Papers by Frédéric Voisin
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2016
Combining gestures and vocalizations to imitate sounds
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2015
Communicating about sounds is a difficult task without a technical language, and naive speakers o... more Communicating about sounds is a difficult task without a technical language, and naive speakers often rely on different kinds of non-linguistic vocalizations and body gestures (Lemaitre et al. 2014). Previous work has independently studied how effectively people describe sounds with gestures or vocalizations (Caramiaux, 2014, Lemaitre and Rocchesso, 2014). However, speech communication studies suggest a more intimate link between the two processes (Kendon, 2004). Our study thus focused on the combination of manual gestures and non-speech vocalizations in the communication of sounds. We first collected a large database of vocal and gestural imitations of a variety of sounds (audio, video, and motion sensor data). Qualitative analysis of gestural strategies resulted in three hypotheses: (1) voice is more effective than gesture for communicating rhythmic information, (2) textural aspects are communicated with shaky gestures, and (3) concurrent streams of sound events can be split between gestures and voice. ...
Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, 1996
Musical Scales in Central Africa and Java: Modeling by Synthesis
Leonardo Music Journal, 1994
ABSTRACT
On Analyticalvs. Schizophrenic Procedures for Computing Music
Contemporary Music Review, 2009
ABSTRACT
Special Issue: Aesthetic Decisions in Computer-Aided Composition About the Authors
Contemporary Music Review, 2009
Nous présentons une méthode originale d'analyse de formes symboliques fondée d'une part sur une m... more Nous présentons une méthode originale d'analyse de formes symboliques fondée d'une part sur une mesure de dissemblance et, d'autre part, sur la théorie des graphes. En partie déjà éprouvée, elle permet d'étudier des ensembles composés de symboles arbitraires, de constituer et d'explorer des « espaces compositionnels ». Aussi, une première méthode de partitionnement de tels espaces est proposée, illustrée et discutée à travers un exemple de transcription automatique de sonagrammes. Ces méthodes sont développées avec la collection d'outils fv-morphologie pour OpenMusic et PWGL.
PLOS ONE, 2016
Imitative behaviors are widespread in humans, in particular whenever two persons communicate and ... more Imitative behaviors are widespread in humans, in particular whenever two persons communicate and interact. Several tokens of spoken languages (onomatopoeias, ideophones, and phonesthemes) also display different degrees of iconicity between the sound of a word and what it refers to. Thus, it probably comes at no surprise that human speakers use a lot of imitative vocalizations and gestures when they communicate about sounds, as sounds are notably difficult to describe. What is more surprising is that vocal imitations of non-vocal everyday sounds (e.g. the sound of a car passing by) are in practice very effective: listeners identify sounds better with vocal imitations than with verbal descriptions, despite the fact that vocal imitations are inaccurate reproductions of a sound created by a particular mechanical system (e.g. a car driving by) through a different system (the voice apparatus). The present study investigated the semantic representations evoked by vocal imitations of sounds by experimentally quantifying how well listeners could match sounds to category labels. The experiment used three different types of sounds: recordings of easily identifiable sounds (sounds of human actions and manufactured products), human vocal imitations, and computational "auditory sketches" (created by algorithmic computations). The results show that performance with the best vocal imitations was similar to the best auditory sketches for most categories of sounds, and even to the referent sounds themselves in some cases. More detailed analyses showed that the acoustic distance between a vocal imitation and a referent sound is not sufficient to account for such performance. Analyses suggested that instead of trying to reproduce the referent sound as accurately as vocally possible, vocal imitations focus on a few important features, which depend on each particular sound category. These results offer perspectives for understanding how human listeners store and access long-term sound representations, and sets the stage for the development of human-computer interfaces based on vocalizations.
PLOS ONE, 2016
Imitative behaviors are widespread in humans, in particular whenever two persons communicate and ... more Imitative behaviors are widespread in humans, in particular whenever two persons communicate and interact. Several tokens of spoken languages (onomatopoeias, ideophones, and phonesthemes) also display different degrees of iconicity between the sound of a word and what it refers to. Thus, it probably comes at no surprise that human speakers use a lot of imitative vocalizations and gestures when they communicate about sounds, as sounds are notably difficult to describe. What is more surprising is that vocal imitations of non-vocal everyday sounds (e.g. the sound of a car passing by) are in practice very effective: listeners identify sounds better with vocal imitations than with verbal descriptions, despite the fact that vocal imitations are inaccurate reproductions of a sound created by a particular mechanical system (e.g. a car driving by) through a different system (the voice apparatus). The present study investigated the semantic representations evoked by vocal imitations of sounds by experimentally quantifying how well listeners could match sounds to category labels. The experiment used three different types of sounds: recordings of easily identifiable sounds (sounds of human actions and manufactured products), human vocal imitations, and computational "auditory sketches" (created by algorithmic computations). The results show that performance with the best vocal imitations was similar to the best auditory sketches for most categories of sounds, and even to the referent sounds themselves in some cases. More detailed analyses showed that the acoustic distance between a vocal imitation and a referent sound is not sufficient to account for such performance. Analyses suggested that instead of trying to reproduce the referent sound as accurately as vocally possible, vocal imitations focus on a few important features, which depend on each particular sound category. These results offer perspectives for understanding how human listeners store and access long-term sound representations, and sets the stage for the development of human-computer interfaces based on vocalizations.
An interactive experimental method for the determination of musical scales in oral cultures
Contemporary Music Review, 1993
ABSTRACT The contrapuntal vocal polyphony of the Aka Pygmies is based on a pentatonic scale but t... more ABSTRACT The contrapuntal vocal polyphony of the Aka Pygmies is based on a pentatonic scale but the nature of this scale is difficult to determine by ear. To overcome this problem and to circumvent difficulties of articulating such abstract concepts as musical scales which, for the Aka, are not subject to verbalisation, a method based on the use of a synthesiser was conceived and applied in a series of experiments among the Pygmies. In these experiments, polyphonic music of their own culture was simulated with different underlying scale models and submitted to their cultural judgment. This method was shown not only to cope with the initial problem but also to provoke a series of non-verbal interactions that open new dimensions for the study of cognitive aspects of musical systems in oral traditions.
An interactive experimental method for the determination of musical scales in oral cultures
Contemporary Music Review, 1993
ABSTRACT The contrapuntal vocal polyphony of the Aka Pygmies is based on a pentatonic scale but t... more ABSTRACT The contrapuntal vocal polyphony of the Aka Pygmies is based on a pentatonic scale but the nature of this scale is difficult to determine by ear. To overcome this problem and to circumvent difficulties of articulating such abstract concepts as musical scales which, for the Aka, are not subject to verbalisation, a method based on the use of a synthesiser was conceived and applied in a series of experiments among the Pygmies. In these experiments, polyphonic music of their own culture was simulated with different underlying scale models and submitted to their cultural judgment. This method was shown not only to cope with the initial problem but also to provoke a series of non-verbal interactions that open new dimensions for the study of cognitive aspects of musical systems in oral traditions.
Nous présentons une méthode originale d'analyse de formes symboliques fondée d'une part sur une m... more Nous présentons une méthode originale d'analyse de formes symboliques fondée d'une part sur une mesure de dissemblance et, d'autre part, sur la théorie des graphes. En partie déjà éprouvée, elle permet d'étudier des ensembles composés de symboles arbitraires, de constituer et d'explorer des « espaces compositionnels ». Aussi, une première méthode de partitionnement de tels espaces est proposée, illustrée et discutée à travers un exemple de transcription automatique de sonagrammes. Ces méthodes sont développées avec la collection d'outils fv-morphologie pour OpenMusic et PWGL.
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Papers by Frédéric Voisin