Identifying Speaker from Disguised Speech Using Aural Perception and Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient

Abstract

Objective: The present study intended to compare the accuracy of speaker identification using aural perception and semiautomatic method (Mel –Frequency Cepstral Coefficient; MFCC), when the speech is in disguise condition by using the handkerchief during recording and to check the percentage of correct identification in the semiautomatic method when the vowel and consonant segments were used for analysis. Methods: Thirty speaker's single sentence speech sample was recorded in undisguised and disguised conditions were randomly paired into the sets of one undisguised followed by five disguised samples for the task of speaker identification. In aural perceptual method the five judges listened to the samples and made a decision on the match. In MFCC method, from /ðə/ segment, ten coefficient values were extracted. The coefficient values were manually averaged and the pair that obtained the lowest value of Euclidean distance was determined to be the sample of the same speaker. The Kappa agreement was used to find the agreement between the two methods in speaker identification and the percentage of correct identification was calculated for the vowel and consonant segment analysis. Results: The results revealed the kappa value to be negative (k < 0) indicating no agreement between the two methods. The percentage of correct identification using aural perception ranged from 56.7% - 80% and for MFCC under whole word, consonant segment and vowel segment analysis were 46.7%, 26.7% and 53.33% respectively. Conclusion: The aural perception method had a greater percentage of correct identification than MFCC though it was not statistically significant for speaker identification from disguised speech.