this is going to be too f too [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker007:] I think you should collect both simultaneously.
[speaker002:] But it will train them to the microphone characteristics of this c
[speaker006:] We wanna do both.
[speaker007:] And [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so the [disfmarker] the point is that if you [disfmarker] if we try, from the get go, to do it off the PZM, we won't get anything.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] It's gonna be too hard to do it without a [disfmarker] Yeah,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] forget it.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] You won't be able to align.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] So [disfmarker] no, I mean, the [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Absolutely.
[speaker007:] You won't be able to get grants.
[speaker002:] I agree.
[speaker006:] You won't be able to segment.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] You won't be able to do anything.
[speaker002:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] You won't be able to get funding.
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Right!
[speaker007:] No, I'm serious.
[speaker008:] Hang on, hang on!
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] I mean, you won't be able to show any results.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] So.
[speaker008:] Oh, right, right, right.
[speaker001:] And with this [disfmarker] with this you're saying, you are also in that situation?
[speaker008:] I mean th
[speaker006:] Well, I mean, we haven't done the [disfmarker] the detail experiment but just from listening to it, it's pretty bad,
[speaker007:] It was pretty bad.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] It takes off quite a lot.
[speaker006:] whereas these are m are very good.
[speaker003:] Well, yeah, I mean, that's really like having one of these almost,
[speaker006:] I mean, that's why [disfmarker] That's why if you [disfmarker] if you use DragonDictate or [disfmarker] or ViaVoice, or any of those others to do dictation you need to use these.
[speaker003:] so.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] There's just no other way around it.
[speaker007:] Somebody will design a comfortable close talking mike. I mean it's [disfmarker] there are too many applications to [disfmarker] for them not [disfmarker] to not do that.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] Well, and as I said, I find this one [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] I mean, it may not look like this but.
[speaker006:] I find this one is no problem at all. The only thing is [nonvocalsound] a little bit of audio [disfmarker] a [disfmarker] a little bit of audio degradation in one ear,
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah it's y
[speaker007:] Yeah, this one's fine.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker006:] and I get a little bit of peripheral vision, but other than that, it's not bad at all.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] Those, on the other hand, are very uncomfortable.
[speaker007:] I
[speaker004:] We could [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Yeah, those are pretty bad.
[speaker001:] Yeah, those are really bad.
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker004:] Can [disfmarker] can't we buy an expander that you just [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Uh [disfmarker] I'm actually finding this quite comfortable now that I've got it [disfmarker] I've got it just right.
[speaker006:] That's right.
[speaker005:] I'm surviving.
[speaker008:] It depends, yeah I've [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] I think you have, you know, he would.
[speaker005:] Yeah, I uh
[speaker002:] It's just [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] I think he's about to pass out. That's why [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] U i
[speaker005:] You guys gave up too soon.
[speaker002:] It must have numbed the areas.
[speaker005:] I think you just get used to it after five minutes.
[speaker006:] So I [disfmarker] I guess [disfmarker] you know, maybe the problem is we got the kid's version.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker003:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] No, we got a Japanese version, you know that's [disfmarker] that's it,
[speaker007:] Sorry.
[speaker001:] And so [disfmarker] and what about this one?
[speaker008:] yeah.
[speaker001:] I mean, this thing wearing sideway that [disfmarker] that can?
[speaker008:] Uh the [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] It's wired.
[speaker008:] It's funny, I li I kind of like this. So it actually gets most of its strength from [disfmarker] [comment] from you know, the fact this thing's stuck in your ear.
[speaker007:] Oh, this would drive me crazy.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] And, yeah,
[speaker001:] Oh.
[speaker007:] I absolutely [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] D uh does it have a speaker?
[speaker008:] uh I [disfmarker] and originally [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] people are very picky about this.
[speaker001:] Does it have a speaker
[speaker005:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] or [disfmarker]?
[speaker008:] Oh yeah, it does. When I bought those things I originally got this version, cuz Plantronics makes uh you know, an in the ear one.
[speaker001:] Uh [disfmarker] Uh huh. Mm hmm.
[speaker008:] And I really liked it but, other people didn't. So it just depends. I guess, you know, I've been using in the ear Walkman headphones, for you know, a long time,
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] so I'm kind of used to that weird sensation having something stuck in my ear. But if, uh,
[speaker007:] But that's painful.
[speaker006:] Whereas I used speech recognition for about four years using one of these,
[speaker008:] If you're not used [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] I can't [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] so I'm used to this.
[speaker001:] You do.
[speaker006:] I don't use it anymore.
[speaker001:] Y
[speaker006:] Uh, my hands got better
[speaker001:] Uh huh.
[speaker006:] so I stopped using it.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker006:] But, uh. So, for about four years I used DragonDictate and NaturallySpeaking
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker003:] Really? So you could actually produce like code
[speaker006:] to do all my work.
[speaker001:] Oh, you're a [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] or [disfmarker]?
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker003:] Yeah?
[speaker006:] It was really a pain.
[speaker002:] Code! Right.
[speaker006:] Yeah, but I didn't have a choice.
[speaker003:] Wow.
[speaker006:] I mean, I couldn't type.
[speaker002:] That's an interesting language model I'm sure.
[speaker003:] Uh.
[speaker006:] So,
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] Huh.
[speaker006:] uh.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] The market is a captive market.
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker004:] Mm hmm, yeah.
[speaker006:] In fact, when I first came back to grad school that was a project I wanted to work on, "voice environments for programmers", but we couldn't get any funding for it and my hands got better. So that's how I ended up working on this project instead.
[speaker008:] Hmm.
[speaker007:] Huh.
[speaker001:] Good.
[speaker006:] Anyway.
[speaker008:] So, yeah.
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so what are you guys doing?
[speaker008:] I don't know. Yeah.
[speaker006:] What's your project?
[speaker001:] Well, basically, the [disfmarker] the [disfmarker] the original project looks a lot like, you know, the [disfmarker] the p your project. I mean, basically we set up with this, uh, idea of the [disfmarker] the [disfmarker] the meeting [disfmarker] the [disfmarker] the mediated spaces idea in general
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] and then incr incarnated in this room that will be mediated somehow by, you know, a computer to access information, to help along the meeting, and will be like two kind of eh, f main functions. One is the interaction with the computer
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] which, as you said, you know, is your interaction with the PDA in your case, where you kind of query it to ask for information, et cetera.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] At the same time, our process is somehow, you know, getting all this multi channel information, doing some sort of, you know, cross, eh, channel, you know, cancellation and transcribing the individual streams,
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] not necessarily in real time. And the idea is y you can eventually after the meeting query, you know, previous meetings
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker001:] and [disfmarker] and there is all this work on transcription, similar probably to what we do in Switchboard but with better bandwidth,
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] you know, but worse, [vocalsound] you know, environmental conditions.
[speaker006:] Worse acoustics. Yeah.
[speaker001:] An and then, you know, there is, all [disfmarker] all these issues about processing all this information, you know, transcription,
[speaker006:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] but then using, you know, prosody information to better, you know, segment, endpoint. Eh, also using topic segmentation to help better classification of information or extraction of information.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] I mean, we didn't dare to say it will be just in a PDA you throw in the middle of a meeting.
[speaker002:] I'm beginning to feel my heart beat now.
[speaker006:] Yeah. So. Yeah. This is [disfmarker] this is [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] That [disfmarker] that was daring.
[speaker006:] The PDA one is very, very ambitious.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] And it's also [disfmarker] it's depending on not only that [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] Uh, not only does it depend on IRAM taping out and working as specified, it also depends on writing vectorized speech recognition algorithms
[speaker003:] Hmm. Mmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker006:] which is non trivial.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker001:] Yeah. But, you know, uh let's assume somehow the compu processor power is going to be there. Whatever. I mean, initially you may do a super computer for the transcription, [comment] real time and then [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Right, I mean, so [disfmarker] so one of our [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker006:] our back off policy on that if [disfmarker] if there's problems with IRAM is it'll be a wireless link,
[speaker001:] Yeah. Uh huh.
[speaker006:] right? You'll dump the [disfmarker] the [disfmarker] dump the audio wirelessly to a network somewhere
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah. I [disfmarker] I mean, ou uh we [disfmarker] we kind of set up this concept like a year and a half ago.
[speaker006:] and you'll do the recognition.
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] And at that time I said, you know, we said, "don't worry about the [disfmarker] the compute power". I mean, it will be somewhere, [comment] you know.
[speaker006:] Hmm.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Well, we [disfmarker] we [disfmarker] we've had a lot of discussions about it and I think
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] maybe [disfmarker] I think t to some extent it comes down to a religious issue. My religion is personal computers are good and terminal mainframes are bad. And so if you can get away with it, I don't want to have a terminal in my hand and a mainframe somewhere else.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[speaker006:] Um, the [disfmarker] too many things to cont can go wrong and you lack control.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker006:] I think the PC revolution has shown how good it is if you can have the power yourself.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker006:] And so the IRAM project provided us a method of having a very powerful thing in your hand.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] And so we wanna see what we can do with it but we'd also don't want the project to actually completely depend on it. So,
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] the project will go forward regardless of whether IRAM works or not.
[speaker001:] I mean, our approach, somehow, I mean, I believe it's probably, you know, complimentary in many ways, is to focus on the actual deep technology that we have somehow in speech. And basically, make progress on, you know, the algorithms.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker001:] And then, you know, it will run somewhere. I mean, as you said, to [disfmarker] I mean, we would like the idea to have it there
[speaker006:] So w
[speaker001:] but [disfmarker] but our focus is basically to develop the algorithms, to push the state of the art on this transcription task.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] And, uh, the other task probably is also, you know, challenging the comp the [disfmarker] the querying, uh, the command, control, or, you know, I mean, doing that in natural language.
[speaker006:] So a Right. Mm hmm. Right, so the [disfmarker] so for us the Meeting Recorder project has a very similar uh, approach.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm. Uh huh.
[speaker006:] Me personally, for my P H D thesis, I'm sorta doing the other way and seeing how much speech recognition can I do on this little unit.
[speaker001:] Oh. I see. You really are challenged to do that,
[speaker006:] Yep.
[speaker001:] to put as much power as you can in the PDA.
[speaker006:] Yep.
[speaker001:] OK, uh, our approach is, you know, we do whatever is necessary to do it and, you know, some of it may go into something, depending on, you know, your scalable power.
[speaker006:] That's right. So [disfmarker] so the [disfmarker] As I said, the Meeting Recorder project, so we have people at UW, people here working on robust algorithms that will be running on work stations.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] They won't be running on IRAM.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] And then what I'm trying to do is see how much of it I can put on IRAM.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker008:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] Well, you know, is, eventually y you will get all this you know, sc eh, higher and higher, you know, powers in these portable things.
[speaker008:] Yeah, it's not [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] So as long as you have enough algorithms and technology to do something better if you have more processing power.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker001:] I mean, the [disfmarker] the situation now in the speech community is that, you know, there is some boundary, some limit in the performance. And no matter how much processing you throw in, you don't get any better.
[speaker006:] That's right, we don't even know what to do with it. We don't need to n
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] And so we are trying to push that.
[speaker006:] Right. Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] And then you have room to port whatever you can to, you know, smaller devices.
[speaker006:] Yep.
[speaker002:] You get the wrong answer quicker basically,
[speaker006:] Yeah, we don't even know what to do with their cycles.
[speaker002:] don't you?
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker001:] Sorry I interrupt you.
[speaker006:] We w
[speaker008:] I was gonna say that, um, you know, in terms [disfmarker] So, Adam has a [disfmarker] you know, a particular agenda, um, but obviously there are lots of other things.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker008:] And you know, it's the way that a project like this works so that a group like this where we have students coming in, you know [disfmarker] It's [disfmarker] it's meant to be sort of a long term thing that will get us data
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker008:] and people will be able to come along and look at different aspects of it. So it's not clear, you know, whether s someone at UW's gonna look at, um, beam forming or whatever. But, you know, it's goo it's a good property for us that there are a lot of different things you could do with it, and so it's [disfmarker] We [disfmarker] we haven't thought it through.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Always [@ @]. Yeah, yeah.
[speaker008:] But that's OK, you know, it's kind of [disfmarker] it's fair enough.
[speaker006:] Like [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] As an example, we had a visitor who was working on speaker ID, acoustic change detection.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker006:] And he has a very good system for that and [disfmarker] and he wants to use this corpus.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] Exactly.
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker001:] I mean, it's one of the areas where Kemal is going to work, like, you know, speaker tracking, and speaker ID.
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker003:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] I mean, you want to know. I mean, if you have the people wired individually it probably is easier.
[speaker006:] Oh, it [disfmarker] th what's nice about [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] But [disfmarker] but you know, in [disfmarker] in the other situation, you know.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] What's nice about getting this corpus is, i with the people wired you have a excellent baseline.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker006:] Right?
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] You have a very easy problem and you can get the right answer, to ground truth very easily
[speaker008:] You can get the ground truth.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] and then you can degrade it by using the P Z
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] you can degrade it further by using those things.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker006:] And [disfmarker] and really see what you can do with a real system. So.
[speaker003:] Yeah, for example, when you go to your PDA system it's, uh, really an awful [disfmarker] open problem to determine how many speakers there are and where they change turns,
[speaker006:] That's right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker003:] uh.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] That's right.
[speaker003:] That's actually being ad That's one of the problems that's being addressed at this year's evaluation,
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker003:] uh,
[speaker006:] Oh, really? They're doing an unknown number?
[speaker003:] which is taking place right now, actually.
[speaker004:] Mmm.
[speaker003:] Right. You [disfmarker] you do need to figure out the number of speakers in the waveform.
[speaker006:] That's good.
[speaker008:] Which, uh [disfmarker] Wha Evaluation of [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker003:] This is a NIST evaluation. Um.
[speaker008:] Of the speaker ID or something?
[speaker002:] This i
[speaker003:] Eh, right, speaker verification.
[speaker008:] And what's the [disfmarker] what [disfmarker] wha So what has the data been? What [disfmarker] what [disfmarker] what data are they using? What is the [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] Uh, Switchboard.
[speaker008:] Oh, OK.
[speaker003:] Switchboard and, uh [disfmarker] I [disfmarker] I [disfmarker] We [disfmarker] Well, I mean [disfmarker] We will also run so some part of that, uh, evaluation too but probably not that segmentation part. But I don't know if they are using a different data for that. But I mean, it's [disfmarker] s While I say "Switchboard", s eh, of course there's [vocalsound] only two speakers.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker003:] But, um, I don't know how they, uh, actually went about. Um. Cuz they were saying some [disfmarker] some [disfmarker] some [disfmarker] up to eight speakers. Maybe they [disfmarker] maybe some other data for that part,
[speaker008:] Uh huh.
[speaker003:] you're right.
[speaker006:] I mean, just mixing it wouldn't work because the channel characteristics are too different.
[speaker003:] No, no.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker003:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] So, uh, what we [disfmarker] what we were working on here was parts of Broadcast News.
[speaker003:] Right.
[speaker006:] And so that [disfmarker] that's a slightly strange task because they tend to be long segments. But they were [disfmarker] they were parts that were interviews that he worked on.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] And, uh.
[speaker003:] No. We've also, uh, s done some of that as, uh, eh,
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker003:] um, I mean, I have a so [disfmarker] small, uh, hacked up system which sort of, for [disfmarker] for the Broadcast News determines the approximate number of speakers and actually assigns some names to them.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
[speaker003:] This is something we did for the MAESTRO project, uh, for [disfmarker] for Rick.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker003:] But, um, uh, yeah, uh, for [disfmarker] for Broadcast News it works much better actually. It's, uh,
[speaker006:] Yeah, he had [disfmarker] he got very good results.
[speaker003:] you do get eh, like in an interview, uh, nice long segments
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker003:] and [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Right. Yeah, so I [disfmarker] I tried his on [disfmarker] his system on the Meeting Recorder stuff, um, but of course we don't have any trained neural nets or, uh [disfmarker] So [disfmarker] so his system was based on our hybrid neural net system that we use for speech recognition.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] And so, uh, I was using the Broadcast News nets on this data.
[speaker001:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] So of course it didn't do [disfmarker] didn't do t tremendously well. And then the other problem also was that it doesn't handle overlap very well, his algorithm.
[speaker007:] Yeah, I mean Broadcast News is for this third party listener,
[speaker006:] Hmm?
[speaker007:] right?
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker007:] So they, you know if you were listening to an interview that sounded like this, you know, you'd turn off your radio.
[speaker002:] Yes.
[speaker006:] That's right, with all the i interrupts.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker007:] So it's just got a d it's a lot easier.
[speaker006:] Yes.
[speaker001:] I think there are some programs in TV. I've been trying to get this from [disfmarker] something like this from, you know, public cast uh w eh eh.
[speaker004:] There are [disfmarker] there are some with a lot of overlap.
[speaker001:] Um uh yeah, and they [disfmarker] but they [disfmarker] they do it somehow. They clean it up.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I notice that they [disfmarker] they s they sa have some help with control of what person to pick up.
[speaker006:] Mixing, yeah.
[speaker007:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] I [disfmarker] I mean there is some program at midnight somewhere. It's a bunch of, like, four people discussing
[speaker004:] Well [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] and they, it's a lot clean.
[speaker006:] Like
[speaker001:] Yeah. I yeah,
[speaker004:] But the [disfmarker] but the worst [disfmarker] the worst case is Politically Incorrect where they don't really make any adjustments at all.
[speaker001:] probably.
[speaker006:] But yeah, they [disfmarker] they have [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Uh huh.
[speaker004:] And [disfmarker] and it's hard to even follow what they're saying.
[speaker001:] Uh huh.
[speaker004:] It's just [disfmarker] it's truly [pause] totally overlapped.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Uh, yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I've heard that [disfmarker] that [disfmarker] that sometimes. But it's [disfmarker] it's OK, though.
[speaker006:] I think in [disfmarker] in [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] It's still in the forma it's still in the format which is slightly more formal I think than, you know, completely informal conversational speech.
[speaker001:] So you don't think they [disfmarker] they fill it at all with any, you know [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] Oh, I'm sure they do. They [disfmarker] I'm sure they have an audio engineer in the back.
[speaker001:] They [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] They will do, a bit.
[speaker001:] I am pretty sure they do.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I mean, it's [disfmarker] it's [disfmarker] it's still, you know, understandable.
[speaker004:] OK, you guys are more in business that I am.
[speaker008:] But it [@ @] [disfmarker] bu
[speaker002:] The host probably gets, uh, you know [disfmarker] gets a little bit more.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] My feeling is that when I [disfmarker] when I [disfmarker] when I've seen that show it's like there [disfmarker] there are sometimes people who totally take over the floor
[speaker002:] Gets a little boost.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker004:] and other people are trying to get in, and they can never [disfmarker] never get access.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker004:] It depends very much on the mix.
[speaker006:] Well, but that that's different than an audio engineer fiddling with the mixing parameters.
[speaker004:] Yeah, it's just, I [disfmarker] I know that there are periods where two people are talking in [disfmarker] t at the same time
[speaker006:] Right?
[speaker001:] At the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker004:] and you're only able to hear um, parts of the weaker voice. And, you know, that's [disfmarker] It's a style.
[speaker001:] Uh huh.
[speaker004:] It's a style. Uh, but I [disfmarker] but I've seen debates where [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Uh huh.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker004:] And you know it's apparently engaging people. Uh, it's been going on for a while now.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah, in many cultures it's not bad manners to [disfmarker] to speak on top of another one.
[speaker007:] Yeah, I was thinking, if Transcriber were invented in Italy or something, [comment] it would have been handling multiple [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Sure. Absolutely.
[speaker001:] I it somehow [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Yeah. Or in New York [disfmarker] or in New York,
[speaker007:] in New York.
[speaker004:] high involve [disfmarker] high in high involvement style.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] I mean, could be reassuring,
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] High involvement.
[speaker001:] you know?
[speaker006:] That's [disfmarker] that's a
[speaker001:] Keep going, keep going.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] good way of saying it.
[speaker004:] That's what it's called. Yeah.
[speaker006:] So what do we do?
[speaker001:] Well, I mean,
[speaker006:] It seems like there's a lot of overlap between our projects,
[speaker001:] I [disfmarker] I belie I believe there is a lot of overlap
[speaker002:] There i yeah, indeed.
[speaker006:] so it would be nice to work together.
[speaker001:] and would be great to com to [disfmarker] to basically take advantage of that to [disfmarker] to make a synergy more than an overlap, and, you know, help each other.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] I [disfmarker] I believe each group has, you know, depths in [disfmarker] in different, uh, areas,
[speaker005:] We [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] so. I mean, we clearly c should collaborate for the best of everybody.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] So is your intention to start collecting some meeting data?
[speaker001:] Uh, I, you know [disfmarker] There are no final [disfmarker] I mean, the official decisions I guess have to be made in terms of resources to that.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] My personal opinion, if you ask, is that we should because the only way [disfmarker] I mean, if I learn anything on speech in [disfmarker] for the last, you know [@ @] [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] More data is better.
[speaker001:] No, no, no. Um, you need a task to really, you know, improve your system for that particular environment.
[speaker006:] Oh. Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] So right now we are focusing our research on doing evaluation type of, you know, in incremental you know, improvements. So, Switchboard, for instance. They have five is kind of [disfmarker] OK, you have two people talking, it's the closest thing. But we really should move into the [disfmarker] you know, data that reflects as much as possible, the real scenario.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] And that that's a way to improve.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] And then you do improvement on that particular database. So even if we don't collect the data to train models, we should collect data at least to evaluate progress.
[speaker006:] So what would be nice is if we could, uh, converge on [disfmarker] on formats and conventions, and so on,
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] And [disfmarker] and software too.
[speaker002:] I think that's the op
[speaker006:] and software.
[speaker007:] I mean, things like rewriting this Transcriber tool
[speaker006:] I mean, just [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] and thi that [disfmarker] That shouldn't be re redone.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker007:] And the transcription conventions [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] I, uh [disfmarker] uh [disfmarker] It shouldn't be done.
[speaker005:] You'd mentioned there was some possibility that somewhere else is going to [disfmarker] you might contract out to do the transcription?
[speaker006:] Yes. We're talking about that right now.
[speaker005:] Can y
[speaker006:] I'm not sure how much I should say about it.
[speaker005:] Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
[speaker006:] So that the,
[speaker005:] OK.
[speaker006:] uh [disfmarker] there's some possibility that we're gonna get a third c party company to do the transcription for us in exchange for the corpus.
[speaker001:] Uh huh?
[speaker002:] Is that in exchange for access to the c
[speaker006:] Right,
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] Yeah. So, on one question.
[speaker006:] and [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] I mean, uh, this [disfmarker] this thing is also for you, made on internal funding? Or I mean, I know you're applying for some DARPA funding.
[speaker006:] We have a little bit of DARPA.
[speaker001:] Oh, you already got some.
[speaker006:] Uh, under the communicator project.
[speaker001:] OK. OK.
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so that's part of it. And then, uh, part of it's on the IRAM group.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker006:] IRAM group is paying for part of it. And then part of it's just ICSI general funds, is paying for it as well.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker002:] And you're saying some of the infrastructure is, um, the A T andT video conferencing.
[speaker006:] The infrastructure, yeah, they [disfmarker] th they were paid [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] but they don't expect anything in return.
[speaker002:] Right. So pi
[speaker006:] They're just being very nice and good neighbors
[speaker002:] A free gift. Yeah.
[speaker006:] and [disfmarker] and so they [disfmarker] they basically wanted stuff anyway.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker006:] And then they just sort of allowed us to direct the audio portion of it to what we needed.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker007:] And then, uh, UW [disfmarker] I don't know if you mentioned this at the beginning but, the [disfmarker] Mari's group, Mari and Morgan [disfmarker] I th I think what happened historically, um [disfmarker] Oh, I don't know how much I'm supposed to say if this is being recorded. Well, anyway, uh.
[speaker002:] Should we stop recording?
[speaker001:] You are on the line.
[speaker007:] Mmm, huh. Um.
[speaker001:] This would never go away!
[speaker007:] There's funding, eh.
[speaker008:] I [disfmarker] I can pause if you wanna say something that [disfmarker] that's sensitive. I mean [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] It's [disfmarker] No, it's OK.
[speaker008:] OK.
[speaker007:] Um, I'll tell you later.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Sorry, listeners.
[speaker006:] And to our listening audience.
[speaker002:] That's [vocalsound] to the listeners.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Too bad you weren't here.
[speaker001:] You know, maybe thousands of people are listening to us now
[speaker007:] Well, it does sort of make you [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] because it's in the future, but, you know, sequentially maybe thousands.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] That's right. It could be.
[speaker007:] It's [disfmarker] it's like you're behind closed doors
[speaker002:] This could be the most popular corpus.
[speaker007:] but you have to [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] That's right. It's so funny, like we close the door and it's [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Normally a note taker would know not to do that. OK.
[speaker002:] Ha!
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] What I can do is say, la la la la la la la la la.
[speaker002:] But that's only on one sp
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Anyway, UW is getting some funding from DARPA on Communicator, uh, with [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] I know, but we can blend it for the public. Uh.
[speaker007:] and that's sorta how I got involved. I mean, Morgan wanted me to sort of do something. I guess, I [disfmarker] My interest was sort of in the language and dialogue m modeling, and the turn overlaps, and how to apply you know, a language model, a dialogue act model to actually feed down to do better recognition. So not just [disfmarker] Because I think it will be really difficult to do just speech recognition and then try to get some kind of meaning out of it. I think you have to have some kind of structure from the [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] Feedback.
[speaker007:] I mean [disfmarker] Yeah. And [disfmarker] So knowing that an utterance is really short and low volume, you should be able to figure out it's a backchannel and things like that. Anyway, apparently, and you guys know more than I do, there was some talk that you were gonna build a portable version of this so that Mari's group [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] I [disfmarker] I mean, there's not a huge amount of funding in the way, you know, Mari probably won't be able to do a ton of collection. But I was thinking if there were sort of prototype collection devices or standards, then we could share data.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker008:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] And we would have like a [vocalsound] monopoly on that. Mar I mean, once you get three sites collecting data and each site can demo it, and say it's at the other two sites.
[speaker008:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker007:] Which was [disfmarker] would be really good for funding purposes.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker007:] But that [disfmarker] I don't really know. That's what I heard from Morgan,
[speaker008:] Yeah, I know. That [disfmarker] that's [disfmarker] That's [disfmarker] that [disfmarker] that [disfmarker] that portable thing's been mentioned.
[speaker007:] so.
[speaker006:] We [disfmarker] we talked about that and [disfmarker] It was [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Is that [disfmarker] And according to Morgan it's like happening and [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Well i w when I spoke with him he [disfmarker] he really just said it was a money issue.
[speaker008:] But that was [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] That it's certainly not any sort of intellectual property issue [vocalsound] where we're perfectly willing to give people those boxes.
[speaker007:] OK.
[speaker008:] Oh, well.
[speaker006:] The boxes are cheap.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker006:] Um, but, you know, can they afford to get a six channel Sony wireless and can they afford the P Z and that sort of stuff.
[speaker007:] And he said something about a portable [disfmarker] You know, that they wouldn't have a dedicated room or something like [disfmarker] like you guys have here.
[speaker006:] Well [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] I think [disfmarker] I think somebody's got a unit which is something like the ADAT or something, which, you know, it's a device which will record onto tape, uh, multiple channels.
[speaker006:] Oh.
[speaker008:] And so I think that was [disfmarker] that was gonna be and we were g Like someone actually has this knocking around. Some company that we were gonna [disfmarker] uh, was gonna lend it to us, something like this.
[speaker007:] OK.
[speaker006:] This is [disfmarker] this is the same [disfmarker] same company that may be doing the transcripts for us,
[speaker008:] The same [disfmarker] it might be the same company or it might be a different company.
[speaker006:] may be giving us [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker008:] There's another company which also has a [disfmarker] apparently has purchased a very [disfmarker] a big multi channel thing.
[speaker006:] may be giving us, uh huh.
[speaker008:] Um, and so if we [disfmarker] if they could lend us that, we could imagine doing these kinds of recordings. I mean that you know, that like you said, the fundamental thing is it doesn't have to be this hardware. It's just the idea that you have multiple channels to synchronize data
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] and then the post processing can be uniform and stuff like that,
[speaker007:] Right, and it doesn't have [disfmarker] You know, different sides can do different pieces of it I think.
[speaker008:] so. Right.
[speaker006:] Yeah. And it would also [disfmarker] it would be really nice to be able to do it in other rooms,
[speaker007:] And [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] cuz otherwise we're gonna learn a lot about this air conditioning.
[speaker007:] Exactly.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Right. And you'll get different kinds of conversations and different interactions,
[speaker002:] That was, w
[speaker006:] Yes.
[speaker007:] and I think just having three different sites would be great
[speaker006:] That'd be great. Yeah, I agree.
[speaker007:] just for sort of diversity,
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] and so.
[speaker005:] Well, one thing that Horacio h hadn't mentioned is, um, I mean, y you were talking about uh the same [disfmarker] the same sort of idea of just collecting a meeting and [disfmarker] and looking at it afterwards. But the [disfmarker] the thing that I'm interested in, and I'm probably the one who's gonna start doing the collection, [comment] um, [vocalsound] is e is having this situation where people are talking to each other and talking to a computer in the machine [disfmarker] in [disfmarker] in the room.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker005:] Um, and so that's probably [disfmarker] that's probably what [disfmarker] u
[speaker002:] That's gonna be [@ @].
[speaker005:] that's certainly what's gonna come out of, uh, of our group first.
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so are you gonna m uh, i is there gonna be some sort of mark for that?
[speaker005:] Uh um. And it [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] I mean, are they gonna say, "Computer, bring up a web page on [disfmarker]" or [disfmarker]?
[speaker005:] Well, so, you know, what we're [disfmarker] we're basically doing is [disfmarker] is waiting to look at the pilot and see what people wanna do
[speaker006:] Uh huh.
[speaker005:] but it's going all be Wizard of Oz at first. So we're gonna let them do what they wanna do first and then see if we should um, you know, subsequent things.
[speaker006:] Oh, I see.
[speaker007:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] Try to [disfmarker] try to constrain them or not constrain them. Or try [disfmarker] try to figure that out.
[speaker006:] I'm just thinking, from a discourse point of view it'd be very interesting to somehow mark "I'm talking to the computer".
[speaker008:] Right. No, it has to be [disfmarker] has to be error complete.
[speaker007:] Yeah, but you know what?
[speaker008:] So the computer has to [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] They don't say when they stop.
[speaker005:] That's one of them [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker005:] Pardon?
[speaker007:] They don't say, you know, "I'm done, Computer". They only mark the beginnings.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker002:] Well, there might be a different style of, um [disfmarker] a different, actually, style of interaction.
[speaker005:] e
[speaker007:] So,
[speaker005:] and it's all of these things [disfmarker] i i is a g
[speaker007:] it [disfmarker] uh [disfmarker] there are very [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] "Computer, show me a web page on X," return.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] It is exactly these things that I mentioned.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] This is [disfmarker] these are the main things that I'm interested in.
[speaker007:] Very interesting.
[speaker005:] Exactly these.
[speaker007:] And actually Mari's [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] When [disfmarker] when [disfmarker] do you know when you're starting and when you know you're ending.
[speaker008:] No, but [disfmarker] No but, y But it's like, you know, if it really was an intelligent assistant sitting there you could say, "Oh, perhaps the computer could show us this." And you'd be talking to someone else but the computer's meant to be listening, and so saying, "Oh, it means me." You know, "I shou I should [disfmarker] I should do something now."
[speaker002:] Yes, certainly.
[speaker006:] Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me?
[speaker007:] But there might be, uh, neat ways you can do this that are not natural but they become very easy,
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker004:] So like saying, like "Hal?"
[speaker007:] and that [disfmarker] So.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm!
[speaker005:] So. Right. So we wanna [disfmarker] we wanna look at exactly those sorts of things.
[speaker007:] I [disfmarker] I think, yeah.
[speaker005:] of [disfmarker] of us, at least in the beginning, is gonna have a number of different characteristics.
[speaker001:] Erase that part.
[speaker005:] It's not going to be natural. It's not gonna be a regular meeting. It's gonna be an artificial situation cuz we're gonna have to, you know, mock up some back end. Um. So the kinds of, you know [disfmarker] the kinds of speech is [disfmarker] the speech is gonna be slightly different. People are gonna be in an unnatural task. We're [disfmarker] we're t gonna be trying to figure out how they're gonna [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] But you can still collect the multiple microphones in a similar way and transcribe,
[speaker005:] But But we will have the, you know [disfmarker] We'll [disfmarker] we'll have all this [disfmarker] all the m microphones set up all the same.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] So the [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] and th That'd be cool actually.
[speaker008:] Yeah. I mean, that's the question. If [disfmarker] if we are collecting these at different sites, different kinds of tasks, different people, what is there that's gonna be uniform about this collection?
[speaker005:] Mm hmm. Right.
[speaker008:] And part of it will be, well, this combination of close talking and uh, and uh, environmental mikes.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] And [disfmarker] and then part of it will just be the data presentation, you know, maybe if [disfmarker] if we have common transcription standards and, you know, that it's all transcribed or there's [disfmarker] there's some integration of the standards thing.
[speaker005:] Right.
[speaker008:] But I mean I u u as long as that makes sense, then it's nice to have a variety of tasks, right? To have sort of, you know, different [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Yeah, I mean, I think the formats would be similar.
[speaker005:] And [disfmarker] Yeah. And if your task is to just sort of, you know, generally do, um, summary and, uh [disfmarker] and large vocabulary speech recognition over the thing, then it doesn't matter that much which, uh, that there's much a difference.
[speaker008:] Right. Yeah.
[speaker007:] But I think having the [disfmarker] the idea of the computer sort of in there forces you to create a [disfmarker] a log file format that can handle these other devices.
[speaker004:] Hmm.
[speaker008:] Right. Right.
[speaker007:] I mean, you were talking about the Penn and [disfmarker] So I [disfmarker] I think it's [disfmarker] the formatting is really one of the biggest [disfmarker] issues.
[speaker006:] XML, that solves everything.
[speaker007:] You know, not [disfmarker] not the f transcript formatting but the audio formatting and the sort of figuring out how to synchronize all of these, um, pieces.
[speaker006:] Uh huh. That's right. We're gonna make [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] And what kind of software you can use for post processing all of them.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Right. Someone will make some assumption that's different than someone else.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah, which i
[speaker006:] And then we suddenly won't be able to interoperate.
[speaker002:] Well, just [disfmarker] just the fact that people are making different assumptions is quite an interesting problem.
[speaker006:] Yep.
[speaker005:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] You know, it's quite an interesting issue.
[speaker006:] So that's something we should try to [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] That brings up [disfmarker] Mmm.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] I I'm not sure what [disfmarker] wh I mean what's a good solution than that other than trying to keep in touch with each other.
[speaker008:] But [disfmarker] yeah. Well, i w if we're gonna have [disfmarker] if we're gonna [disfmarker] there's an opportunity to share tools, right? The if we [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker001:] We could have like, you know, some periodic meetings,
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] and like, uh,
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah, or phone meetings, or even [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] phone meetings or something.
[speaker007:] Or meetings like this with [disfmarker] about the meetings.
[speaker006:] Uh huh. Yeah, I mean, meetings like this are good because we can actually record them.
[speaker007:] You know, with a [disfmarker] with a telephone.
[speaker001:] Yeah. At the same time we contribute to the [vocalsound] database collection,
[speaker006:] Yep,
[speaker002:] Yeah, contribute the data.
[speaker006:] absolutely.
[speaker007:] No, I'm serious.
[speaker001:] and, uh.
[speaker007:] Even if we don't make any decisions we'll have a lot of data.
[speaker008:] That's right.
[speaker001:] But it will be all documented.
[speaker007:] Sorry.
[speaker002:] Yes.
[speaker005:] Yeah, actually we could do that at our site too even though that's not what I'm normally gonna be collecting,
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker005:] but there's no reason we can't collect that, and, uh, then you'd have a more [disfmarker] m your normal kind of meeting.
[speaker006:] Right. So [disfmarker] When you're talking about your artificial meetings, i they are gonna be goal directed, though.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker006:] So they're gonna s say, you're [disfmarker] you're having a meeting to do this.
[speaker005:] They're going to be goal directed. You're supposed to [disfmarker] Yeah, you know. You're supposed to [disfmarker] you're [disfmarker] a budget meeting or something and you have a spreadsheet up there, and everybody has to sort of work out the [disfmarker] you know, some particular goal of where to p allocate money. And they can t ask the computer to switch things around in different columns or something like that.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] But everybody [disfmarker] s and acs actually a o another characteristic is that we're only dealing with three people.
[speaker006:] Oh.
[speaker005:] Um.
[speaker006:] So that will be different.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker005:] So.
[speaker001:] How is that? Three peop total?
[speaker005:] We're gonna start with just three people, yeah.
[speaker002:] Is that the channel limitation cutting in?
[speaker005:] Um, I think it's mainly [disfmarker] It's partly channel limitation because we wanna [disfmarker] we wanna double mike everybody.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] Um, it's also to a large extent,
[speaker008:] Oh, right.
[speaker006:] Oh.
[speaker005:] um [disfmarker] And we have eight channels. Um. It's also I think, uh, e e sort of what came up I think when even Liz was, uh, involved a little while ago with [disfmarker] and Christine I think just in terms of the thinking of the subjects and trying to have enough people. We sort of wanted to, you know, encourage like everybody to talk, try to figure out some way that everybody would be able to participate and [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So if [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] You're double miking everyone, so that's a close talking and a lapel, and then two environmental mikes,
[speaker005:] A g
[speaker002:] Two of [@ @].
[speaker006:] is that right?
[speaker005:] Yes, that was [disfmarker] that was the idea.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] Uh, but
[speaker004:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] M
[speaker005:] I don't know,
[speaker007:] Hmm.
[speaker005:] that was, you know, w we're not uh planning to do anything with [disfmarker] with all that like right away. So if there were [disfmarker] is there [disfmarker] you know, we [disfmarker] h we're happy to take input on that.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker008:] Wha
[speaker004:] Is it the three, I see,
[speaker006:] Well, if you ha m u eh [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] And also, I very much wanna find out about the, you know, the specs on the board that you have in the ma in the [disfmarker] i in the PCI card
[speaker004:] mm hmm.
[speaker005:] cuz I think we might wanna go with that.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker004:] I wanna ask one question though. So is [disfmarker] is it the same three people each time or a different three people?
[speaker005:] Yeah. No, no, we're ho we're hoping to just bring in different groups of three people apiece.
[speaker004:] OK, OK. That's good.
[speaker002:] And do you have the same agenda, although there's a goal? Is there one goal or several goals? Because that'll would be more interesting data if there is like [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Uh. In a given [disfmarker] in a given meeting?
[speaker002:] I mean, a budget meeting is a classic example, of where every comes in pursuit of a different goal.
[speaker008:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker005:] What we're try what we're trying to do is not make it too [disfmarker] eh [comment] you know, not make it too, um, ar artificial. You know, not like say, "OK, mmm, let's role play. Your, y" you know, "you do this, you wanna [disfmarker]"
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker005:] but rather give them an actual task.
[speaker003:] Well, there can be like a problem solution kind of thing where they would actually, you know [disfmarker] they have to come to one solution.
[speaker005:] So actually have [disfmarker] Yeah, and they all just have their own [disfmarker] they just happen to have their own opinions.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker005:] And another possible thing that we're thinking of is something like, uh, you know, we have these regular Wednesday lunches
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] S
[speaker005:] and you gotta plan a menu, right? So everybody has things that they like
[speaker001:] Well, some peo people speak with their mouth full, you know that's a [@ @].
[speaker005:] an and, uh [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Yeah that [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] But a lot of the [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker005:] No.
[speaker006:] That is, uh.
[speaker008:] We [disfmarker] we [disfmarker] we've thought about doing [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Delete that part.
[speaker005:] None of that. N no eating during meetings.
[speaker008:] Right, right, right.
[speaker006:] Yes, or drinking.
[speaker005:] Maybe salivating if you're thinking about the food, but it [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Y getting [disfmarker] getting coffee on these is definitely a bad thing.
[speaker003:] Not with these around.
[speaker005:] Um.
[speaker008:] That's [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Oh, right.
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker] so, I [disfmarker] One question.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I [disfmarker] I mean, I haven't been in these, uh, [comment] you know, preliminary de decision meetings, but I don't know what's the [comment] idea for the computer interaction. I mean, it's going to be a real computer, as in Wizard of Oz?
[speaker006:] Wizard of Oz.
[speaker005:] OK, so the idea is we wanna start off with a somewhat simple back end
[speaker001:] Uh, what's [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] and we're thinking of, um, agentifying an EXCEL spreadsheet and having s like some kind of spreadsheet [disfmarker] So basically, what [disfmarker] wh people will see a spreadsheet and they can ask it to move numbers around. So we thought that would be a [disfmarker] be a useful kind of task for budget meetings or that kind of thing.
[speaker001:] And so it will be a real computer recognition.
[speaker005:] So starting off [disfmarker] we would start off definitely with a Wizard of Oz task
[speaker001:] Oh, OK.
[speaker005:] but it would be something [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So a real computer but a w uh, someone driving it.
[speaker005:] Uh yes,
[speaker001:] OK, OK, OK.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] but it would be something [disfmarker] uh but everything would be an agent.
[speaker001:] Uh huh.
[speaker005:] And so it just be [disfmarker] you know, we wouldn't have the recognition grammar to begin with.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker005:] We wouldn't have the NL grammar to begin with.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] But these are all components that are obvious to us how to build.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker005:] Nothing [disfmarker] nothing that's sort of far in the future.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] It's just a matter of [disfmarker] of work.
[speaker001:] So somebody will be playing the recognizer and then other agents will be doing their task independently.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker005:] So, sort of [disfmarker] Right. Something that can be built up, you know, relatively quickly and makes sense how to do. So a fairly simple back end.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] Um.
[speaker001:] Good.
[speaker006:] Yeah, I [disfmarker] I think that's close enough to what we're interested in that it would t it'd be useful for training uh, the acoustic models, without any question.
[speaker008:] Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure.
[speaker005:] Uh huh.
[speaker007:] Yeah, definitely.
[speaker001:] You p you plan to [disfmarker] to train actually models based on this data.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] That's good.
[speaker006:] Oh, absolutely.
[speaker005:] Yeah. Great.
[speaker006:] Yeah, cuz if you don't the [disfmarker] the accuracy's gonna be horrendously bad.
[speaker002:] In th Mmm. Right.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker002:] And this is just train um, training them using the [disfmarker] um, the head mounted data initially.
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker002:] Or, I mean is the intention to do some [disfmarker] som
[speaker008:] I think [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Well, we'll definitely need to do both.
[speaker008:] No, I think the idea is to train on the, uh [disfmarker] on these mikes but use these to get the alignments that we're gonna train to,
[speaker002:] Right. OK.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker002:] Understood.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker008:] right?
[speaker002:] You're not intending to do any [disfmarker] You said you weren't gonna [disfmarker] planning to do any beam forming as such, but you're not intending to do any signal processing or, uh [disfmarker] or, uh, uh, the sort of acoustic modeling of the environment or microphones, or anything else?
[speaker008:] I don't know.
[speaker006:] It [disfmarker] it really [disfmarker] i
[speaker002:] Cuz that's actually my interest at the moment, so.
[speaker006:] It will really depend on if we have someone who really wants to do that.
[speaker002:] Hmm. Right, right.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Well, also, I mean, I [disfmarker] I [disfmarker] I suspect that it may [disfmarker] we may not be able to get anywhere without doing something,
[speaker006:] I
[speaker002:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker008:] right? So.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] We may end up having to do that.
[speaker006:] Well it's [disfmarker] just as an example, I I've done some very simple digits recognitions where, uh, I said if I had known we were having this meeting I would have done this before, uh. Having people read digit strings
[speaker007:] That was Morgan.
[speaker006:] cuz digits are much easier.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] Um.
[speaker005:] Oh, that's really interesting.
[speaker006:] And just combining [disfmarker] just doing multis
[speaker005:] We're starting off with digit stuff too [vocalsound] for [disfmarker] for [disfmarker] for our different [disfmarker] for [disfmarker] for this, um, endpointing stuff.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] Yeah, of course. Yeah.
[speaker008:] Uh huh.
[speaker006:] But, uh, just mixing the [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] just doing multi stream on the different mikes helped enormously. And I was a little surprised.
[speaker004:] Hmm, hmm.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker006:] Yeah, so you [disfmarker] so you [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Why [disfmarker] why is that?
[speaker002:] So you're having [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Wh why?
[speaker007:] Why?
[speaker006:] I have no idea. Because they're a little different.
[speaker002:] Sorry. When you say multi multi stream, you mean
[speaker008:] Hang on. You mean, you ne
[speaker007:] The microphones are different?
[speaker008:] You mean, uh, bu to [disfmarker] combining the [disfmarker] the posteriors on full band recognition like from [disfmarker] from three different or four different mikes.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Right.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker008:] Cool.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker007:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] And that actually helped.
[speaker002:] That's interesting.
[speaker006:] That gave several percent improvement.
[speaker002:] Right, yeah.
[speaker006:] Absolute. So that, uh, I think just [disfmarker] just having stereo will help cuz they're a little different.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] You get a little [disfmarker] slightly different estimators
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] and, uh, uh, you combine them together, and you do a little better.
[speaker001:] So basically if you plan on really training [disfmarker] collecting a database uh for [disfmarker] database for training, I mean, you are talking about, you know, twenty thousand or forty thousand sentences. Things like that.
[speaker006:] Right, so that the [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] It's something like tens of hours [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker008:] tens of hours of data, I think.
[speaker006:] M
[speaker001:] Tens of hours.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] So our initial plan for ICSI was to do forty hours.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] OK.
[speaker006:] And then U W is talking about doing an additional sixty to a hundred hours if they have the money.
[speaker001:] Uh huh.
[speaker007:] That [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] If they can actually do it.
[speaker007:] Yeah,
[speaker008:] Really?
[speaker007:] that's pretty [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] I mean, that's what they had said before
[speaker007:] That's [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] but I guess that was more ambitious.
[speaker005:] We were thinking something like, you know, ten hours to begin [vocalsound] with.
[speaker007:] They were gonna [disfmarker] There was a difference in the amount of money awarded from the beginning to e
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] It's about [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Uh huh.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker004:] Well, the other thing too is, I mean, i if [disfmarker] if you have the equipment then, i i it could be different.
[speaker007:] Um.
[speaker001:] But I mean, i i
[speaker006:] Yeah, recording it's easy.
[speaker004:] Then the recording is easy and maybe [disfmarker] maybe they [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Yeah, recording is [disfmarker] Right.
[speaker006:] It's transcription that's a pain.
[speaker002:] It's transcription and processing, yeah.
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker] so [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Oh, the [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker005:] Right.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] That's actually, that's the other thing. We weren't [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Hmm?
[speaker006:] OK, but you have to put on a [disfmarker] You have to put on a mike.
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker] so, clear
[speaker008:] I think we've run it [disfmarker] well, uh.
[speaker006:] Oh. We're out of mikes.
[speaker004:] I'd give you my mike.
[speaker008:] Not quite but [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] You can have my mike.
[speaker008:] Yeah, yeah. It's not [disfmarker] we [disfmarker] we [disfmarker] it's a [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] It's not a speaker phone is it?
[speaker006:] Don't [disfmarker] don't switch mikes. Don't switch mikes.
[speaker004:] Oh, I'm not allowed to.
[speaker006:] That's way too confusing.
[speaker008:] We [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] OK. Alrighty.
[speaker008:] we need to, uh.
[speaker001:] So, I mean, clearly i if everybody's collecting data to train on, m maybe we should do something [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Uh. One thing I should point out, we were n we were not planning on tra doing transcription of the full thing right away, u cuz that's not [disfmarker] I mean, I was initially interested in just the speech that was directed at the computer.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] And so we were not planning on doing the [disfmarker] transcribing the entire thing.
[speaker008:] Right. OK.
[speaker005:] But I mean, that's something to talk about.
[speaker006:] But if you had the data and we had [disfmarker] a [disfmarker] a company.
[speaker007:] But perhaps the company [disfmarker] a company that might, uh.
[speaker005:] If you wanted [disfmarker] if you wanted to transcribe, [vocalsound] you have the yes, [@ @] you'll be fine.
[speaker006:] I didn't know whether I should name the company that may be providing us transcription or not.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] There [disfmarker] No.
[speaker001:] If you doubt, don't do it.
[speaker008:] Cuz we're very naturalistic here.
[speaker007:] Yeah. But it, um, [vocalsound] and there will be a lot of people to people talk in those meetings I bet with even three people,
[speaker001:] So [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] So what is the company?
[speaker007:] so.
[speaker005:] I heard a "sh".
[speaker006:] IBM.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] So we've been [disfmarker] we've been trying [disfmarker] we've been trying to work with them for a while on these projects
[speaker002:] I guessed it from the clue,
[speaker001:] Ah!
[speaker002:] yeah.
[speaker005:] Ah! OK.
[speaker006:] and they don't [disfmarker] it's hard for them to give us money but they [disfmarker] they seem to be willing to give us time.
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] And so one of the po potentials is for them to do transcription in exchange for access to the corpus.
[speaker001:] Yeah. So basically it seems to be like, uh, I mean, if everybody w e u was in the universities collecting data, we are, you are, I mean, sharing the data and making a bigger corpus is going to be, you know, a benefit for everybody.
[speaker006:] It would be great.
[speaker002:] Mmm, mmm.
[speaker007:] Oh, yeah.
[speaker006:] Yeah. Yes, absolutely.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] I think that would be excellent.
[speaker007:] And, uh, it will really help the design too.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] It'll m keep it from being too specific to somebody's set up or task.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] Should we [disfmarker] should we interpret what he says?
[speaker001:] Morgan said yes.
[speaker007:] Oh, do we [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] That's right.
[speaker004:] Morgan says [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Morgan says thumbs up.
[speaker004:] There we go.
[speaker007:] Right, right.
[speaker008:] Um, bu but how much [disfmarker] how valuable [disfmarker] Given that you're interested in this computer directed data and we're not gonna have any of that?
[speaker005:] Well, that's me personally. Our group in general as Horacio was saying is also interested in some of the same general issues.
[speaker008:] Yeah. I see. Yeah.
[speaker006:] Well, and I think that [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] Um,
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] and I'm also interested in prosody, um, use [disfmarker] you know, u used over person to person stuff like segment and helping for segmentation and stuff.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker007:] Yeah, so we have some ideas there but not enough data to train.
[speaker006:] So al Right.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] So [disfmarker] Harry, and Kemal and I probably [disfmarker] So actually having different kinds of conversations is really helpful too
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] because [disfmarker] to g to make these models robust. You don't wanna train on just a few people's voices cuz then you'll just learn the [disfmarker] their prosodic patterns.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] That's not what we want.
[speaker005:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] So [disfmarker] so how are you gonna get dra ground truth on that? So [disfmarker] so we should [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] That is from the transcription and from the speaker s segmentation. That's not hard.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] I think the hard part is getting enough training data and
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] nor you also need normalization data. So you're sort of iteratively normalizing as you go through the [disfmarker] So.
[speaker006:] But anyway, what I was gonna say is that although we're not gonna have speech directed to a computer, my expectation is that the acoustic models will be very similar. The language models probably won't be.
[speaker005:] N the language models c Yeah.
[speaker007:] Actually the acoustic may not be either. So, it's [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Really?
[speaker006:] Yeah, I [disfmarker] if it's Wizard of Oz I think it will be.
[speaker005:] Oh, sure.
[speaker006:] If they know that [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] Yeah, if it's very good,
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] that's true.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] If it makes mistakes it'll be different though
[speaker005:] Yeah. On the language model [pause] we're [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] I think it [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] Hmm, [vocalsound] right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] The language model will be [disfmarker] certainly be different
[speaker005:] uh we're [disfmarker] we're gonna be using the same thing that we've done in the past
[speaker006:] but [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] which is, you know, we need a natural language grammar written anyway. It's written in unification grammar framework.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] um, but with context free grammar, power, and so it's just changed directly into something the recognizer recognizes off of directly with [disfmarker] with no, um,
[speaker006:] And you're gonna hand [disfmarker] c hand code that?
[speaker005:] It's [disfmarker] it's [disfmarker] it's hand coded. Because we need [disfmarker] we need to write the natural language grammar anyway to understand. So it's [disfmarker] it's a small, you know, ATIS sized type task.
[speaker006:] Oh, I [disfmarker] I uh sure, sure, sure, sure. I see.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker005:] So, yeah, that's [disfmarker] that's the way we've been approaching it.
[speaker006:] Right, if you wanna interpret it you uh need to do [disfmarker] do that anyway.
[speaker005:] Eh if we [disfmarker] if we're ge yeah, we [disfmarker] you know, if we're gonna be able to interpret it then [disfmarker] I mean, if we're not gonna be able to interpret that then it's not gonna do us much good anyway to recognize it. So we might as well go directly from the natural language grammar.
[speaker004:] Is it [disfmarker] is it gonna be like an HPSG kind of grammar?
[speaker005:] It is a unification base, it's not [disfmarker] it's not as [disfmarker] as theoretically bound as HPSG in particular, although the couple of people that we have working on it have HPSG backgrounds.
[speaker004:] I see.
[speaker006:] So what's your time frame look like for [disfmarker] doing meetings, actually starting to record some?
[speaker001:] I guess
[speaker005:] It's all up to when I have free time.
[speaker001:] Yeah. I mean, except [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Anybody else want to work on this by the way, Horacio?
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] Well [disfmarker] well, indeed. I mean, most people, you know, after this evaluation and conference [@ @] [comment] should be working on these type of things. At least,
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] Uh huh.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] you know
[speaker005:] Well I know they're all working on mediated spaces but there's a lotta aspects o e to that [disfmarker] to that project.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, but [disfmarker] but eventually [disfmarker] I mean, will be people working on uh kind of recognition aspects and, uh, you know, and [disfmarker] and [disfmarker] and in core technology. So I mean, recognition technology and also core, you know, algorithms, et cetera. And for those people to have these data will be, you know, the best way to, you know, develop the systems to an [@ @].
[speaker005:] Right.
[speaker006:] Mm hmm. Well the [disfmarker] the reason I'm asking is that it's certainly better to get in early with standards, and data formats, and conventions.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah,
[speaker005:] Yes.
[speaker007:] definitely.
[speaker005:] Yes.
[speaker001:] So probably, uh, on the [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Um.
[speaker005:] Well, so we haven't even [disfmarker] you know, we haven't collected a byte yet
[speaker007:] Right. That's actually why I called this meeting,
[speaker005:] so.
[speaker007:] cuz i I mean, you're both working on it and with, you know, different sampling rates, and these silly things like that.
[speaker006:] Well, yeah, it's a [disfmarker] it's ex excellent, excellent.
[speaker002:] Mmm, mmm.
[speaker005:] Right. Yeah.
[speaker006:] Yeah, that's right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] I mean, just [disfmarker] just [disfmarker] just agreeing on a sampling rate and a number of bits, and, uh, header formats and all that.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] So [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] And we have the same sampling rate.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Sampling rate in the end.
[speaker007:] What?
[speaker005:] One [disfmarker] one thing we do know is that we're [disfmarker] we're all producing NIST Sphere files in [disfmarker] in, uh, eh in the standard format.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Oh, OK. NIST headers.
[speaker006:] Sixteen bit, sixteen kilohertz?
[speaker005:] Sixteen bit, sixteen kilohertz.
[speaker002:] Bits, sixteen K,
[speaker007:] OK, s
[speaker006:] Eh, good good.
[speaker005:] So at the end we're all [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] yeah.
[speaker005:] And the amazing thing is that even [disfmarker] even, you know, the entire way through we're actually using some very, very similar stuff.
[speaker006:] Big endian, little endian?
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] OK. Well I just made that up
[speaker005:] And so tha
[speaker007:] but,
[speaker005:] yeah.
[speaker007:] um.
[speaker006:] Well, but that's [disfmarker] that was coincidence, right?
[speaker005:] So,
[speaker007:] But that [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Yeah, it's coincidence that it's very fortunate cuz [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Yes,
[speaker007:] yeah, yeah.
[speaker002:] that's right, not, but [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] But you have different na you [disfmarker] we're gonna have different, you know, hardware and [disfmarker] and [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] We actually have, yeah, quite similar hardware as it turns out.
[speaker002:] It's similar but not quite the same.
[speaker007:] OK,
[speaker008:] But it [disfmarker] but it [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] so [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] Which is ver it's [disfmarker] it's very good,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] yeah.
[speaker007:] so.
[speaker005:] Um, so we're actually [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] So the bit we're a bit deficient in as we [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So I [disfmarker] I think probably the biggest thing would [disfmarker] Well, no that [disfmarker] that wouldn't be true. If you're not gonna transcribe it yourself, then you're not gonna care too much about our transcription conventions.
[speaker007:] Actually that's [disfmarker] the transcription conventions [disfmarker] I was talking about this with Jane [disfmarker] it's really important to people at least like me who wanna know, um, certain [@ @] [comment] uh, who are looking at aspects that are sort of [disfmarker] they're not words but they're structural things you're trying to recognize.
[speaker005:] Well [disfmarker] Uh [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Right of it. Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] And also I guess for the speaker. People interested in the speaker separation because what you call a turn and the end of a turn, and that [disfmarker] it [disfmarker] it's horribly confused if you don't sort of [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] It's inherently hard. And so you have to make some simplifications and different people make different simplifications,
[speaker006:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] and then you can't compare them at all, which is what the literature is sort of like now. So, um, and then there's the issue of recognizer dictionaries, and non standard forms, and things like that that have to be mapped.
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] So "gonna" versus "going to" and that kind of thing.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker005:] I mean, all those issues yeah I'm sure we [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] I mean, [@ @] like I say. I'm [disfmarker] I'm personally not interested in those for my particular aspect of the project
[speaker007:] They're not hard but [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] but SRI in general is [disfmarker] is the [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] but we definitely will be interested in some language and dialogue.
[speaker005:] Yeah. And s I don't know, maybe we will end up transcribing stu
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] if Hor if Horacio wants, you know, wants that done, maybe that'll be [disfmarker] maybe we'll end up doing that.
[speaker007:] So.
[speaker006:] Well [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] And UW is also probably gonna be interested in that too, the dialogue kinds of things. So, i
[speaker006:] Well, so it's a [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] you know.
[speaker006:] so it seems like, um, if you and Jane [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Is [disfmarker] is Morgan nodding his head?
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker006:] So if you and Jane keep [disfmarker] keep in touch about transcription conventions, that would be very helpful.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah, that's originally [disfmarker] We should thank Jane
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker007:] because that's how I originally [disfmarker] she showed me some transcripts and I thought, Wow,
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] I mean, it's kind of amazing too that, you know, the transcription tool we just converged on the same [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] this is great ".
[speaker006:] Yep.
[speaker007:] Oh, yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah, yeah, to study using the same thing.
[speaker005:] All these things were very, very similar.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] You were also thinking about the same tool?
[speaker008:] That's interesting.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] It's [disfmarker] We [disfmarker] we [disfmarker] we were gonna use the same tool.
[speaker001:] Wow!
[speaker007:] But what if you had like written the s the Tcl kluge or something, [vocalsound] and then both done the same [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] We [disfmarker] we set up that tool already, yeah.
[speaker001:] Already!
[speaker005:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Hmm. That's right.
[speaker008:] Well, the [disfmarker] I mean, and in some ways that does change the, uh, the economics of doing that.
[speaker001:] I mean, it's [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Can you do that?
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker008:] But, um.
[speaker002:] Hmm!
[speaker006:] It's much more worth while to do if someone else is gonna use it.
[speaker002:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] Yeah,
[speaker006:] Although again if this now named company is the one who's gonna do the transcription, I sus I suspect they have in house tools that they'll end up using.
[speaker005:] that's right.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm, mm hmm. But we still [disfmarker] yeah.
[speaker005:] Uh huh.
[speaker007:] But you still need something that can display these channels.
[speaker008:] That's interesting. Right, we need [disfmarker] we need some kind of browsing.
[speaker007:] e e better than what it can do, I mean.
[speaker008:] Yeah. It's [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] And then I guess who is the contact at UW? Like Morgan? Morgan doesn't have a microphone but is it [disfmarker] is it [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] That's alright.
[speaker008:] He's allowed to speak,
[speaker006:] He can talk anyway.
[speaker008:] he ca
[speaker007:] I mean Mari and [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Well, he could be reached [disfmarker] he could be reached by the far field,
[speaker008:] yeah.
[speaker004:] couldn't he?
[speaker007:] Mari or [disfmarker] or [disfmarker] or Katrin, or Jeff, or [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Yeah. I mean, both [disfmarker] I think both Jeff and Katrin have some time on this. No, on the p on the DARPA project, who would be sort of contacts for [disfmarker] Mari. And if Mari's too busy then [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] OK,
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] yeah.
[speaker008:] Hmm, [@ @].
[speaker006:] I was.
[speaker001:] Uh huh.
[speaker005:] I don't think we have any problem. I mean, we had certainly in our [disfmarker] you know, the proposal that we tried to make to NSF, we were assuming we would distribute this through the LDC.
[speaker001:] No, yeah. Yeah, I [disfmarker] I mean, this [disfmarker] this is something that re re requires a bootstrap.
[speaker006:] LDC is what we were thinking too.
[speaker005:] Yeah,
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] so we have no problem with that.
[speaker001:] I mean, there is no LDC database.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] There is, at least we have to share the data, I mean.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker001:] That's the bottom line,
[speaker007:] I [disfmarker] I mean, I think eventually LDC could be very interested in it,
[speaker001:] uh.
[speaker007:] especially if you have a tool that can do this.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Yeah.
[speaker007:] I mean, there isn't one.
[speaker006:] Hmm.
[speaker007:] And [disfmarker] and the data. So maybe it'll [disfmarker] we can actually [disfmarker]
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] You can sell corpora eventually to the LDC and you can get time, student time, to clean up the corpus and things.
[speaker008:] Hmm.
[speaker007:] So. Yeah. Mm hmm.
[speaker001:] Yep.
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker004:] I wanted to ask one question about the [disfmarker] the nature of the design.
[speaker005:] It's terrific.
[speaker004:] Th Given that the overlaps are up [disfmarker] up uh, where the difficulty comes, in a bunch of a areas, um, whether it would be useful to have some of the sessions have like an additional rule where if a person, you know, the [disfmarker] that there's someone who recognizes people to speak or something like that to cut down on the [disfmarker] so you [disfmarker] then you have the meeting context, you have multiple channels, you have the microphones n varying the way you want them to vary, but you'd cut down substantially on the overlaps. It wouldn't be f for all meetings but whether maybe just sprinkled through there once in a while, something like that might be useful or not. Just wanted to raise that. I don't know.
[speaker008:] I mean, it's difficult because you want it to be real speech, right? And also it's not clear how well people can even adjust to even adjust to that kind of rule.
[speaker004:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] Yeah. I mean, s it [disfmarker] tho those [disfmarker] those kinds of things are sorta the kind of things that we were thinking of [disfmarker] of trying,
[speaker008:] But if there [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Robert's rules.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] cuz we are having [disfmarker] we do have a more artificial set environment again.
[speaker004:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] We're trying something totally new having people speak to the computer. I don't think we talked about that in particular cuz we didn't [disfmarker] we haven't done any pilots, we haven't seen this, [vocalsound] incredibly difficult data of overlapping. But this is uh, Christine Helverson, who's working on this with me from the s um, aspect of user, you know, usability and stuff, would, y you know [disfmarker] sh she's interested in these sorts of things. What [disfmarker] what can you ask people to do that, um, that they can reliably do and without too much, you know, cognitive load, um, that can help things out, or, you know, those sorts of issues. So, I don't know. Maybe it's something that could fit easier in [disfmarker] in our context than in a general meeting context. I don't know.
[speaker004:] Well, what I can say is that wha sometimes, you know, if [disfmarker] if [disfmarker] if we were to have this kind of coordination thing, some [disfmarker] some of the overlap is due to someone wanting to claim the floor at a certain point
[speaker006:] Well I think that [disfmarker] Mm hmm.
[speaker004:] without knowing that other people have the same desire at the same point in time. And if [disfmarker] and if you were to have someone who was like a moderator, then you raise your hand, the moderator would say, you first,
[speaker005:] Just have a button.
[speaker004:] you know, or yeah, press the button.
[speaker005:] And ring the buzzer.
[speaker004:] And [disfmarker] and I think, you know, there are always gonna be backchannels, I think that's natural and lovely.
[speaker005:] Mm mmm.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker004:] But these [disfmarker] these overlaps that are due to people n not knowing other people wanna leap in at the same time and [disfmarker] and wanting to coordinate [disfmarker] you know, I think that, uh, it could be lessened.
[speaker006:] Hmm.
[speaker005:] I don't know.
[speaker004:] Not eliminated entirely.
[speaker006:] There are certainly f formal meeting settings where that's what's happens, y that you know, Robert's rules of order and all that.
[speaker004:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker006:] Uh, so that's not something we had thought about before but I think it [disfmarker] it [disfmarker] it certainly is another type of meeting that could be done.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker004:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] Uh, no, I didn't. I didn't know we were gonna be recording this meeting,
[speaker008:] We [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] so I didn't.
[speaker008:] no [disfmarker] Yeah, in general
[speaker006:] Yes, in the other meetings we have.
[speaker008:] yeah. Yeah.
[speaker004:] And they've been collecting digits too. OK.
[speaker006:] So that's another thing we should talk about, is making sure that we're doing it in the same way.
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] We [disfmarker] [vocalsound] For a [disfmarker] t for a completely different reason I assume
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker005:] but [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So I [disfmarker] I [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] And [disfmarker] and not within a [disfmarker] not within a big room. Just, uh. Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker004:] That's a good idea.
[speaker006:] Yeah, if I had known and here we have all these new speakers, I could have gotten lots of digits in
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] but [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] But sorry, so you connect [disfmarker] you collect digits in conversation or [disfmarker] or individ
[speaker006:] No, no, I have people read them.
[speaker008:] Yeah, yeah. We [disfmarker] we give people a list of digits and they have to like put them into their discussion,
[speaker007:] Uh.
[speaker008:] like say, "Five, one, seven, seven, three."
[speaker006:] Seven.
[speaker003:] You you're encouraged to, you know, just utter digits once in a while.
[speaker007:] I was thinking [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker007:] Never mind,
[speaker001:] You say, hey,
[speaker007:] I'm getting attacked.
[speaker001:] by the way, eight! "
[speaker005:] Uh huh.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] So you don't need the meeting for that. You can just sit me in this room and set up all the microphones.
[speaker005:] But you need the room and the set up.
[speaker007:] Right, OK. Right, right.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker005:] Yeah, we're doing digits [disfmarker]
[speaker007:] OK.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker005:] yeah, we're not doing digits in the [disfmarker] in the room set up at all. We're doing it for a complete I mean, one of the specific things I'm interested in is knowing [disfmarker] um, is the open mike issue. When you're talking to the computer, knowing when you're done speaking. And so I'm loo interested in [disfmarker] in [disfmarker] well, in interested in looking at prosody. Um,
[speaker006:] Oh, cool.
[speaker005:] and so we're just having [disfmarker] we're just doing lists of digits to see when people pause to know, you know, "there was a big gap in time here but, they" [disfmarker] you know, we can tell prosodically they weren't done, so. Yeah.
[speaker007:] I [disfmarker] I think that's a really good idea.
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker008:] But [disfmarker] but there is [disfmarker] but there is also this fascinating prosodic thing that goes on
[speaker007:] To always [disfmarker] yeah.
[speaker008:] because you [disfmarker] what we [disfmarker] we have is like these lists of ten digit strings or twenty digit strings and they're like one [disfmarker] one to five or one to seven digits. And people read through them. And you know, we're saying, well we won't to be able to separate them so please pause between but it's very [disfmarker] people don't like doing that. And so there is this prosodic thing which is [disfmarker] which is indicating when [disfmarker] whe the pauses between these digit strings. And then when they finish, the actual [disfmarker] the whole sheet, there's this nice, wonderful [disfmarker] yeah, phrase [@ @].
[speaker002:] Mmm, mmm.
[speaker007:] Oh, yeah.
[speaker005:] Yeah,
[speaker006:] Nice falling,
[speaker007:] Oh, yeah,
[speaker002:] Declination, yeah.
[speaker005:] right.
[speaker007:] d
[speaker006:] yeah.
[speaker007:] If [disfmarker] you definitely shouldn't use your last sample.
[speaker005:] Right.
[speaker008:] And it [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] So.
[speaker007:] I mean, people that do prosody work, they add a few at the end
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker006:] Oh, I hadn't thought about that.
[speaker007:] because otherwise people will [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] Oh right.
[speaker006:] I hadn't even thought about throwing out the last couple.
[speaker007:] Yeah. Yeah. No, but that [disfmarker] that is beautiful
[speaker006:] Definitely should.
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker007:] because then you can get this F zero floor for each of the speakers.
[speaker008:] Mm hmm.
[speaker005:] Oh, right, just look at the very last [disfmarker] [vocalsound] look at the very end.
[speaker007:] Just from that.
[speaker002:] Right,
[speaker003:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] yeah, yeah, yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker006:] Don't throw it away but don't use it in your training.
[speaker007:] Your [disfmarker] your junk is our, uh, [vocalsound] training data.
[speaker008:] Treat especially [disfmarker]
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Cool.
[speaker007:] No, that's a really good idea to have some standard [disfmarker] I mean, especially if a the different sites can do something like that. You'll at least be able to see whether difficulty across site is due to, you know, the lexicon version,
[speaker006:] And [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] Right, right.
[speaker007:] uh.
[speaker008:] There'll be a common [disfmarker] That'd be great.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] Yeah, that's a good idea.
[speaker005:] Funny.
[speaker006:] Hmm.
[speaker004:] That's a good idea.
[speaker007:] Oh.
[speaker002:] That's the reason,
[speaker007:] You should definitely [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] Mm hmm.
[speaker002:] uh huh.
[speaker007:] it's some kind of calibration, uh, for uh many of these tests.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] The only thing I don't like about it is that it's not phonetically very rich,
[speaker008:] Right.
[speaker007:] Well, you could have TI [disfmarker] you know, "she put her dirty laundry in the clean [disfmarker] [vocalsound] clean bathwater", whatever.
[speaker006:] but. Yeah, that's right, TIMIT. So we actually talked about that. Yeah, it's plenty bad. It's plenty bad just with digits,
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker007:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] although I haven't trained any nets on it. I've just been using existing digits or Broadcast News nets since we don't have enough data yet.
[speaker005:] And what are these [disfmarker] what are the digit strings [disfmarker] are from TI digits and, [vocalsound] uh [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] One, seven, eight, two, three, one, three, seven, eight, four.
[speaker005:] Uh [disfmarker]
[speaker008:] Yeah, it's TI digit strings.
[speaker005:] I don't [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] M that sorta thing.
[speaker005:] Uh [disfmarker]
[speaker004:] That's right, this [disfmarker] we could each make up a string.
[speaker006:] Yeah.
[speaker008:] It's actually [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] How [disfmarker] how long are [disfmarker] how long chunks are they,
[speaker006:] But what were they?
[speaker005:] a
[speaker008:] it's like [disfmarker] but [disfmarker] from one to [disfmarker] one to nine digits.
[speaker006:] They vary from [disfmarker]
[speaker003:] One two three four.
[speaker008:] It is actually the [disfmarker] the actual digit strings from TI digits.
[speaker005:] OK,
[speaker006:] I [disfmarker] I just extracted exactly the same ones,
[speaker005:] yeah, I've never looked over the TI digits corpus,
[speaker008:] OK.
[speaker007:] Have we all memorized these?
[speaker002:] Up a bit.
[speaker005:] I don't know.
[speaker006:] so.
[speaker007:] Maybe we know them.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] That's like the TIMIT sentences.
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker008:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Greasy wash water,
[speaker004:] I know the numbers that were used
[speaker006:] oh.
[speaker002:] In one ear.
[speaker004:] but I don't remember the combinations.
[speaker008:] The order, yeah.
[speaker002:] Just the order, OK?
[speaker006:] But, so I have a bunch of tools for generating these and for helping transcribe them. Since you know what [disfmarker] you know what the transcript is you don't have to type it in, you just have to segment it.
[speaker005:] Mm hmm.
[speaker006:] So I have tools for doing that. Using X X Waves, Tcl TK, Perl, and maybe some C programs too.
[speaker004:] We could do some digits.
[speaker006:] Well I [disfmarker] I don't have any of the print outs.
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker006:] I [disfmarker] I print them out a a as I need them. So what I should do is just print out a whole stack and leave them up here but I haven't done that.
[speaker008:] Put them on the Internet, put them on a web page.
[speaker004:] That's what I was wondering.
[speaker007:] Eh yeah, you could write [disfmarker] write them [disfmarker] write something on the board
[speaker006:] Well, but i
[speaker004:] Ha wha I mean, we could just make [disfmarker] make numbers up,
[speaker007:] and, I don't know.
[speaker006:] It's [disfmarker] it's a different task.
[speaker004:] can't we?
[speaker007:] Yeah,
[speaker006:] It's a different task than read.
[speaker007:] yeah.
[speaker006:] You [disfmarker] you do it differently if it's sitting in front of you and you're reading it than if it's not.
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker006:] So,
[speaker007:] Right.
[speaker006:] I guess we could write them down and then read them, but.
[speaker002:] Mm hmm.
[speaker004:] OK.
[speaker006:] I [disfmarker] I [disfmarker] we can get digits.
[speaker008:] I [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] I mean, a as you said, we don't have to be in a meeting. And so if we're short on digits I can just, you know, capture people in the hallway, drag them in here, and have them read digits for me. That's right.
[speaker004:] Oh, can you bring them up from the [disfmarker] no, OK. Alright. I wanted to ask about also the air conditioning. Are [disfmarker] uh, is there a plan to [disfmarker] to turn the air conditioning off in some of these meetings or is it always gonna be on?
[speaker007:] Yeah, it's way too cold in here.
[speaker008:] We should do that cuz y you can turn it off on that [disfmarker] that thing right there
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker006:] Well,
[speaker008:] and it makes a huge difference.
[speaker002:] You also gain noise from the projector as well, isn't it?
[speaker006:] the [disfmarker] the hum we hear right now is actually the projector,
[speaker002:] Yeah, yeah.
[speaker007:] A all right.
[speaker008:] But the projector,
[speaker006:] not the air conditioner.
[speaker008:] yeah.
[speaker005:] Huh.
[speaker006:] The projector is much louder than the air conditioning.
[speaker008:] This is the first time we've done it with a projector.
[speaker004:] Yeah, but I was just thinking, he was showing it [disfmarker] on what he showed us on the web site, you could see the contribution of the air conditioning.
[speaker006:] Yep.
[speaker004:] And I just wondered if that was gonna be sometimes clear.
[speaker005:] But the projector's not part of your meeting or [disfmarker] or [disfmarker] or is it? Do [disfmarker] is this normally gonna be on during collection?
[speaker006:] Um, no, not normally, not for our meetings. I [disfmarker] at least very few of the ones we've done have we had to do anything on the computer.
[speaker002:] No? It [disfmarker]
[speaker005:] For ours it will but we have a rear projector, so it's in a separate room.
[speaker002:] Mmm.
[speaker006:] Right.
[speaker002:] It actually gives you a way of calibrating microphone position in a way. Doesn't it?
[speaker006:] That's right, from volume.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] That's interesting.
[speaker002:] For volume, it's a point source pretty much,
[speaker007:] Mmm.
[speaker002:] yeah.
[speaker004:] Hmm, hmm.
[speaker002:] So.
[speaker006:] Although unfortunately, you know, they're all pretty close,
[speaker002:] Hmm.
[speaker006:] right?
[speaker002:] t Uh [disfmarker]
[speaker006:] Oh, look! Digit strings.
[speaker004:] Oh wow, there you go.
[speaker001:] Mm hmm!
[speaker007:] Modern technology.
[speaker001:] Oh, I see.
[speaker004:] Perfect.
[speaker007:] See, you may wanna call up your computer. "Computer, give us digit strings."
[speaker002:] Digit strings,
[speaker006:] That's right.
[speaker002:] yeah.
[speaker008:] Wow, but the c but the recorder just crashed.
[speaker004:] I think I recognize those.
[speaker006:] Oh no!